Did Moses stutter?

But even these signs did not remove the objections in the mind of Moses, and so in verse 10 we find him uttering a fourth, based upon his lack of ability in speech, as if the message of God needed human eloquence in order to make it effective. When we remember the statement of Stephen, referring to the time when he was still acknowledged as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, that he was "mighty in words," whereas he now pleads, "I am not eloquent, neither heretofore . …" we are left wondering. But, knowing something of human nature in ourselves, we think it was not that he had really lost his powers of mighty speech, but that while the forty years of discipline in the desert had completely broken his self-confidence, he had also become self-occupied, and thus so unwilling to answer to the call and commission of God.

In spite of the miraculous signs Moses was given, he tried hard to excuse himself from a task for which he did not feel himself qualified. He protested that he was not eloquent, but was slow of speech (v. 10). This does not sound convincing in view of Acts 7:22, which tells us Moses “was mighty in words and deeds.” God's answer to him was sharp and penetrating, “Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing or the blind? Have not I, the Lord?” God had made Moses just as he was, and had made him for the specific purpose of delivering Israel. Did God not know what He was doing? Were the thoughts of Moses more correct than God's thoughts? God allowed Moses no excuse. He tells him peremptorily, “Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth, and teach you what you shall say” (v. 12). This was a clear, absolute command of God.

But though all of Moses' objections were answered, he still resisted. He simply does not want to obey, and pleads with the Lord to send someone else instead of him (v. 13). In this he certainly went too far, and stirred the anger of the Lord against him. Could He excuse Moses? Not at all: Moses must go. Yet the Lord's compassion is again seen in His telling Moses that Aaron his brother was already on his way to meet Moses, and would be glad for their reunion (v. 14). Aaron could speak well, and God would allow Moses to speak the words of God to Aaron, so that Aaron might repeat them to the people and to Pharaoh (vv. 14-16). Aaron's mouth would be the instrument by which Moses would speak to the people, and Moses would be the instrument by which God would speak to Aaron. Moses must also take the rod by which to perform the signs God would order.

Moreover, Moses was evidently an exceedingly clever man. He was "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," and the Egyptians were not fools. It would puzzle our builders to do what they did — to put up the Pyramids, and rear the mighty structures that were common enough in the days of Moses. There was a good deal of wisdom current. The world was not quite such a baby in those days as men in their conceit now-a-days are wont to think it was. There was a great deal more wisdom in those days than we are wont to credit the world with; and "Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." He was a scientific, accomplished, and intellectual man; but more than that, "he was mighty in words and in deeds." As a speaker, an orator, who could address his fellows, — spite of his own humble estimate of himself (Ex. 4:10), — he was clearly at the top of the tree. In the forum or the fight, in the amphitheatre or the battlefield, he could meet with any man who came against him. He was mighty "in deeds" as well as "in words." He was an all-round accomplished man of the world, who had few, if any, equals — a man that men could be proud of. That man had the ball at his foot. He had the world before him. He was not only the king's favourite, and the adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter, but was within touch of the throne; and as a man, he was evidently what you may call the world's man, — a notable man among men, from whom they expected much.

So for the next forty years he is a stranger in the land of Midian of which very little account is given us in this passage. We can only surmise the disappointment and regret that oftimes must have filled his heart. Those servants of the Lord who have passed through a period of this description will understand his feelings. We do at least learn the effect of it when we see this man once mighty in his words and in his deeds, boldly laying hold of an Egyptian and slaying him ere he came into Midian, now so humble as to protest to God that he is incapable of either speaking or acting as a deliverer. What a change, yet now how useful to God with such an attitude of mind.

It were needless to say that divinely-wrought humility is an inestimable grace. To "be clothed with humility" is a divine precept; and humility is, unquestionably, the most becoming dress in which a worthless sinner can appear. But, it cannot be called humility to refuse to take the place which God assigns, or to tread the path which His hand marks out for us. That it was not true humility in Moses is obvious from the fact that "the anger of the Lord was kindled against him." So far from its being humility, it had actually passed the limit of mere weakness. So long as it wore the aspect of an excessive timidity, however reprehensible, God's boundless grace bore with it, and met it with renewed assurances; but when it assumed the character of unbelief and slowness of heart, it drew down Jehovah's just displeasure; and Moses, instead of being the sole, is made a joint, instrument in the work of testimony and deliverance.

