The
Asbury Theological Journal 42.2 (1987)
89-113.
Copyright
© 1987 by Asbury Theological Seminary.
Cited with permission.
A Case Study of the Call
of Moses
G. HERBERT
LIVINGSTON
METHOD IN
THIS CASE STUDY
A method of Bible study at Asbury Theological
Seminary is the
inductive or
discovery method. This method has been
used primarily to
lead
students into the structure and content of the Scripture as translated
into the
English language. It is equally useful for studying the Scriptures
written in Hebrew
or Greek.
A primary emphasis of this method is that a
student should read and
grapple with
the biblical text as objectively as possible. The biblical text
is those
books which make up the canon of the Old and New Testaments.
When trying
to understand the text, meanings of words, phrases, sen-
tences,
paragraphs and literary units should not be assigned to them, but
discovered
in them.
The biblical text should be read as whole
units, whole books, and
groups of
books as a whole. Their inner composition may be grasped by
outlines of
their contents, or by visualizing overall structure through the
construction
of charts or diagrams.
About fourteen years ago, I was on a
committee assigned the task of
forging a
new curricular module called Supervised Ministry. There was
much
interest at the time in an educational tool called the case study
which had
been used effectively in several disciplines, especially busi-
ness,
personnel and counseling fields. The
committee hoped it could be
adapted for
this new program.
Several guidelines served to adapt the
case study for evaluating minis-
terial
activity. The case study format adopted
must help the student (a)
deal with
actual, recent incidents in the ministerial assignments of the
student, (b)
describe briefly and accurately what took place, (c) develop
skills to
observe and analyze personal, intrapersonal and interpersonal
relationships
on both the behavioral and spiritual levels, (d) isolate and
state the
key issue embedded in this event of ministry, (e) research the
several
bodies of knowledge and information in disciplines related to
ministry
relevant to this event, (f) integrate ministerial practice with
G. Herbert
Livingston, Ph.D., is professor of Old Testament emeritus at Asbury
Theological
Seminary. He is the author of The Pentateuch in Its Cultural
Environment,
by Baker Book House. The second edition
of the book is now
available.
In this article, Dr. Livingston adapts the case study method used at
Asbury
Seminary to the study of an important passage in the a Testament
which deals
with the call of Moses.
THE ASBURY
THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL VOL. 42 No. 2 1987
90
theory and
theology, (g) make judgments as to the validity of insights of
other
disciplines, especially in the light of biblical and theological issues,
(h) assist
the student in seeing personal strengths and weaknesses as a
minister of
the gospel, and finally, (i) confront the need to make neces-
sary, though
perhaps painful, decisions which would lead to positive
change and
improvement.
A case study format was developed and
placed in the seminary curricu-
lum in 1975
and has proved to be valuable as an effective means of
preparing
the student for ministry. Throughout the
construction of this
format, the
inductive procedure used in the division of biblical studies
(described
above) was drawn upon heavily for ideas and skills.
This case study format is composed of
several levels of reflection called
Reflection
I, Reflection II and Reflection III. Each level has several
components.
The Reflection I level takes its clue from
the definition "to bend back";
hence,
information about the ministerial event under discussion is repre-
sented
somewhat like a story. The first component, Focus, is a statement
of the who,
where and when information. It also includes a carefully
crafted
statement or question which brings to the fore the perceived issue
embedded in
the ministerial act. The second
component, Background, is
the
placement of that act in the stream of life, with pertinent data about
each
participant, a resume of events that preceded the event and a time-
line which
connects all the episodes, and a brief description of significant
cultural
factors. The third component,
Description, is a careful and
accurate reconstruction
of what took place in the event being discussed,
sort of an
instant replay. The description may
either be a narrative, a
verbatim of
what was said, or a combination of the two.
Actual words
exchanged,
emotions expressed and body signals are noted.
Reflection II is governed by the
definition "to consider subject matter,
ideas or
purposes." This level is composed
of Analysis and Integration-
Interaction. This section challenges the student to engage
in careful
thinking.
Analysis is the process of identifying the
several elements of the case
and
carefully scrutinizing each one in terms of personal, intrapersonal and
interpersonal
dynamics. Behavioral, psychological and
spiritual factors
are probed
and examined. The basic interests are to
find out what was
going on in
this event, why it happened and how it happened.
The information provided in Reflection II
is divided into small blocks
of
observational data and questions are asked regarding the meanings of
key words,
phrases and body signals. The next
questions start with
"Why"
and "How." Motivations and
implications are probed and specula-
tion seeks
to determine what was going on beneath the surface.
The second
component, Integration-Interaction, is the research section.
after
listing several significant issues embodied in the ministerial event,
the student
chooses the most important one and makes it the focus of the
A Case Study of the Call of Moses 91
research. Various theories in other academic
disciplines which may bear
upon this
ministerial act and its focal issue are examined. These disci-
plines may
be biblical, theological, psychological, sociological, behav-
ioral,
historical, ethical, etc. The student seeks to build a bridge from his
practical
ministerial activity to broader knowledge and theory. This reflec-
tion
interacts with the concepts and proposed solutions (theories) that
relate to
the case. The goal is to gain some
objectivity; and perhaps, a
new
perspective from which insight could result.
The third level, Reflection III,
accentuates the definition "an image
given
back," and has three components:
Judgments, Evaluations and
Decisions. The mental activity of this level flows out
of the other two
levels of
reflection, but here the student is a critic and decision maker.
The content of the Judgment component is
made up of conclusions
about the
validity of the theories and insights of the several disciplines
explored. From the vantage point of study and of
matching theory with
practice,
choices are made in regard to which theory or parts of theories
are
valid. Value statements are accepted and
fashioned into an improved
understanding
of ministerial action.
In the Evaluation component, the student
engages in self-examination
and lays out
what are perceived as the strengths and weaknesses of his or
her
performance as a minister of Jesus Christ in the event discussed in the
case.
The Decision component is often a difficult
section to write. The
student must
declare in written statements what changes in attitudes,
manner of
approach, ways of relating to people, method of presenting the
Gospel, will
be made. The student must be honest at
this point; the
statements
must be honest, forthright and firm in commitment.
For over a decade I have participated as a
faculty leader in reflection
seminars in
the Supervised Ministry program. I began to wonder whether
a case study
format heavily influenced by a Bible study method might be
brought full
circle and adapted for an expositional method of understand-
ing certain
portions of the Scriptures. Since my teaching field has cen-
tered in the
Old Testament, with special interest in the Hebrew prophets, I
began to
explore this possibility during several Sabbaticals. I determined
that in the
Old Testament there were at least fifty incidents, involving
various
Hebrew prophets, that would be suitable for case studies. I
decided to
select four "call" experiences, those of Moses, Isaiah, Jere-
miah and
Ezekiel, and develop six case studies based on them. My treat-
ment of
Moses's call experience is presented here.
In applying the case study format to the
above mentioned prophetic
experiences,
I had to make some adjustments. My
presentation shows my
adaptation
of the case study method. Obviously, the
experiences of the
prophets
were not mine, hence, the study could not be a "slice" of my
experience. I must approach the incidents from the
perspective of a
critiquer
who was not a participant. I was not personally acquainted with
92
the time and
culture of the prophets. Furthermore,
the accounts of the
prophetic
experiences are very old and are not the original documents.
