Scroll to the bottom for thoughts/discussion questions!
One-sentence summary: God gives Moses signs and wonders so the Israelites will believe He sent him, Moses argues with God and incurs His anger but gets his brother Aaron to become his spokesman, Moses and Aaron travel to Egypt with a message to Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, and Pharaoh refuses to let God's people go but oppresses them even more, causing Moses to wonder why He even sent him.
Moses answers God and asks, "What if they don't believe me and say You have not appeared or me?" God tells him to throw his staff on the ground, and when he does, it becomes a snake. Moses runs away, but God tells him to grab it by the tail, so he takes does, and it becomes a rod in his hand. God says this will be his sign. (Wow, I think that's enough! But God gives him two.) Then, He tells him to put his hand in his cloak, and when he takes it back out, it is leprous. When he repeats the act, his hand is back to normal. God says if the Israelites don't believe the first sign, they will believe the second.... and if they don't believe the second, that Moses is to take water from the river and pour it on the ground, and it will become blood.
Moses is afraid and makes excuses to God. He says he
is "not eloquent," and "slow of speech and slow of tongue." God responds, "Who has made man's mouth? Who has made the mute, the deaf, the seeing, and the blind? Have not I? Therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say." At this point, Moses begs God to send someone else. And God actually becomes angry at Moses. But He seems to restrain Himself and tells Moses that his brother, Aaron, is on his way to see him, and that Moses will tell Aaron what to say, and that Aaron will be Moses's mouthpiece, and Moses will be God's, God tells Moses He will teach him what to do, and He has him take the rod for the signs.
Moses returns to his father-in-law and asks to return to his brethren in Egypt "to see if they are still alive." (But that's not why, Moses!) The Lord tells Moses in Midian that it is safe to go to Egypt now. He brings his wife and sons with him and returns to Egypt with the rod. The Lord tells him to do all the wonders He taught him before Pharaoh, but that God will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. God tells him to give Pharaoh this message: "Thus says the Lord: Israel is My son, My firstborn, so I say to you, Let My son go, that he may serve Me. But if you refuse, I will kill your son, your firstborn."
On the way, the Lord seeks to kill Moses, and we find out it is apparently because he did not circumcise his son, which was to be a sign of the covenant. After the act, Zipporah throws the foreskin before Moses, saying, "You are a husband of blood to me."
The Lord tells Aaron to go to the wilderness to meet Moses, and he meets him on the mountain of God, and Moses tells Aaron everything that has happened and what God has said. Together they go and gather all the elders in Israel, and Aaron speaks for Moses, and they show them the signs. They all believe them and bow their heads and worship.
After, Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh with this message: "Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness." But Pharaoh answers, "Who is the Lord that I should obey HIs voice?... I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go." They tell him that God has met with them, and they ask to go and sacrifice to God lest He bring plagues on them. Pharaoh tells them not to distract the people from their work. Then, he commands the taskmasters not to give the people any more straw to make brick, but to make them go and get it themselves. However, he forces them to make the same amount of bricks as before. So the people are "scattered all over Egypt gathering straw," and the taskmasters oppress them even more. Also, the officers of Israel that the taskmasters set over the people are beaten, because they are not able to meet the daily quota of bricks. Then, the officers cry out to Pharaoh and complain that the task is impossible, but Pharaoh tells them they are just being lazy and to get back to work. When they hear this, the officers realize that they are in an evil situation. As they are leaving Pharaoh, they meet Moses and Aaron and say, "May God judge you for making us abhorrent in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants to put a sword in their hand to kill us." So Moses beseeches God and asks Him why He has brought trouble on the people, and why He has sent him, since Pharaoh refuses to let them go.
The Lord now says to Moses, "Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh.... He will let them go..... I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, Issac, and Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name Lord I was not known to them." He reminds Moses that He has made a covenant with them to give them the land they were strangers in and that He has heard their groaning and has remembered His covenant with them. He tells Moses to tell the Israelites that He will rescue them and "redeem them with an outstretched arm," and that He will be their God and they will be His people. "Then, they will know that [He is] the Lord."
So Moses tells the Israelites, but "they do not heed Moses because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage." And the Lord tells Moses to appear to Pharaoh again with the same message. But Moses says that if Israel hasn't listened, why would Pharaoh. "For I am of uncircumcised lips," he says. But the Lord commands Moses and Aaron to bring His people up out of the land of Egypt.
We are given an account of how Moses and Aaron descended from the tribe of Levi.
The last chapter ends by returning to God's conversation with Moses, repeating Moses's excuse and God's command.
Thoughts/Discussion Questions:
Moses was looking to himself to determine whether he was fit to the task instead of the God who called him. What a mistake! How often do we do the same, when God is the One who made us and on top of that, knows everything?
It's interesting how Moses tells his father-in-law that he just wants to go to Egypt to check on his people. (I guess he didn't want to say that he was going to deliver 2.4 million people.)
What I am left with the most in this passage is how, as soon as things get difficult, Moses again doubts God's choice and His calling. The people God called in the Bible- and Moses is one of the most preeminent ones- were just people like you and me. They were full of faults, but in the end, they obeyed. Let's really let that sink in!