Exodus 4:11

_AND MOSES SAID UNTO THE LORD, O MY LORD, I AM NOT ELOQUENT, NEITHER HERETOFORE, NOR SINCE THOU HAST SPOKEN UNTO THY SERVANT: BUT I AM SLOW OF SPEECH, AND OF A SLOW TONGUE._ I am not eloquent. It is supposed that Moses laboured under a natural defect of utterance, or had a difficulty in the free and fluent expression of his ideas in the Egyptian language, which he had long disused. This new objection was also overruled; but still Moses, who foresaw the manifold difficulties of the undertaking, was anxious to be freed from the responsibility. Verse 14. THE ANGER OF THE LORD WAS KINDLED. The Divine Being is not subject to ebullitions of passion; but His displeasure was manifested by transferring the honour of the priesthood, which would otherwise have been bestowed on Moses, to Aaron, who was from this time destined to be the head of the house of Levi ...

11._Who hath made man’s mouth? _Here the cause is expressed, why the hesitation of Moses was worthy of reprehension; viz., because arrested by his own infirmity, he did not look up to God, who, being above the want of any human aid, easily accomplishes whatsoever He has decreed, and subduing all the obstacles which terrify men, obtains in any direction assistance according to his will. Moses objects his stammering as a cause for holding back; God replies, that it is He alone who governs the tongue which He has created; therefore, that if some be tongueless or dumb, and some quick and eloquent of speech, the difference is all of His good pleasure. Whence it follows that all nature (as it is called) is subject to his government, so that He easily finds means of the things that are not; and, on the other hand, remove far out of the way whatever impediments interpose, and even forces them in...

10-17 Moses continued backward to the work God designed him for; there was much of cowardice, slothfulness, and unbelief in him. We must not judge of men by the readiness of their discourse. A great deal of wisdom and true worth may be with a slow tongue. God sometimes makes choice of those as his messengers, who have the least of the advantages of art or nature, that his grace in them may appear the more glorious. Christ's disciples were no orators, till the Holy Spirit made them such. God condescends to answer the excuse of Moses. Even self-diffidence, when it hinders us from duty, or clogs us in duty, is very displeasing to the Lord. But while we blame Moses for shrinking from this dangerous service, let us ask our own hearts if we are not neglecting duties more easy, and less perilous. The tongue of Aaron, with the head and heart of Moses, would make one completely fit for this erra...

Verse Exodus 4:11. _WHO HATH MADE MAN'S MOUTH? C._] Cannot he who formed the mouth, the whole organs of speech, and hath given the gift of speech also, cannot he give utterance? God can take away those gifts and restore them again. Do not provoke him: he who created the _eye_, the _ear_, and the _mouth_, hath also made the _blind_, the _deaf_, and the _dumb_....

EXPOSITION EXODUS 4:1 The reluctance of Moses to undertake the part of leader, indicated by his first reply at his first calling, "Who am I that I should go?" etc. (Exodus 3:11), was not yet overcome. God had promised that he would succeed; but he did not see how he could succeed, either with the people or with Pharaoh. It was not enough for him that God had declared, "They (the people) shall hearken unto thy voice" (Exodus 3:18); he does not, cannot believe this, and replies: "Behold, they will not believe, neither hearken unto my voice" (Exodus 4:1). This was plain want of faith; but

AND THE LORD SAID UNTO HIM, WHO HATH MADE MAN'S MOUTH?.... Made that itself, and put in it the power and faculty of speech, even into the mouth of the first man, Adam, as the Targum of Jonathan; and so of every other man, did not the Lord do it? none else could, and therefore he that made it, and made it capable of speaking, could remove any impediments in it, and cause it to speak freely and fluently: OR WHO MAKETH THE DUMB, OR DEAF, OR THE SEEING, OR THE BLIND? HAVE NOT I, THE LORD? as all the senses, and the perfection of them, are from him, so all the imperfections in them are according to his good pleasure; what he suffers to be, and can remedy when he thinks fit: it is he that gives the seeing eye and hearing ear, can and does make blind and deaf, that gives also the speaking mouth, and makes that dumb, and can open it again as he pleases! and what is it that he cannot do?...

CHAPTER 4:1-28 MOSES' OBJECTIONS, JEHOVAH'S ANSWER AND THE RETURN TO EGYPT _ 1. The first objection (Exodus 4:1)_ 2. The two signs and Jehovah's assurance (Exodus 4:2) 3. The second objection (Exodus 4:10) 4. Jehovah's answer (Exodus 4:11) 5. Moses' request (Exodus 4:13) 6. Jehovah's anger and answer (Exodus 4:14) 7. The command to return to Egypt (Exodus 4:18

EXODUS 4:10 J. MOSES'S FOURTH DIFFICULTY slowness of speech. This is met by a promise of prophetic inspiration, the fulfilment of which not only Deuteronomy 34:10, but the whole representation of J, endorses. It is followed here by a further exhibition of unreadiness, which evokes Yahweh's wrath. The association of Aaron with Moses has been compared to Deborah's co-operation with Barak. But since Aaron may only say what Moses tells him, this arrangement is no very clear mark of Divine anger. Moreover, in J, Moses habitually acts and speaks alone, and not by the mouth of Aaron, except in Exodus 4:29 f.*, which obviously follows this passage. Perhaps, therefore, the reference to Aaron has been inserted by a somewh

WHO HATH MADE, &c. Figure of speech _Erotesis._ App-6. MAN. Hebrew. _'adam._ App-14....

Exodus 3:1 TO EXODUS 4:17. Moses commissioned by Jehovah at Horeb to deliver His people. The dialogue between Jehovah and Moses, as in other cases (cf. Delitzsch on Genesis 12:1), must be pictured, not as one audible externally, but as giving expression, in _words_which are naturally those of the narrators, to Moses" mental communings with God, through which he was gradually taught by Him that, in spite of the difficulties which he saw before him, he was nevertheless to be His appointed agent for accomplishing Israel's deliverance (cf. the dialogue in Jeremiah 14-15). See further, on the sense in which God is to be understood as -speaking" to a man, the Introduction, p. xlvii f....