No
adaptations are made in the Focus paragraph, but the information in
the
Background component often is limited by the scant data about the
participants
in the biblical text. The Description is
basically the biblical
text, with
preference given to passages largely made up of conversation.
Some
narrative summary is also provided.
In Reflection II, the Analysis begins with
blocks of observational data,
a group of
questions and some speculation about the literary structure of
the selected
passages and their context. This probing
is not exhaustive.
Those with
literary interests can pursue this "digging" more extensively.
The same
limitation and exhortation applies to the remainder of the
Analysis as
well. Hopefully, enough has been said to
alert the reader to
the value of
this procedure.
In the Integration-Interaction component,
a basic issue has been se-
lected for limited
research. This issue is also stated in
the Focus
component. I searched for information that relates to
the basic issue as
stated, and
a limited number of scholars, who have published their
research in
areas related to the basic issue, are named and their theories
summarized.
My own research is in this section.
For the student writing a case study in
Supervised Ministry, the content
of the
components in Reflection III is intensely personal. In this adapta-
tion of the
case study format, this personal element still holds, for I, the
critiquer,
must wrestle with the impact of the analysis and research on my
thinking. I must make value judgments about the
insights provided by
various
theories and decide how previous views must be changed and
unification
of new concepts forged. The Evaluation
component tends to be
more
objective for the prophet involved in the study that is under scrutiny.
For the
ministerial student this component is very personal. The same is
largely true
of the Decision component. One may
perceive what decisions
each
participant in the call experience made, particularly the prophet.
But, if
application, the involvement of later generations, and especially
the
present-day reader, is to be taken seriously, something more must be
said. A brief paragraph is included in the decision
component to provide
that
contemporary thrust.
Some questions you might ask, are: Does
this adapted case study
format open
new doors to a more complete understanding of the prophet's
call? Does it add a helpful vantage point so that a
somewhat different
perspective
can be gained? How may the procedure be
modified so that it
is more
effective?
THE CASE
STUDY: A MESSENGER COMMISSIONED
Scripture: Context:
Exodus 2:1-5:21
Printed: Exodus 4:10-17; 6:28-7:7
A Case Study of the Call of Moses
93
Focus:
At a burning bush on
commanded
him to return to
out of
messenger
system provide a framework for the prophetic task?
Background:
Lord is the name for the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and
their
descendents, the Israelites. The Lord
had spoken to three men by
various
means on various occasions. The Lord is
present in the Old
Testament as
the only true God and distinctly different from any of the
deities of
the polytheistic peoples of the ancient Near East.
The Lord God of the Hebrews presented
himself as radically different
from the
alleged nature gods and goddesses of
deities, the
Lord was not visible to the human eye, nor located in a thing,
or a place,
nor was he fettered by time. He was and
is distinctly other than
nature; he
is its Creator. He uses nature, any aspect
of it, to display his
power and to
help him carry out his purposes. These
characteristics of the
Lord God of
(Exod
20:1-17; Deut 5:1-21) and in Deut 6:4.
The Lord was especially concerned about
the welfare of the children of
a covenant
with Abraham and had given him definite promises (Gen
12:1-3, 7;
13:14-18; 15:13-17; 17:1-22; 22:15-18; 26:2-5, 24; 28:13-15;
31:11-13; 35:9-12;
46:2-4).
Jacob and his family had moved to
Canaan, with
the help of his son, Joseph, a powerful man in
years
passed, the political situation changed in
were
unfriendly toward the Israelites who had become numerous in the
tribes of
Jacob (Levi) came Moses and Aaron. Both were born in
a time of
severe persecution of the Israelites.
Moses had been hidden from
the
Egyptians, but a princess had found him and claimed him for her own.
Moses was
trained by Egyptian teachers; but, one day he saw an Egyptian
beating an
Israelite slave and killed the Egyptian.
Moses had to flee to the
Sinaitic
desert to escape punishment. Nothing is
known of Aaron's life
prior to his
meeting Moses after Moses's experience at the burning bush.
The Pharaohs of the New Kingdom of Egypt
(1550-1200 B.C.) were
powerful
persons at that time in the ancient Near East. The exact identity
of the
Pharaoh in the Exodus event is the subject of sharp debate. The text
does not
identify him. Whoever he was, he was an
awe-inspiring indi-
vidual. The monuments and buildings built by the
Egyptian people still
excite
wonder and appreciation in those who view them.
Their mum-
mified
bodies preserved in the
the cultural
artifacts and extensive inscriptions that remain certainly are
outstanding.
At first glance, the Israelites appear unlikely
candidates for being a
94
God-chosen
people, who were to serve as a beachhead in a polytheistic
world. They
were to be the ones through whom faith in one true God was
to permeate
the world. They were the ones who were to worship that God
in spirit
and in truth; they were to follow a way of life that embodied the
holiness of
God.
The Israelites had been slaves to the
Egyptians, who treated them
brutally.
The Lord had promised Abraham and Jacob that their descen-
dents would
be brought back to the
fulfill his
promise.
The following time line shows the sequence
of action in these two
passages and
their literary context:
2:1-4 Moses born and hidden
2:5-10 Moses found and claimed
by Pharaoh's daughter
2:11-15a Moses kills an Egyptian and
flees
2:15b-22 Moses had arrived forty years
earlier
3:1-3 Moses sees a bush that
does not stop burning
3:4-4:17 The Lord speaks to Moses
4:18-20 Moses goes to
4:21-23 The Lord speaks to Moses
again
4:24-26 Moses circumcises his son
4:27-28 Aaron meets Moses
4:29-31 Both speak to the
Israelites
5:1-9 Both speak to Pharaoh
5:10-21 The slavery worsens
5:22-6:13 Moses and the Lord talk
together
6:14-27 Moses's family tree
6:28-7:7 Moses's commission renewed
7:8-12:30 The Ten Plagues described
12:31-15:20 The Exodus Event
Description: The Lord used a burning bush to attract
Moses's attention.
When Moses
turned aside to inspect the bush, the Lord identified himself.
The Lord
told Moses of his decision to deliver
of
not
qualified. Moses and the Lord talked about his problem on two
different
occasions.
The biblical record of these two
conversations, as found in the New
King James
Version, follows:
Then Moses said to the Lord,
Moses 1 "O my Lord,
I am not eloquent, neither before nor
since You have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech
and slow of tongue" (4:10).
So the Lord said to him,
A Case Study of the Call of Moses 95
Lord 1 "Who has made man's mouth? Or who
makes the
mute, the
deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not
I, the Lord.
"Now
therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach
you what you
shall say." But he said,
Moses 2 "O my Lord, please send by the hand
of whom
ever else
You may send." So the anger of the
Lord was kindled
against
Moses, and He said:
Lord 2 "Is not Aaron the Levite your
brother? I know that
he can speak
well. And look, he is also coming out to
meet you.
When he sees
you, he will be glad in his heart. Now
you shall
speak to him
and put the words in his mouth. And I
will be with
your mouth
and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you
shall
do. So he shall be your spokesman to the
people. And he
himself
shall be as a mouth for you, and you shall be to him as
God. And you shall take this rod in your hand,
with which you
shall do the
signs" (4:10-17).
Read the
section above describing the sequence of action for events
spanning the
end of this conversation and the beginning of the encounter
printed
below.
