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 4:7-9
The second miracle surely signifies cleansing, but in what connection? (We wonder whether David had this incident in mind when he wrote in Psalm 24, 'Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart'). It may be that God is revealing to Moses the real truth about himself in relation to the excuses he was making and the hesitation he was showing. Is he in fact saying, 'The real trouble with you, Moses, is that you have an evil heart of unbelief'? And this is something that must be cleansed before a man can ever serve God. To interpret the miracle thus is to underline its connection with the first, for both speak in different ways of something wrong with Moses, and of something that needs to happen to him before he can go forward in the service of the Lord. One thinks of the sudden and terrifying sense of uncleanness that came upon the prophet Isaiah when he saw the Lord, high and lifted up, followed by the instant cleansing as the live coal touched his lips, and of the commissioning for service that followed such an experience (Isaiah 6). It is very disconcerting to realise that other eyes can penetrate behind all the facade of our excuses to the real reasons that underlie our hesitations and reluctance to venture out on God. But how slow we are to believe the truth about ourselves even when God makes it plain to us by His Word or through the wise and faithful dealings of a spiritual counsellor. We will not take a telling!