The Grammar of Miracles: Signs for a Stiff-Necked People Text: Exodus 4:1-9
Introduction: The Objection of the Called
When God calls a man, the man often has objections. This is not a sign of humility so much as it is a sign of a misplaced focus. We see it with Jeremiah who said he was too young, with Isaiah who said he was a man of unclean lips, and here we see it with Moses. After the staggering revelation at the burning bush, after God has declared His holy name and promised deliverance, Moses's first thought is not one of awe-struck worship, but of practical, earth-bound skepticism. "What if they will not believe me?"
This is the question of every preacher, every evangelist, every Christian father who has ever tried to teach his children the catechism. What if they don't buy it? What if they roll their eyes? What if they say, "Yahweh has not appeared to you"? Moses is looking at the stubborn Israelites, and he is looking at his own inadequacies, and he is trying to do the math. The equation does not compute. He is forgetting the God of the burning bush. He is asking for credentials. He wants something in his back pocket to prove that he is not making this all up.
Our generation is no different. It is an age that prides itself on its skepticism. It demands signs, but on its own terms. It wants repeatable, laboratory-controlled signs that fit neatly within a materialistic worldview. But God does not perform for the skeptic. He gives signs that are themselves sermons. They are not mere proofs of power; they are pictures of the gospel. They are theological statements acted out. God, in His grace, condescends to Moses's weakness. He does not rebuke him for his question. Instead, He answers it, not with an argument, but with a series of dramatic, symbolic, and prophetic signs. These are not just for the Israelites; they are for us. They teach us the grammar of God's redemptive power.
The Text
Then Moses answered and said, "What if they will not believe me and will not listen to my voice? For they may say, 'Yahweh has not appeared to you.'" And Yahweh said to him, "What is this in your hand?" And he said, "A staff." Then He said, "Throw it on the ground." So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it. And Yahweh said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand and grasp it by its tail", so he stretched out his hand and took hold of it, and it became a staff in his hand, "that they may believe that Yahweh, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you."
And Yahweh furthermore said to him, "Now put your hand into your bosom." So he put his hand into his bosom; then he took it out, and behold, his hand was leprous like snow. Then He said, "Return your hand into your bosom." So he returned his hand into his bosom, and when he took it out of his bosom, behold, it returned to being like the rest of his flesh. "And so it will be, if they will not believe you or listen to the witness of the first sign, they may believe the witness of this last sign. But if it will be that they will not believe even these two signs and that they will not listen to your voice, then you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry land; and the water which you take from the Nile will become blood on the dry land."
(Exodus 4:1-9 LSB)
The Sign of Authority: The Serpent Staff (vv. 1-5)
Moses's objection is rooted in a fear of man. God's response is to redirect his attention to the power of God.
"And Yahweh said to him, 'What is this in your hand?' And he said, 'A staff.'" (Exodus 4:2)
God begins with the mundane. He starts with what Moses already possesses. A staff. This was the tool of Moses's trade, the symbol of his forty years as a shepherd in Midian. It represented his strength, his livelihood, his identity. It was ordinary. God's power is most beautifully displayed when He takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary.
Then comes the command: "Throw it on the ground." This is a command to relinquish, to surrender. Lay down your own strength, your own identity, your own perceived authority. And when Moses obeys, the staff becomes a serpent, and Moses rightly flees from it. This is not just any snake. The serpent is a creature freighted with meaning. It is the symbol of the curse in Genesis 3. It is also the symbol of Pharaoh's power. The Uraeus, the stylized cobra on the front of Pharaoh's crown, represented his divine authority and his power to strike down his enemies. God is showing Moses that the power Pharaoh wields, the power of the serpent, is a creaturely power, and God is its master.
"And Yahweh said to Moses, 'Stretch out your hand and grasp it by its tail'..." (Exodus 4:4)
This is a command that goes against all natural reason. You do not grab a venomous snake by the tail; that is how you get bitten. This is a pure act of faith. Moses must obey the word of God over and against his own screaming self-preservation instincts. And when he does, the symbol of the curse and of Pharaoh's authority becomes a simple staff in his hand once more. The lesson is clear: the authority that Pharaoh claims is under God's sovereign control. God has given Moses the authority to wield, by faith, power over the serpent. The purpose of this sign is explicit: "that they may believe that Yahweh... has appeared to you" (v. 5). This is a sign that the covenant God of the patriarchs is now asserting His dominion over the gods of Egypt.