And it came to pass, on the day when
the Lord spoke to
Moses in the
saying,
Lord 3
"I am the Lord. Speak to Pharaoh king of
that I say unto you." But Moses said
before the Lord,
Moses 3 "Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips,
and how
shall Pharaoh heed me?" So the Lord
said to Moses:
Lord 4
"See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and
Aaron your brother shall be your
prophet. You shall speak all
that I command you. And Aaron your brother shall speak to
Pharaoh, that he must send the children of
And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and
multiply My signs and
My wonders in the
you, so that I may lay My hand on
and My people, the children of
by great judgments. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the
Lord when I stretch out My hand on
children of
did so; just as the Lord commanded them,
so they did. And
Moses was eighty years old and Aaron
eighty-three years old
when they spoke to Pharaoh (6:28-7:7).
96
The Lord continued to explain how he would
deal with the negative
response of
the Pharaoh; namely, by hardening his heart.
He would
deliver
God. After receiving this message from the Lord,
both Moses and Aaron
obeyed the
divine command.
Analysis: The purpose of this component is to: (a) analyze the structure of
the passage,
(b) probe the significance of its literary placement, (c)
evaluate the
meanings of words and phrases that occur, and (d) delineate
the dynamics
of the dialogue. The first printed
passage (4:10-17) is the
final
paragraph of a larger literary unit which begins at 3:1. The second
passage
(6:28-7:2) is the first part of a unit that extends to 7:7 and is much
like the
first passage in that the Lord gives Moses a task but Moses
complains
that he is not competent because he cannot speak well. The
Lord then
describes how Aaron would function as the speaker for God
and Moses.
Why are two accounts of the Lord's call of
Moses to this task present in
book of
Exodus? Did they come from two different Israelite communities
centuries
after the time of Moses; or is the second account in the text to
tell us that
Moses had severe inner struggles as he met opposition in
the Lord and
Moses. In the first, Moses speaks twice
(10, 13), offering
reasons why
he cannot be the Lord's spokesman. The
Lord responds each
time (11-12;
14-17), addressing Moses's reasons. In
the second, the Lord
speaks first
(6:29) and then responds (7:1-7). Moses
gives his reason for
not being
fit for the task in 6:30. Why are the
narratives composed mostly
of verbal
interaction between the Lord and Moses?
Does the presence of
exchanges of
words indicate that Moses actually could hear words being
spoken by
the Lord? Why preserve conversations
that show Moses, the
hero of the
Exodus, as stubborn and intractable?
Perhaps the presence of
these
conversations in the narrative implies that revelation is more than a
thinking process,
that it also includes the dynamics of an interpersonal
relationship.
The first incident is said to have taken
place in the presence of the
burning bush
on
(6:28). A short but unspecified span of time
separated the two incidents.
What is the
meaning of this change of place and this span of time?
Possibly the
writer consciously provided this data in order to make it clear
that these
incidents took place within the flow of a series of events. If so,
how may this
fact imply that the writer believed these conversations took
place at two
different times?
Let us now look at the placement of these
passages in relation to the
units of
which they are a part and the placement of the units in relation to
surrounding
literary units.
As stated above, the first printed text is
the last part of a story which
A Case Study of the Ca of Moses 97
begins at
3:1. This story tells us that the Lord
caught Moses's attention and
then
accosted him by means of a bush that burned but was not consumed.
What follows
is an interaction between the Lord and Moses cast in the
literary
form of a lively conversation. And,
direct speech in the Old
Testament
often carries the essential content of a passage. The Lord spoke
to Moses six
times (3:4a, 5-10, 12, 14-22; 4:2a, 3-9) and Moses responded
to the Lord
five times (3:4b, 11, 13; 4:1, 2b) up to the printed portion.
Within the
printed portion, the Lord spoke four times and Moses spoke
three
times. Most of the statements of the
Lord are much longer than
Moses's
responses. In the second printed
portion, the Lord spoke twice
and Moses
only once. What does this distribution
of words imply?
Perhaps this
phenomenon indicates the dominance of the Lord in the
encounter,
and the sense of inferiority Moses felt.
Chapter three is preceded by a series of
literary units which prepare the
reader for
the location of the big event but not for the nature of the event
itself. The book of Exodus begins with a short
genealogy that ties it to the
conclusion
of the book of Genesis. The same people
are involved, they
are all
descendents of Jacob. They had been in
become a
populous community. Joseph is mentioned
because he was
instrumental
in the move from Canaan to
are
narratives. The second unit (1:8-22)
reveals that a new king in
feared this
foreign community and enslaved them as laborers. The king's
concern
became so great that he ordered the women who delivered
Hebrew
babies to kill all males. The third unit
(2:1-10) tells the story of
Moses's
birth and remarkable deliverance from death, because a princess
found him in
a basket floating on the
home. The fourth unit (2:11-25) is an account of
Moses's crime, flight to
Midian and
marriage of a daughter of Jethro. Thus
the human deliverer is
introduced
to the reader.
Why are these units so brief? Surely, the time span covered by these
narratives
contained many important events. Is it
possible the writer's
purpose was
not to provide a full history; but rather, to present limited
indicators
of what the situation was prior to Moses's call? Conceivably
this could
imply that the author had a message about God's concern for
sages are
several literary units that tell us of Moses's return to
(4:18-31),
involving a request for permission from Jethro, the circumci-
sion of
Moses's son, the reunion with Aaron, and the wholehearted
reception of
Moses by the Israelites. Why are only
these incidents, and
not others,
recorded about this journey? What was
the principle of selec-
tion which
omitted description of the landscape, and the customs of the
people observed
along the way? How may each incident in
the narrative
have a
theological purpose for being there?
The next narrative records the first
audience of Moses and Aaron with
Pharaoh and
his angry refusal to grant their request (5:1-21). The chapter
98
ends with
Moses agonizing before the Lord in prayer, to which the Lord
(answered
with a command to deliver a message to the Israelites. This time
they rebuff
Moses (5:22-6:9). The Lord next told
Moses to deliver a
message to
Pharaoh, though Moses protested he lacked the ability to do
so
(6:10-13).
Why is the throne name of Pharaoh omitted
from the text? Surely, the
presence of
that name would greatly aid later scholars to date this event.
Why is the
Egyptian belief that Pharaoh was the sun god in flesh not
mentioned? How might the author intentionally omit this
kind of data in
order to
emphasize the humanity of this ruler?
Perhaps this implies that
the awesome
power of Pharaoh was being exposed as a "paper tiger," in
order for the
power of the true God to be understood more easily.
Another genealogy (6:14-27; cf. 1:1-7) of
Jacob's sons--Reuben, Sim-
eon and
especially Levi--has an emphasis on the family tree of Moses
and
Aaron. Why does this genealogy appear
here? Why not somewhere
else in the
sequence of narratives, perhaps between 5:21 and 22? Probably
this
genealogy serves with the initial genealogy as literary brackets of a
block of
narratives that are centered on the beginnings of Moses's pro-
phetic task.
The second printed passage serves as an
introduction to the plague/
Exodus
sequence and is tied to the first section by the complaint of Moses
that he had
"uncircumcised lips" (6:12, 30).
This second passage also
immediately
precedes the first of a series of miracles that culminate in the
successful
crossing of the sea. The two printed
passages present key
events in
the Lord's dealings with a reluctant Moses.
