Then Moses answered, “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’” The Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A staff.” And he said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it. But the Lord said to Moses, “Put out your hand and catch it by the tail”—so he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand— “that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” Again, the Lord said to him, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” And he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. Then God said, “Put your hand back inside your cloak.” So he put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. “If they will not believe you,” God said, “or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign. If they will not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground, and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.”
Exodus 4:1-9
There is a great deal for us to learn in this chapter. In it the debate begun in 3:11 about the awesome calling to which God was summoning Moses is continued and carried forward several steps. It is important for us to understand the opening verse in the light of what God had just said to him in 3:18. There, God had given a simple assurance, 'They shall hearken to thy voice'. Here, Moses says, 'They will not ... hearken unto my voice'. It is when we take these two statements together that we see how ugly is the evil heart of unbelief lurking within Moses. It is little wonder that the Lord's anger kindled against him (14). Moses had already said (11) 'Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh?' This is all very well as an evidence of humility, but he would have been better to have paused at 4:1 to say, 'Who am I blatantly to contradict God and tell Him He is wrong?' This is the real situation here, and we should not let the thought of God's great patience with His reluctant servant beguile us into thinking that the lesson we are meant to grasp at this point is that He is forbearing with our hesitancy and forebodings. This is true, of course. He is very patient, but we had better learn to distinguish between genuine misgivings and latent unbelief. It is also true, in this connection, to say that God graciously proceeded to give Moses tokens of reassurance (2-4, 6-7); but are we always to require tokens before we are prepared to believe Him when He speaks to us? He gave Moses the tokens, yes; but let us think it possible that He did so with a heavy heart and in disappointment that He was obliged to do so. To pray, as the Psalmist once did, 'Show me a token for good' may be an evidence of the weakness of our faith, not of its strength.