The Sign of Purification: The Leprous Hand (vv. 6-8)
The second sign moves from the external threat of Pharaoh to the internal problem of Israel. It is a sign about sin and cleansing.
"And Yahweh furthermore said to him, 'Now put your hand into your bosom.' So he put his hand into his bosom; then he took it out, and behold, his hand was leprous like snow." (Exodus 4:6)
The hand is the instrument of work and action. The bosom represents the heart, the inner man. Moses puts his hand into his own heart, and it comes out leprous. Leprosy in the Old Testament is the quintessential picture of sin. It is a condition that renders a person unclean, defiled, and an outcast from the community of God. God is showing Moses a profound truth: the defilement is within. Israel's problem is not just the external oppression of Egypt; it is their own internal, leprous sin. They are an unclean people.
But the God who reveals the disease is also the God who provides the cure. "Return your hand into your bosom." The healing comes from the same source as the affliction, but by God's gracious command. When Moses obeys, his hand is restored, clean. This is a living parable of salvation. God does not just have authority over external enemies like Pharaoh; He has the power to cleanse His people from their own defiling sin. He is the one who can make the unclean clean. This sign was to show Israel that Yahweh was not just a mighty warrior, but also a gracious Savior, able to heal them from the inside out.
The Sign of Judgment: The Nile to Blood (v. 9)
God anticipates that even these two powerful signs might not be enough for a hard-hearted people. So He provides a third, and this one is a sign of escalating judgment.
"But if it will be that they will not believe even these two signs... then you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry land; and the water which you take from the Nile will become blood on the dry land." (Exodus 4:9)
This sign is a direct assault on the gods and the life of Egypt. The Nile River was the source of all fertility and prosperity for Egypt. They worshipped it as a god, Hapi. For God to command Moses to take the water of life for Egypt and turn it into the symbol of death, blood, is a declaration of war. It demonstrates that what Egypt worships as a source of life is, under God's hand, a source of judgment and death.
Notice that this is a foretaste of the first plague. God is showing Moses, and through him, Israel, that if they will not believe the signs of His authority over the serpent and His power to cleanse from sin, then they will be compelled to believe by the signs of His judgment upon their enemies. Unbelief is not a neutral position. If you reject God's credentials as Savior, you will eventually face His credentials as Judge. This third sign is a promise of destruction for those who stand against God and His people, and a promise of deliverance for the people themselves. It shows that God's salvation of His people necessarily involves the judgment of His enemies.
Conclusion: The Sign of Jesus Christ
These three signs are not random displays of power. They are a systematic outline of the gospel of redemption. First, God demonstrates His authority over the serpent, the power of Satan and the curse (the staff). Second, He demonstrates His power to cleanse His people from the inner defilement of sin (the leprous hand). Third, He demonstrates His power to bring judgment upon the false gods and worldly systems that hold His people in bondage (the Nile to blood).
This is precisely the work that Jesus Christ came to accomplish. He is the one who came to crush the serpent's head (Gen. 3:15). On the cross, He grasped the serpent by the tail, disarming the principalities and powers and making a public spectacle of them (Col. 2:15). He is the one who cleanses lepers with a touch and a word, who takes our leprous, sinful nature upon Himself so that we might be restored to fellowship with God. And He is the one whose shed blood brings life to those who believe, but stands as a sign of judgment against the world that worships the creature rather than the Creator.
The skeptical world, like the Israelites and Pharaoh, still demands a sign. And God has given one ultimate sign. When the Pharisees asked for a sign, Jesus told them that no sign would be given to that wicked generation except the sign of the prophet Jonah. As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so the Son of Man would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matt. 12:39-40). The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is God's final and ultimate sign. It is His vindication of His authority over the serpent of death, His power to bring new life out of the grave, and His promise of judgment on all who refuse to believe. If a man will not believe the sign of the empty tomb, then no other sign will suffice. The question for us is the same as it was for Israel: will we believe the witness of the signs God has given?