The entire context,
(1:1-15:21)
is prose except for the Song of Moses (15:1-18) and the Song of
Miriam
(15:21).
Why does this series of narratives
concentrate on the Ten Plagues and
the Crossing
of the Sea and ignore a description of the polytheistic
religion of
to exalt the
wonder-working power of the one true God. What was the
essential
difference between the Lord's miracles done through the agency
of Moses and
Aaron, and the magical actions of the Egyptians? How was
the
authenticity of the display of divine power established by the results?
Perhaps the
alleged power of the magicians was thus exposed as a lie?
There are
several words and phrases in the two passages which are the
core of this
study and these need to be explained.
Moses's description of his speech
impediment contains an interesting
twist of
meaning on an important Hebrew word (kabod) usually translated
as
"glory." The literal meaning
of the word is "heavy," but it is used in
this literal
sense only in 1 Sam 4:18 and 2 Sam 14:26.
Often the word is
used of parts
of the body that are, handicapped, or parts of the body that
connote
spiritual impairment. For examples of
this use of the term, read
Gen 48:10,
Isa 6:10, 59:1, Zech 7:11. In sequence,
the NJKV translates
the word as
"dim," "heavy," "heavy," (in the sense of
deafness) and
A Case Study of the Call Moses 99
"stopped." The word may serve as a figure of speech for
severity of life
experiences
such as labor, slavery, warfare, etc.
(Read Exod 5:9, Judg
20:34, 1 Kgs
12:10. Read also an article in The
Theological Wordbook of
the Old
Testament, vol. I,
pp. 426-428 for an excellent discussion of the
word.)
In Moses's case, was the handicap
lisping, stammering, or difficulty
speaking
readily and at a normal speed? Since
Moses had been away from
fluently,
especially the kind used in a royal court?
If so, probably Moses
had
legitimate grounds for bringing up the problem.
A striking idiom appears in verse 15:
Moses was to "put words in his
[Aaron's]
mouth." What does this phrase
mean? Since words are not
physical
objects, may this phrase refer to some sort of transfer of a
message? Could this phrase be influenced by the
then-current practice of
the Pharaoh
to designate one of his important officials as his mouth, with
the task of
relaying to others Pharaoh's wishes? If
so, would not the idiom
indicate a
very high status of Moses before the Lord--and, of Aaron
before
Moses--in communicating to others? Does
not the word "spokes-
man" in
verse 16, support this probability?
In the second passage, Moses says he has
"uncircumcized lips" (see
also
6:12). Elsewhere in the Old Testament,
the adjective "uncircumcised"
designates
ears that do not listen and understand (Jer 6:10). When the
word
modifies heart, the inner being, it indicates defilement and disobe-
dience (Isa
52:1, Jer 9:26). Other passages contain
commands and exhor-
tations that
such a heart be circumcised, so undesirable traits are removed
and
desirable traits are added (Deut 10:16; 30:6; Jer 4:4; Rom 2:28-29:
15:8; Phil
3:3:
something
like his tongue being slow (heavy, 4:10)?
Could it be that since
circumcision
was a religious ritual that served as a symbol of obedient
servanthood
to the Lord, that uncircumcision represented lips that refused
to obey
Moses's wishes? Very likely, this fact
made Moses believe his lips
were unfit
for the Lord's service. Why may Moses
have hinted that he was
defiled
because of his speech handicap and that the Lord ought to correct
it by an act
comparable to the rite of circumcision?
The Lord told Moses he was to have the
status of "God to Pharaoh." It
is known
from Egyptian literature that all Egyptians regarded the Pharaoh
as a deity,
a descendent of the sun which was the most important god
above many
gods and goddesses. The Old Testament
nowhere speaks of
Pharaoh as a
god. What does this placement of Moses
as God over
Pharaoh
mean? How might God thus negate the
claim that Pharaoh was a
powerful god
by elevating Moses above him? How could
this kind of
statement
also establish in Moses's mind that the Lord is the supreme God
and that
Moses had a high position before the Lord, higher than even the
powerful
position of Pharaoh in
grant Moses
great authority in transmitting the divine message to Aaron?
100
To extend the point further, how might
this statement elevate even
Aaron above
the Pharaoh? Aaron was positioned as a
"prophet" who
received the
divine message from Moses and delivered it orally to Pha-
raoh. Only Abraham is referred to as a prophet
prior to Aaron in the
Scriptures
(Gen 20:7) and his task was to pray for Abimelech. Moses is
called a
prophet in Deut 34:10, and the word is used elsewhere in the Old
Testament
over 160 times of other people. What
does it mean that Aaron
was to serve
Moses as his prophet? How may the word
serve as a
synonym of
"spokesman" in 4:16? In what
way may the reference to
Aaron
speaking to Pharaoh (7:2) serve as a support for that connection?
The Lord told Moses that he would
"harden" Pharaoh's heart. This
word does
not seem to mean that the physical organ had changed from
being a soft
muscle to some kind of hard substance.
It is more likely that
this verb
represents a proud, stubborn attitude toward Moses's request.
Thus
"heart" here seems to denote, not the physical organ, but a figure of
speech for
the inner being. Thus this hardening
seems to represent a
judgment on
Pharaoh's refusal to permit the Israelites to leave
Lord
promised Moses that he would do many "signs" and "wonders"
to
demonstrate
his mighty power (7:3) to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. What
were these
signs and wonders? How might the ten
plagues and the
protection
of the Israelites during the plagues, and the dividing of the
waters
qualify as signs and wonders? Since the
Lord does not have a
physical
hand like humans, how might the word "hand" (7:4, 5) function
as a figure
of speech for the acts of God in performing these signs and
wonders?
The relationships apparent in these two
passages center about: the
Lord, Moses,
Aaron, the Israelites and Pharaoh. What
aspects of these
relationships
point to a network of communication which makes it possi-
ble for
messages to flow from the source to addressee and back to the
source? What implications can be drawn from the fact
that these texts
present the
Lord as the invisible but authoritative source of the messages?
Why did the
Lord initiate the situation? What
motivation did the Lord
have in
making contact with Pharaoh? Why did the
Lord select Moses as
his personal
representative, and work with him until he obeyed? How was
mercy
expressed when he selected Aaron as Moses's substitute voice?
Why did the
Israelites find it difficult to keep on believing, after Pharaoh
intensified
their suffering?
In regard to the humanness of Moses
displayed in prayers of complaint,
what
implications can you draw about the Lord's wisdom in selecting
Moses for
this task? What conclusions are
justified in regard to Pharaoh
sensing a
challenge to his pride and power, when he heard the request? On
what basis
could Pharaoh have surmised that Moses acted like a greater
god than he;
and thus, should be taught a lesson of humility? How was
Pharaoh, in
fact, humiliated, when Moses approached him as a represen-
tative of a
more powerful God, and treated him as not more than a human
A Case Study of the Call of Moses 101
king? How might Pharaoh feel justified for reacting
harshly in putting
down a
potential rebellion?
This analysis is a selection from a number
of blocks of observational
data,
questions and speculation that can be directed toward the passages
quoted and
their context. You may want to add
questions that come to
your mind.
Integration
and Interaction: Among many issues that one may discover in
this
passage, some are listed below, with one selected for examination.
1.
Why did the Lord not immediately punish Moses for his resistance
to the
Lord's commands?
2.
