And Moses said to God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?
Forty years earlier Moses struck down an Egyptian, sure his people would see him as their rescuer. Now God sends him, and the man who once ran without a call draws back — humility, unbelief, or both?
The same person can fail in opposite directions at different stages of life. Moses' hesitation is the mirror image of his earlier haste.
Here we see the man who was truly to be the instrument of Israel's deliverance. Until now he had run ahead of his time. He draws back at the moment he receives the call he needed. The man who showed the forwardness of nature now shows the backwardness of nature. The voice of God is now urging him forward with authority, and even that is not enough for him.
The timing is striking. Courage came before God spoke. The obstacles appeared the moment He did.
Is this the man once so ready to strike Egypt and deliver Israel? The very same. Full of courage when God's time had not come, he feels the obstacles when it has. It is often so!
The years in Midian were not wasted. They stripped Moses of confidence in himself. That was a gain, but only half the lesson.
During his many years in Midian he had given up all thoughts of his own greatness. That was good. But now he had gone to the other extreme... For the moment Moses had his eye on himself and not on God.
One writer says this shrinking always marks the person God sends.
When a believer feels that God has sent him on a mission, there is always the deepest bowing down of spirit. This may come about through painful discipline of soul, but the aim of God's training is to break down self-confidence. Then, when the person at last goes out in service, he goes with the feeling, "Who am I?"
Commentators differ on how to read the question. Some see a right instinct that stops short. Others judge it harder, because Moses asks it after God has already decided.
That may look like humility in us, but it is not. When God has taken hold of us for a certain thing, to turn round and say, "Who am I, that I should do it?" is not humility. God raised no question as to who or what Moses was. If He chooses and sends, it does not matter who the person is.
Read alongside Moses' later excuses, this one fits a pattern.
Faced with the Lord's commands, he raised objections. On the surface they rested on humility, on distrust of men, and on distrust of himself. In short, they hid unbelief and the mistrust of the natural heart beneath an admirable outward appearance.
One writer traces the hesitation back to an earlier failure. Then notice what God does not say. He never tells Moses who he is. He answers with His own presence.
No doubt the memory of his earlier failure affected him. If a man acts in anything without God, he is sure to be discouraged, even when God is sending him. When lack of confidence and timidity led Moses to say, "Who am I," God's answer was, "But I will be with you." This should have been enough. If God is with me, it matters very little who I am, or what I am. When God says, "I will send you," and "I will be with you," He gives that servant full divine authority and divine power.
One writer makes this a rule for measuring any task God gives.
It is always a fatal mistake when we measure the difficulties of service by what we are. The question is what God is. Through the mists of our unbelief, difficulties look like mountains. To Him they are nothing but the occasion for displaying His almighty power.
Moses offered his own smallness as a reason to say no. God makes it the reason to choose him.
He had yet to learn that it is God's way to take up and use the very people who are little in their own eyes. Their littleness makes room for God to display His own power.
- Two failures. Moses once ran without a call. Forty years later he refuses one. Nature errs both ways — too fast, then too slow.
- Half a lesson. Losing confidence in yourself is real progress. But stopping there keeps your eye on self, not on God.
- Not humility. Once God has chosen and sent you, asking who you are is distrust dressed in humility's clothes.
- The one answer. God never says who Moses is; He says, "I will be with you." If God is with us, who we are matters little.
- Littleness fits. The smallness Moses offered as an excuse is what God uses. It leaves room for His power to show.
And he said, For I will be with thee; and this shall be the sign to thee that I have sent thee when thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.
God has just told Moses to go to Pharaoh. Moses does not answer with eagerness. He asks, "Who am I?" God's reply says nothing about Moses. It offers His own presence, and a sign Moses will only see after he has obeyed.
The man who hesitates here once struck down an Egyptian. Forty years have passed, and commentators see the same man swinging to the opposite extreme.
We might expect that the moment God gave Moses His commission, his reply would be, "Here am I." But no. God had yet to bring him there... This is very unlike the man who forty years before "supposed that his brothers would understand that God was rescuing them by his hand." Such is man — at one time too hasty, at another time too slow. Moses had learnt a great deal since the day he struck down the Egyptian. He had grown in the knowledge of himself, and this produced hesitation and timidity. But then he clearly lacked confidence in God. If I am merely looking at myself, I shall do "nothing"; but if I am looking at Christ, "I can do all things."
God never tells Moses that he is adequate. He moves the question off the man and onto Himself.
It is quite right that we should have a sense of our own utter nothingness... But it is also right that we should think much of God. For when He sends, it is not a question of what we are, but of what He is — and it is no small thing to be invested with His authority and power... The presence of the Lord was to be both the warrant for his mission and the source of his strength.
A low view of yourself is not the barrier to service it seems.
Moses objects that he himself is unfit. But this only brings the assurance that God is with him. Self-distrust need not be discouragement. In fact, the more complete it is, the more he will know God's all-sufficiency.
The sign God gives (older translations read "token") is unusual: it lies at the end of the journey, not the start. Moses must go first and see the proof afterwards.
God then gives a sign, a token that He will be with him. But the sign would only come true after Moses obeyed. It was to strengthen him and gladden him once he had already obeyed.
God added the token because Moses was slow to believe, and He has stooped to others in the same way.
Of course His promise to be with him guaranteed everything. But Moses was slow to believe it, so God stooped to give him a token. When God made the promise to Abraham, He took account of how frail our faith is. He confirmed His purpose with an oath, as Hebrews 6:17 reminds us. With Moses He did not confirm His word by an oath, but by a token — and that token came true later in this book.
The stated goal of the exodus is not merely escape from Pharaoh. It is worship at a particular place, and this becomes the refrain of the whole conflict that follows.
When He sent Moses to deliver Israel from Egypt, God said to him, "you shall serve God on this mountain" (Ex. 3:12). All through the struggle with Pharaoh the word was, "Let My people go, that they may serve Me." And when the people reached Sinai, the word was, "you shall serve the LORD your God" (Ex. 23:25). The law was given so that the people might know God's will for them, and serve Him by obeying it.
Service also proves who did the rescuing.
For his encouragement God firmly assures him that the people he brings out will serve God on that mountain. This is the fruit of salvation, and the sign of who has worked in it: it brings the former slaves of sin back to Him in obedience.
The mountain named is the ground where Moses is standing. The bush that shows God's care for a suffering people will later show them His glory.
The burning bush is now the symbol of God's constant care of Israel, even in the furnace of Egypt... And it is in connection with this mysterious bush that Horeb is first called "the Mount of God." For now the Lord first tells of Himself there... And this same spot which now testified of grace should later testify of glory to them, as the Lord says here to Moses.
- Question — Moses asks "Who am I?" God says nothing about Moses. He points to what He Himself is.
- Presence — God's being with him serves as both the authority for the mission and the strength to carry it out.
- Sign — God puts the proof after the obedience. Moses must go on His word first and see it later.
- Purpose — Deliverance aims at service; "let My people go" is always followed by "that they may serve Me."
- Mountain — The bush that showed God's care marks the spot where the rescued slaves will worship. The promise ends where it began.