The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 4:10-17

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

God's wrath will fall where his service is declined.

I. MOSES' OBJECTION AND GOD'S ANSWER (10-12).

1. He deems himself unfit to occupy the place even of spokesman to the Lord. The objection was based upon a real infirmity, which so far God had not removed. The same objection urged as a reason to-day for not engaging in Sunday-school work, etc. The want of power may be real, but is it a sufficient reason for refusal?

2. God's answer.

Our weakness will merely afford a field on which God's might and faithfulness will be manifested.

II. MOSES' REFUSAL AND GOD'S ANGER (13-17).

1. The disinclination to the service which lay behind his objections is at last manifested. That very name (Adonai) "my master," by which he addresses God, might have rebuked him. But Moses in this may be the type of ourselves. We acknowledge thai all we have, that we ourselves, are his, and yet is there no service which no amount of reasoning or expostulation can prevail upon us to undertake for God?

2. God's anger.

III. THE POWER OF THE PAST FOR CHRISTIAN SERVICE. "Take this rod"—not another. It reminded him of the time when he contended with God, and ministered humility in the moments of mightiest triumph. The Cross of Jesus the memento of our stubbornness and guilt.—U.

HOMILIES BY H.T. ROBJOHNS

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