When the Lord said he makes some people mute, deaf or blind, did
he mean he
commits unjust acts against innocent people?
3.
Why should a God of love become angry at anyone?
4.
Did the Lord reveal a mean streak in his character when he stated he
would harden
Pharaoh's heart?
5.
How did the messenger system provide a framework for the pro-
phetic task?
The last issue has been selected because
the Lord wanted Moses to
deliver
messages for Him and He indicated that Aaron could perform the
same
messenger function for Moses. This
suggests that the characteristics
of the
messenger mode of communication between humans may be much
like the way
the Lord chose to reveal his will to his people.
The basic words and idioms of the call of
Moses are that of transferring
a message
from one person to another by using a messenger. This was an
age-old mode
of communication among many of the peoples of the world
and at every
level of society.
Several stories that appear earlier in the
book of Genesis suggest a
messenger
mode of transferring a message which involved a spiritual
being. When Hagar and her son Ishmael were ejected
from Abraham's
encampment,
an angel of the Lord appeared to her and gave a promise of
a fruitful
future (Gen 16:7-12). Verse 13 suggests
Hagar understood the
angel to be
the Lord himself, or at least the representative of the Lord.
Note that at
the end of verse 11, the Lord is referred to as another person.
Note another
appearance of an angel to Hagar (Gen 21:17-20).
There are
other
instances where an angel of the Lord conveyed a message to people:
Gen
22:11-12; 31:11-13; Num 22:31-35; Judges 2:1-4; 6:11-23; 13:3-22;
1 Kgs
19:5-8; 2 Kgs 1:3; 1 Chron 21:18; Zech 1:9-19; 2:3-5; 3:6-10; 4:1-7;
5:5-11;
6:4-8. In the instances involving Elijah
and Zechariah, the mes-
senger
statement, "Thus says. . ." indicates the message was to be relayed
to an
audience.
An example of a person using a messenger
is found in Genesis 32:3-6.
Jacob had
returned to the highlands east of the
family, many
servants and a multitude of sheep and cattle.
Many years
before he
had wronged his brother Esau and fled north to his Uncle
102
Laban's to
escape Esau's wrath. He knew that Esau
lived to the south in
from among
his servants and sent them with a verbal message to deliver to
Esau. An important phrase in the message is,
"Thus your servant Jacob
says,"
for it denotes the source and authenticity of the message the
messengers
delivered to Esau. The messengers
reported back that Esau
was on his
way with 400 men to meet Jacob.
The second recorded instance is in Gen
45:9-13, 25-28. Joseph had just
revealed his
true identity to his astounded brothers when he ordered them
to deliver a
message to their aged father, Jacob. He
was now the chief
officer of
the Pharaoh, and wanted his father and all the family to come
live in the
says your
son, Joseph." However, there was a problem in delivering the
message. The brothers, years before, had told Jacob
his son Joseph had
been killed
by wild beasts; now they had to tell Jacob his son was alive
and a very
powerful leader in
the message,
but the presents Joseph had sent and a word from the Lord
(46:1-4)
persuaded him the message was authentic.
Later events in
verified the
truth of the message.
Compare these incidents with Num 20:14-20;
21:21-23; 22:5-19; 1 Kgs
22:26-27; 2
Kgs 18:17-35; 19:2-4; 9-14a. Note also
that this same mes-
senger
method and messenger statement, with God as the sender, begins
with Moses
(Exod 3:14) and is used many times in their interpersonal
relationships
as recorded in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers.
They also
appear in
the Lord's messages to his prophets throughout the Old Testa-
ment.
An incident in the life of Abraham is
also of interest. Abraham sent his
representative,
his oldest servant, to Laban to obtain a wife for Isaac
(Genesis
24). This servant, when he met Laban,
simply identified himself
as Abraham's
servant and did not use the phrase, "Thus says Abraham."
The servant
did not have a specific message to deliver, but had freedom to
negotiate
within guidelines. The story does,
however, illustrate an ancient
practice of
using others to convey information and desires to selected
people: Compare with Gen 37:13-17; 42:16; 46:28; Josh
2:1-23; 7:22-23;
Judg 6:35, 7:24,
9:31-33, 11:12-28, and many others.
In recent years, an abundance of evidence
for the practice--especially
among
government leaders--of choosing messengers to relay messages
to others
has come to light. Predominantly, the evidence has been letters,
decrees and
commercial invoices written in several kinds of scripts on
clay or
stone. These materials have survived the
ravages of time, but
evidence
from
Sea indicate
the widespread use of a paper-like papyrus which was easily
destroyed by
moisture. Rulers sent messages on clay
or papyrus with the
messengers. These were written duplicates of messages
delivered orally.
A normal
feature of these messages was some variation of the statement,
A Case Study of the Call of Moses
103
"Thus
says (personal name)." This
statement designated the sender,
whose
authority extended to the person who delivered the message.
Such written messages have been found on
clay tablets by the thousands
at such
places as
dern
tamian
Valley; at Mari (1800-1700 B.C.) on the south bank of the
River; at
Nuzi (1500-1200 B.C.) in the highlands east of the
Hattusas
(1500-1200 B.C.) in the central part of modern
(1500-1200
B.C.) near the site of
the
papyrus,
have been unearthed by archaeologists or found scattered on the
ground. These documents span many centuries of time.
Pertinent to this study is a cache of
about thirty clay tablets found at
Mari. Various individuals from various places near
Mari reported to
representatives
of the king that in a trance or a dream they received
messages
from idols of the storm god Baal or the mother goddess Ishtar.
The
representative wrote the message on a clay tablet which was delivered
to the
king. Typical of these messages is the
statement. "Thus says Baal
(or Ishtar)
to. . . " These are the only
records of prophetic messages found
before 1000
B.C. apart from the Old Testament, and associated with a
nature deity
of a polytheistic religion.
In governments of the ancient Near East, a
high official of the govern-
ing body was
the herald who received messages from the ruler or council
and
delivered them to whomever designated.
The herald could in turn
delegate his
task to subordinates. The messages were
delivered orally,
combined
with a written message, or consisted simply of the delivery of
an inscribed
piece of clay or sheet of papyrus. This
was common during
the time
span of the Old and New Testaments.
The establishment of a messenger system
between God, his prophets
and those
addressed was thus not an introduction of a new mode of
communication,
but an adaptation of a well-known and widely employed
method. The mode was an "earthen vessel" by
which the "treasure" of
divine
reality and power was made known to human beings. It was a
communication
system and vocabulary they understood.
There search of
several
scholars is summarized below to indicate how significant this
mode was for
the biblical prophets.
Since the biblical record places Moses in
a close relationship with the
Egyptian
culture, one may wonder whether the herald was important in
the
government of that land. One reference (Gen
41:43) obliquely refers to
messengers
who proclaimed to the people the importance of Joseph. But
A.S. Yahuda
provides more precise information from Egyptian inscrip-
tions. Drawing from inscriptions of the
"with
Moses, Yahuda shows that the word "mouth" is a literal equivalent to
the title of
a high official of Pharaoh's court.
Usually this person was heir
to the
throne and ranked immediately after the king.
The task of the
104
Egyptian
"mouth," or "chief mouth," was to see that the messages of
Pharaoh, who
the Egyptians regarded as the sun-god in human flesh, were
it properly
delivered to the intended audience. (See bibliography.)