Nothing is more dishonouring to God or more dangerous for us than a mock humility. When we refuse to occupy a position which the grace of God assigns us, because of our not possessing certain virtues and qualifications, this is not humility, inasmuch as if we could but satisfy our own consciences in reference to such virtues and qualifications, we should then deem ourselves entitled to assume the position. If, for instance, Moses had possessed such a measure of eloquence as he deemed needful, we may suppose he would have been ready to go. Now the question is, how much eloquence would he have needed, to furnish him for his mission? The answer is, without God no amount of human eloquence would have availed; but, with God, the merest stammerer would have proved an efficient minister.

Moses, however, is still not willing to go: “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant” (Ex. 4:10). Earlier when he went out of Pharaoh's court, Moses had been mighty in words, but the years spent in the wilderness taught him the small value of this natural ease of speech. The Lord tells him: “And now go, and I will be with your mouth, and will teach you what you shall say.”

In truth it was one of the finest pieces of advocacy even in God's records. He first carries his point on the grounds of the Judge's goodness, when it was the people's badness that was really in question; and then he turns round and makes the very badness of the people a fresh basis of appeal — this time ad misericordiam and in formâ pauperis — for fresh clemency. Moses had said that he was not eloquent and of course believed it, but that was only because of the innate modesty and diffidence of his great nature. He had indeed a massive and magnificent character. "Great, not as a hewn obelisk, but as an Alpine mountain … unsubduable granite, piercing far and wide into the heavens; yet in the clefts of fountains, green beautiful valleys with flowers."* If he seemed at times to be rock, then it was after the similitude of that rock at Fontainebleau, la roche qui pleure; from its hard and rugged face the tears continually falling that fertilize the ground which it protects.

Moses is now commissioned and authenticated as Israel's deliverer. Still he hesitates. "O my Lord," he says, "I am not eloquent neither heretofore, nor since Thou hast spoken to thy servant; but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue."

How hard it is, amid what we call "second causes," to trust simply in God alone! All God's power, for a Moses even, is not sufficient without an eloquent tongue! Paul was wiser when he came to the Corinthians "not with excellency of speech or of wisdom," that their "faith might not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God." Our idolatry of means thus affects and characterizes our work. The work will show the workman. The motives, the thoughts, which influence us, and which we suppose hidden in our hearts, will manifest themselves in those who are the fruit of our labor.

God does not gift Moses with an eloquent tongue, but He allows part of his honor to be transferred to Aaron, who becomes his spokesman to the people. Thus provided, Moses starts; but before he reaches Egypt, the divine holiness which cannot pass over the uncircumcision of his house is made manifest. At the inn on the way, Jehovah seeks to kill His accredited messenger, whose life is only saved by Zipporah's performance of the neglected rite. Thus he is warned as well as commissioned. Now, he and Aaron gathering the people, deliver their message and show the signs of their authority: and the people believe with a facile faith, soon to be tested as to its depth and reality, for Pharaoh does not mean to let his bond-slaves step so easily out of his hands. Here begins that prolonged contest between Jehovah and the king of Egypt, in which God's judgments fall with increasing severity upon the devoted land, until He finally brings His people with a strong hand and an out-stretched arm through the sea itself, overwhelming their enemies in it.

But Moses still objects; and evil as is this slowness of heart to respond to the grace of God, that grace nevertheless, still sovereign over it, makes it the occasion of the more perfect display of what is in His heart. Moses cannot yet speak, and God provides now for him one who is to be his mouth-piece to the people. This is Aaron, in God's mind the designed high-priest of Israel, though not yet revealed as that. It is as Moses' "prophet" that he is here announced, — his associate and complement in the great work which God had committed to them. Provision is now completely made.

[Aa'ron] Eldest son of Amram and Jochebed, of the tribe of Levi. We first read of him when Moses was excusing himself from being sent to deliver Israel from Egypt because he was 'slow of speech.' Jehovah declared that his brother Aaron who was coming to meet him could speak well and should be his spokesman. Aaron accompanied Moses in his interviews with Pharaoh, and with his rod some of the miraculous plagues were called forth. He with Hur held up the hands of Moses on the Mount when Israel fought with Amalek. Ex. 17:12. Aaron with his two sons Nadab and Abihu with seventy of the elders, went with Moses into the mount where "they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness." Ex. 24:9-10. When Moses retired higher into the mount, he left Israel in charge of Aaron and Hur. Ex. 24:14.