Exodus 4 · The Lantern

Moses’ Staff

And Moses answered and said, “But look, they will not believe me, and they will not listen to my voice — for they will say, ‘The LORD has not appeared to you.’”

And the LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” And he said, “A staff.”

And he said, “Throw it on the ground.” And he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent — and Moses fled from before it.

And the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand and take hold of its tail.” And he stretched out his hand and grasped it, and it became a staff in his palm.

“So that they may believe that the LORD has appeared to you — the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

Moses’ Hand

And the LORD said to him further, “Put your hand, please, inside your cloak.” And he put his hand inside his cloak; and he brought it out, and look — his hand was leprous, like snow.

It is difficult to see what this sign can symbolize for us. But since we must not stop seeking and must deliver to the reader what occurs to us as an interpretation, we will say that in many passages the hand is a symbol of deeds. Now the bosom of Moses has two meanings.

Again, another sign which Moses gave points to our Lord Jesus Christ. He put his hand into his bosom and drew it out again, and his hand had become as snow. A second time he put it in and drew it out, and it was again like the appearance of human flesh.

Just as Moses was allowed to perform miracles with a rod, so he was ordered to thrust his hand into his bosom, and when it was brought out again it was found to be leprous; then he was ordered to insert it again, and it was at once healed.

And he said, “Return your hand inside your cloak.” And he returned his hand inside his cloak; and he brought it out from his cloak, and look — it had turned back like the rest of his flesh.

“And it shall be, if they do not believe you and do not listen to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign.

And it shall be, if they do not believe even these two signs, and do not listen to your voice, that you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground; and the water that you take from the Nile — it will become blood on the dry ground.”

The Appointment of Aaron

And Moses said to the LORD, “Please, my Lord, I am not a man of words — not yesterday, not the day before, and not since you have spoken to your servant. For I am heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue.”

Let us be imitators also of those who in goat-skins and sheep-skins [Hebrews 11:37] went about proclaiming the coming of Christ; I mean Elijah, Elisha, and Ezekiel among the prophets, with those others to whom a like testimony is borne [in Scripture].

And of old indeed Moses said: "but I am ἄλογος (without speech or reason)" — which, though the Latin has rendered it otherwise, can nevertheless be more properly translated: "without speech or reason" —, and after he said this, he received reason or speech, which he had confessed that he did not before possess.

[Moses] believes that by God's will he can suddenly become eloquent when he says, "or since the time you began to speak to your servant." He shows that it could happen that one who was not eloquent the day before, or the day before that, could suddenly become eloquent, from the time when the Lord began to speak to him.

And the LORD said to him, “Who gave man a mouth? Or who makes one mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?

Thus I understand also that which God says: "Who made the mute and the deaf, the seeing and the blind? Was it not I, the Lord God?" There is an eye of the body, with which we behold these earthly things, an eye according to the sense of the flesh, of which the Scripture says: "walking vainly, puffed up by the sense of the flesh".

There are some who bring false charges against God, or rather against the Scriptures of the Old Testament, because God said that he himself makes a man blind or mute. So what do they say about Christ the Lord, who says openly in the Gospel, "I have come so that those who are blind may see and those who see might be made blind"?

The first object of speculation is the fact that God is. The first name of God is "To Be" which is most manifest and most perfect — and therefore, first. Hence nothing is more manifest, for anything said of God is retraced to being: this then is truly God's proper name. God would not have said to Moses, that is to the Giver of the Law, "I am who am," unless He were First.

And now, go — and I myself will be with your mouth, and I will teach you what you shall speak.”

And he said, “Please, my Lord — send, please, by the hand of whomever you will send.”

And the anger of the LORD burned against Moses, and he said, “Is there not Aaron your brother, the Levite? I know that he can surely speak. And look — he is even now coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart.

And you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I myself will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you shall do.

And he shall speak for you to the people. And it shall be: he shall be a mouth for you, and you shall be as God for him.

And take this staff in your hand — with it you shall do the signs.”

Moses Leaves for Egypt

And Moses went and returned to Jether his father-in-law, and said to him, “Let me go, please, and return to my brothers who are in Egypt, and see whether they are still alive.” And Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”

And the LORD said to Moses in Midian, “Go, return to Egypt — for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.”

And Moses took his wife and his sons and mounted them on the donkey, and he returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the staff of God in his hand.

And the LORD said to Moses, “When you go to return to Egypt, see all the wonders that I have put in your hand, and do them before Pharaoh. And I myself will make his heart strong, and he will not let the people go.

Now many have been troubled by the story of Pharaoh, in dealing with whom God says several times, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart." For if he is hardened by God and through being hardened sins, he is not himself responsible for the sin; and if this is so, Pharaoh has no free will.

And you must not deny free will to Pharaoh just because God says in a number of places, "I have hardened Pharaoh" or "I will harden the heart of Pharaoh," for it does not thereby follow that it was not Pharaoh himself that hardened his own heart.

Now let no one along with pagans or Manichaeans dare to censure or blame the justice of God. It is to be believed as most certain that not the violence of God but his own repeated wickedness and indomitable pride in opposition to God's commands caused Pharaoh to become hardened.

And you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD: Israel is my son, my firstborn.

And I have said to you: Let my son go, that he may serve me. And you have refused to let him go — look, I am going to kill your son, your firstborn.’”

And it happened on the way, at the lodging place, that the LORD met him and sought to put him to death.

We must also inquire who that being was of whom it is said in Exodus that he wished to kill Moses because he was setting out for Egypt. And afterwards, who is it that is called the "destroying angel," and who also is he who in Leviticus is described as Apopompeus, that is, the Averter, of whom the Scripture speaks thus: "One lot for the Lord, and one lot for Apopompeus"?

WHY DID THE ANGEL WHO WANTED TO KILL MOSES, IN THE ROUTE, BE APPEASED BY THE CIRCUMCISION OF HIS CHILD? — What Moses had done without taking counsel was corrected by the appearance of the threatening angel. Finally, when the angel saw being done what had been neglected through carelessness, he ceased from his wrath.

We ask first, whom did the angel wish to kill? Was it Moses, because Scripture says, "The angel approached him and sought to kill him"? For whom will he be thought to have approached except him who was in charge of his entire people and by whom the others were led? Or did the angel seek to kill the boy, whom his mother aided by circumcising him?

And Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched it to his feet; and she said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me.”

At the place where they were spending the night, the Lord came upon Moses and wanted to kill him, because he had discontinued circumcision in Midian for one of his sons who had not been circumcised. From the day [the Lord] spoke with him on Horeb, he had not been united to his wife, who was distressed; and she was under judgment because she had not put full faith in his word.

As regards Moses, it is clear that he would have been in peril at the inn, if Zipporah, which is by interpretation "a bird," had not circumcised her son and cut off the foreskin of marriage with the knife which prefigured the gospel.

Now there was a forecast of His coming undoubtedly contained not only in other sacred institutions of the ancient Jews, but also in their circumcision of the foreskin.

And he let him alone. Then she said, “A bridegroom of blood” — because of the circumcision.

The People Believe Moses and Aaron

And the LORD said to Aaron, “Go to meet Moses in the wilderness.” And he went, and met him at the mountain of God, and kissed him.

And Moses told Aaron all the words of the LORD who had sent him, and all the signs that he had commanded him.

And Moses and Aaron went, and they gathered all the elders of the sons of Israel.

And Aaron spoke all the words that the LORD had spoken to Moses, and he did the signs before the eyes of the people.

And the people believed. And they heard that the LORD had attended to the sons of Israel, and that he had seen their affliction; and they bowed their heads and worshiped.