J. S. Holladay notes that the Assyrian
Empire of the eighth and seventh
centuries
B.C. had a high official, with heraldic duties of receiving
messages
from the emperor and seeing that they were delivered. He saw
this
practice as a communication model for Old Testament prophecy. (See
bibliography.)
Ann M. Vater provides an exhaustive
description of eight patterns of
stories in
two hundred and thirty texts in the Old Testament. Overall these
follow the
messenger-communication model common in ancient times.
(See
bibiography.)
T. Y. Mullins shows that comparable
narrative forms are found in the
New
Testament, especially in Luke and Acts. (See bibliography.)
B. S. Childs observes that limiting one's
interest just to the system as a
model for
the call of Moses and all future prophets can be artificial. He
stresses the
need to see the theological dimensions of this event in the life
of
Moses. Primarily this involves the
dominance in this call of the reality
of the one
true God intervening in the affairs of an enslaved
their
oppressor, mighty
land of
promise. Also to be considered must be
the reality of Moses as a
real human
being, gripped with doubts and fears.
(See bibliography.)
The observations made by these scholars
are helpful, but there are
several
factors which seem to be overlooked. I would like to offer
additional
information that has arisen from my personal study of these
narratives
depicting Moses's call. (See
bibliography.)
In terms of narrative structure, the
account in 3:1-4:18, and other
discussions
of the call (5:22-6:13; 6:28-7:7) are made up of similar
components. In the first instance the components are (a)
the theophany in
the burning
bush (3:1-5), (b) God's identity and purpose (3:6-9), (c)
commissioning
(3:10), (d) objections and assurances (3:11-4:12), (e)
request
(4:13), (f) help provided (4:15-17), and (g) obedience (4:18). The
second
section (5:22-6:13) has these components:
(a) objection (5:22-23),
(b) God's
identity (6:1-5), (c) commissioning (6:6-8), (d) obedience (6:9),
(e)
commissioning (6:10-11), (f) objection (6:12), and (g) command (6:13).
The third
section (6:28-7:7) has the following components: (a) God's
identity
(6:28-29a), (b) commissioning (6:29a), (c) objection (6:30), (d)
help
provided (7:1-2), (e) assurance (7:3-5), and (f) obedience (7:6-7).
Not all components appear in these three
sections, nor are they com-
pletely in
the same sequence. They do, however,
provide a vivid series of
encounters
between the Lord and Moses which offer some basic insights
about what
the Lord wanted to accomplish, and the means he had decided
to use to
attain his goals.
The messenger system has several phases in
its mechanism for commu-
nicating
information. These phases are, (a) the
decision of the sender to
A Case Study of the Call of Moses 105
select a
messenger, (b) the awareness of the messenger of being selected,
(c) the
sender giving a message, and the messenger receiving it, (d) the
messenger
carrying the message, (e) the messenger delivering the mes-
sage, (f)
the audience, hearing or seeing the message, (g) the auditor, or
audience,
responding to the message, (h) the messenger hearing or seeing
the
response, (i) the messenger returning and delivering the response to
the sender,
and (j) the sender reacting to the response.
From this point, the
sequence may
be repeated many times.
Taking the phases in the order listed, one
may illustrate each by the
following
passages:
(a) Exod 2:24-25, "So God heard their
groaning, and God
remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac,
and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of
Exod 3:7-9, "And the Lord said: 'I have surely seen the
oppression of My people who are in
heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know
their sorrows. So I have
come down to deliver them out
of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from
that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with
milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the
Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the
Hivites and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry
of the children of
seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress
them.'"
(b) Exod 3:10-11, "'Come now,
therefore, and I will send you
to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of
that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the
children of
(c) Exod 3:15-17, "Moreover God said
to Moses, 'Thus you
shall say to the children of
Exod 6:6-8, "Therefore say to the children of
Exod 6:13, "Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron,
and gave them a command for the children of
for Pharaoh king of
out of the
The chief indicators of this phase of the messenger sys-
tem are terms such as "send," "go,"
"speak," and the
statements "Thus you shall say to... ," or "Thus
says the
Lord."
(d) Exod 4:29, "Then Moses and Aaron
went and gathered
together all the elders of the children of
Exod 7:10a, "So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh,
106
and they did so, just as the Lord commanded."
(e) Exod 4:30, "And Aaron spoke all
the words which the
Lord had spoken to Moses. Then he did the
signs in the
sight of the people."
Exod 5:1, "Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told
Pharaoh, 'Thus says the Lord God of
people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the
wilderness."'"
Exod 6:9a, "So Moses spoke thus to the children of
Exod 7:10b, "And Aaron cast down his rod before Pha-
raoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent."
(f) Exod 4:30, [implies hearing plus
seeing] ". . .in the sight
of the people."
Exod 5:1, [hearing evident in this verse].
Exod 7:9-10, [hearing and seeing evident in these
verses].
(g) Exod 4:31, "So the people
believed: . . . then they bowed
their heads and worshiped.
Exod 5:4, "Then the king of
and Aaron, why do you take the people from their work?
Get back to your labor.'" [See also 5:5-19.]
Exod 5:20-21, "Then, as they came out from Pharaoh,
they met Moses and Aaron who stood there to meet
them. And they said to
them, 'Let the Lord look on you
and judge, because you have made us abhorrent in the
sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants, to put a
sword in their hand to kill us.' "
Exod 6:9, ". . . but they would not heed Moses, because of
anguish of spirit and cruel bondage."
Exod 7:11-13, "But Pharaoh also called the wise men and
the sorcerers; so the magicians of
like manner with their enchantments. For every man
threw down his rod, and they became serpents. But
Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods. And Pharaoh's
heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, as the Lord
had said."
(h) [The passages given above all assume
that Moses and
Aaron heard and/or saw the responses of their several
audiences.]
(i) Exod 5:22-23, "So Moses returned
to the Lord and said,
'Lord, why have You brought trouble on this people?
to speak in Your name, he has done evil to this people;
neither have You delivered Your people at all.' "
A Case Study of the Call of Moses 107
(j) Exod 6:1-8, "Then the Lord said to Moses, . . . "
These phases are reflected in the
composition of many literary units in
Exodus,
Leviticus and Numbers. Other passages
that are similar in
emphasis
are, Exod 7:14-18, 25-8:4; 9:13-21; 14:1-8; and 25:1-30:10.
There are
nine such units in Numbers 5:5-10, 11-31; 6:1-21, 22-27;
15:1-16,
36-40; 18:25-32; 35:1-8, 9-34. All of
these have in them mostly
short,
sometimes long, portions of the message content. They are con-
cerned
primarily with phases (a), (b) and (c).
Other narratives cover all phases from (a)
through (g). Consider the
organization
of the following: Exod 9:1-7; 10:1-6;
12:1-42; 19:1-8a;
20:18-24:3;
Num17:1-19; 34:1-15.
Another set concentrates on phases (d)
through (g). They are Exod
11:4-10;
32:25-29; 35:1-3, 4-29, 35:30-39:43.
The accounts that center on phases (h)
through (j) are set up as prayer
situations
in which Moses discussed with the Lord problems that arose
from
negative reactions of the addressees.
The first such situation arose
from the
twin negative reactions of Pharaoh and the Israelites (5:19-6:1).
Others are
Exod 8:8-15; 10:16-20; 14:9-25; 15:22-27:17:1-7; 31:18-32:16;
32:30-35;
33:7-23; Num 9:6-23; 11:1-3; 11:4-25; 12:10b-16; 21:4-9.
Bibliography
Childs, B.
S. The Book of Exodus.
1974.
Holladay, J.
S. "
63 (1970):
29-51.
Livingston,
G. H. The Pentateuch in its Cultural Environment. Grand
Rapids:
Baker Book House, 1974.
Mullins, T.
Y. "New Testament Commission Forms, JBL
95(1976):
603-614.
Vater, A. M.
"Narrative Patterns for the Story of Commissioned Commu-
nication in the Old Testament," JBL 99(1980): 365-382.
Yahuda, A.
S. The Language of the Old Testament in its Relation to
Egyptian.
Judgments:
As they presently stand in the biblical text, the passages
selected for
this case study have geographical and chronological con-
tinuity with
the episodes which precede, come between and follow them.
These
passages are important because the call of Moses is the first such
incident
recorded in the Scriptures. Remarkably,
the experience of Moses
at the
burning bush served as a model for all future prophetic calls.
The main character, Moses, is placed in
this continuity by a series of
108
short
narratives in one brief chapter. These stories recount his birth,
growth to
manhood, his crime, his flight to the vast deserts east of
and his new
life in the family of Reuel, also known as Jethro.
The several authors mentioned in the
Integration and Interaction sec-
tion--Yahuda,
about
various aspects of the messenger system in the ancient Near East.
Ann Vater
especially deals with the composition of the narratives related
to prophets
in the Old Testament, and many of her observations are
helpful. However, there are some features of Moses's
call narratives that
seem to be
overlooked. These features are briefly
described here.
The call account in 3:1-4:18, and the
other discussions of the call
(5:22-6:13;
6:28-7:7) are made up of similar components.
In the first
instance,
the components are: (a) the theophany in
the burning bush
(3:1-5), (b)
God's identity and purpose (3:6-9), (c) commissioning (3:10),
(d)
objections and assurances (3:11-4:12), (e) request (4:13), (f) help
provided
(4:15-17), and (g) obedience (4:18). The second section
(5:22-6:13)
has these components: (a) objection (5:22-23), (b) God's
identity
(6:1-5), (c) commissioning (6:6-8), (d) obedience (6:9), (e) com-
missioning
(6:10-11), (f) objection (6:12), and (g) command (6:13).
We have here
an example of adaptation of human structures of person-
to-person
communication, the messenger system, which was well known
throughout
the ancient Near East and thus familiar to Moses, his people
and to the
Egyptians.
In Moses's service for the Lord, there was
more than a messenger
responsibility. A goal of the Lord was to forge a national
covenant with
the
descendents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob which would fulfill prom-
ises made to
those patriarchs. The event which accomplished this goal
took place
at
age of the
life and work of Moses must include the significance of this
national
covenant and the legal, military and religious laws and rites that
combined to
make the freed slaves into one people under one God. Such
coverage
will not be attempted in this case study, but it should be noted
that the
tasks of messenger, covenant mediator, lawgiver and military
leader
intertwined with common concepts about God, nature, nation and
humanity.
B. S. Childs is right in his caution that
over-attention on the mechanics
of the
messenger system and the forms of oral and literary composition
can be
artificial. There must be a grasp of the
theological tenets that
infused mode
and form.
A basic feature of the two passages before
us, in fact in all of the
Scriptures,
is the dominance of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He
had
remembered his covenant with them and decided the time had come
to redeem
their descendents from slavery. The
implementation of the
divine
decision was the sudden impact of his presence by means of the
bush that
would not burn up. The mode of contact
was person-to-person
A Case Study of the Call of Moses 109
conversation,
a form of communication well known to Moses.
Though a bush was used in catching Moses's
attention, the Lord did not
identify
himself as this natural object or as any natural force. He identi-
fled himself
as the God of ancestors who had lived elsewhere and at a
different
time. When pressed for a name, the Lord
gave the enigmatic, “I
am who I
am," which suggests he is the Creator, the one who is dynamic
being. With the command that Moses go to
promise,
will certainly be with you" (3:12). He further promised that he
would bring
the Israelites out of
a snake and
back to a rod, nor the leprosy that afflicted Moses's hand and
then was
healed. These items were not the Lord; rather, they were signs
that
indicated the Lord was present in an awesome way.
The sovereignty of the Lord was apparent
in the mystery of the bush
that was not
consumed, in the signs and in the commands, promises,
anger and
provisions evident in the Lord's dealings with Moses. His
sovereignty
came into the foreground vividly in the series of encounters
with the
Pharaoh of
The narratives associated with the Exodus
do not give the slightest hint
that the
royal court, the religious establishment and the common people
believed
fervently that Pharaoh was the great sun-god in human flesh. The
Pharaohs did
not disagree; rather, no effort or expense was spared to keep
this belief
strong in the hearts and minds of all Egyptians. Pharaoh was
not only
regarded as a god, he was the State, the absolute ruler of his
people. (Although this situation varied during
The Egyptians were polytheists, believing
in many nature gods of
lesser
powers than the sun and Pharaoh. This
much is acknowledged in
the phrase,
"gods of
were also
recognized as having a measure of power (Exod 7:11, 22; in
8:7, 18, 19;
9:11).
In the Exodus narratives, the God of the
enslaved Israelites fearlessly
and
powerfully challenged Pharaoh (he is depicted as merely a human
ruler), the
might of the State, and the faith of every Egyptian. Auda-
ciously, he
chose an old shepherd, a murderer who had a combined
Hebrew and
Egyptian heritage, as his human agent.
By instructing Moses
and his
brother Aaron, and displaying his power, ". . . by trials, by signs,
by wonders,
by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by
great
terrors.. ." (Deut 4:34), the Lord invaded
his knees
and delivered the Israelites from slavery.
To emphasize Pharaoh's inferiority, the
Lord appointed Moses "as God
to
Pharaoh" (7:1), an ironic twist in that Pharaoh regarded himself as
deity. Moses was to have a position of power and
authority over this king,
and even
Aaron was to have a superior position.
As Moses's "mouth,"
Aaron was
his brother's deputy spokesman and thus at a level higher than
Pharaoh. The Lord was dramatizing his own sovereignty
by elevating his
110
servants to
these high levels and thus demoting Pharaoh.
The other participants in the call
experience and the events that fol-
lowed were
the Israelite people. The burning bush
experience did not
happen in
order to give Moses a spiritual high or a good feeling. The
significance
of the experience was that the Lord commissioned Moses to
lead the
Israelites out of
them in the
Moses's first contact with his fellow
Israelites would have encouraged
him to
believe they would respond positively, but the aftermath of the first
encounter
with Pharaoh was suffering. Their attitudes radically changed
toward their
would-be leader and Moses fled to the Lord to pour out in
prayer his
deep disappointment. The fluctuations of
the Israelites between
exemplary
faith, with accompanying obedience, and apostasy (in calf
worship) or
just nasty complaining, were hallmarks of the Exodus and the
wanderings
in the wilderness. They knew the
exhilaration of salvation
from bondage
and flood and could sing with enthusiasm the Song of
Moses, part
of which reads:
Who
is like You, 0 Lord, among the gods?
Who is like You, glorious in holiness,
Fearful in praises, doing wonders?
You stretched out Your right hand;
The earth swallowed them.
You in Your mercy have led forth
The people whom you have redeemed;
You have guided them in Your strength
To Your holy habitation.--Exod 15:11-13
In contrast, when the people suffered
hunger and thirst in the desert,
they were
quick to blame the Lord and Moses and considered returning to
wilderness.
An evaluation of Moses's call is not
complete without taking the
participation
of the people seriously. They were the
objects of the Lord's
redemptive
mercy and experienced the trials and triumphs of interacting
with divine
guidance and grace under the leadership of Moses.
What the Lord did in and through Moses
became the model for
measuring
prophets and their activities in
a summary of
this modeling role. Not only would all
true prophets be
marked by
being commissioned to speak words commanded by the Lord,
but they
were also to separate themselves from idolatry and what they may
predict
would come to pass.
The
role modeling of Moses would extend even further. God would
raise up a
Prophet and place "words in His mouth." The message spoken
by this
Prophet would call people to decision; if they rejected the mes-
A Case Study of the Call of Moses 111
sage, the
result would be death.
Jesus commissioned all his disciples to be
witnesses (messengers)
throughout
the world (Acts 1:8); who, after Pentecost, "went everywhere
preaching
the word" (Acts 8:4). It has been
typical of fervent Christians to
be messengers
of the word of salvation through Jesus Christ.
Paul had this sense of being sent with a
message to the Gentiles (Acts
22:21;
26:17; 1 Cor 1:17); and, as he testified before King Agrippa, "I was
not
disobedient to the heavenly vision" (Acts 26:19).
Through the centuries, many Christians of
all ages, of every status of
life, of
every nation, have experienced the command of the Lord to
witness and
preach the gospel.
Evaluation:
One should not be surprised that Moses had difficulty accept-
ing his
appointment to the prophet/messenger status.
The surprise should
arise from
the moderations of Moses's response. Moses could have re-
jected what
he heard as utterly ridiculous and stubbornly refused to
consider the
matter further.
A
justification for such action could have been thought out easily.
When one
looks at Moses's objections, each seems convincing and his
final
obedience to the Lord's call quite foolhardy.
Moses comes through as strikingly human.
He is not enshrouded with a
hero legend
or a divinity halo; he is only a shepherd in the wilderness.
Nevertheless,
memories of earlier years caused him to realize immedi-
ately how
dangerous this divinely appointed task really was. He also was
deeply
religious and feared whatever suggested the presence of the God of
his fathers.
Moses harbored a pain-filled fear of
Pharaoh; the murder he had
committed in
royal court
should he appear there in person.
Moses had doubts about his own people, the
Hebrews, by whom he
would most
likely be regarded as an apostate from the traditional faith and
thus
ignorant of the name of the true God.
To each of these concerns, the Lord had an
answer, mixed with
explanations
and promises.
Moses knew that a key factor in a
successful project of the sort the Lord
proposed
could be convincing evidence of authority and power. A dusty
shepherd
coming directly from the desert would not impress either Isra-
elite or
Pharaoh as being a powerful person. Nor
would an invisible God
identified
with neither nature objects (sun, moon, etc.) or an idol, be
regarded as
believable. Nevertheless, Moses
courageously traveled to
Pharaoh to
let the Israelites go into the desert.
The Lord gave three signs to Moses to
convince him, and then to
convince the
Israelites and Pharaoh. First, Moses's
shepherd rod changed
to a snake
and back to a rod. Second, Moses's hand
became diseased and
112
then healed;
and, third, Moses was authorized to change water to blood, if
need
be. Of these measures, the first was to
be used frequently m
the second
was purely personal and the third was a measure of last resort
(cf. Exod
7:19-21). Answers to Moses's objections
seem to have been
provided
convincingly. Yet, doubts about his
capability to carry out his
task gripped
him and caused profound fear.
When Moses began to base his objections on
his internal problems, he
soon got
into trouble with his Lord. Moses's
speech handicap did not
match the
normal qualification of a messenger, the ability to speak clearly
and
effectively. This mismatch deeply
troubled Moses and created a sense
of helplessness
in the face of the messenger task.
Moses's assessment may
be classed
as realistic, but it was self-demeaning and evidenced a low
self-esteem.
He refused, at the moment, to be impressed
by the creative power of
God to
provide him with words. Moses took the first step of rejection
when he
requested that someone else be sent to
the speech
handicap was this display of stubbornness and unbelief that the
Lord could
really help him.
The sting of experiencing divine anger,
and then the wonder of divine
grace in
designating Aaron as his "mouth," changed Moses's attitude
quickly. To Moses's credit, he saw the error of hiding
behind personal
shortcomings
and yielded to the divine call.
Moses exhibited considerable courage when
he returned to
knowing he
could be in danger of losing his life. Reunited with Aaron,
who readily
accepted his new role as Moses's assistant, Moses was
successful
in gaining the support of his fellow Israelites for the proposed
trip to the
desert. He was able to gain an audience with Pharaoh, who
seemed to
know nothing of Moses's earlier crime in
presented
his request.
The result was angry rejection by Pharaoh
and immediate hardship for
the
Israelites. Their anger and accusations
shocked Moses and the immi-
nent failure
of his mission sent him, filled with self-pity and despair, to
the Lord
with a bitter complaint. Moses not only
was humiliated by his
failure, he
was blaming the sad turn of events on his speech defect; and,
by
implication, accusing the Lord of lack of wisdom regarding the project
of
convincing Pharaoh to release the Israelites.
One must give Moses
credit for
his quick recovery from despondency, as he listened to the
Lord's
instructions and promises.
With the help of his Lord, Moses had
passed through the first major
crisis of
his prophetic ministry.
Decisions:
In spite of Moses's several arguments against the Lord's call to
return to
requesting
and receiving permission to go to
with his
wife and family (4:20). He obeyed the
Lord: (a) by circumsizing
A Case Study of the Call of Moses 113
his son
(4:24-26), (b) by enlisting Aaron as his spokesman (4:28-29), (c)
by speaking
to and receiving the support of the enslaved Israelites for the
exit from
raoh
(5:1-5), (e) by encouraging the frightened Israelites to continue to
believe and
obey (6:9), and (f) by continuing to convey the Lord's
messages to
Pharaoh (7:6). All of these actions imply that Moses, and
Aaron as
well, consciously made decisions to respond positively to the
Lord's
command and conform their lives to those decisions.
Making decisions and putting them into
action, even at great risk, was
typical of
the remainder of Moses's life, with the exception of the second
miracle of
bringing water from the rock (Num 20).
Indeed, deciding to conform life to the
Lord's commands was typical of
Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob, after the Lord appeared to each of them. Both
the Old and
New Testaments provide numerous examples of individuals
and groups
making decisions to yield themselves completely to the Lord's
commands and
live accordingly. Throughout history
since the biblical
times, such
obedience has occurred again and again.
What of the present? Are individuals and groups still called to
listen to
the Lord's
will and then make a decision to obey him by conforming all
activities
to the Lord's command to tell others of salvation and judgment?
This
material is cited with gracious permission from:
Asbury Theological Journal
Michele Gaither Sparks (Asc. Editor)
Asbury Theological Seminary
www.asbury.edu
Please report any errors to Ted
Hildebrandt at: