Who Made Man's Mouth - Exodus 4:11-12

4:11-12 - After all the begging and pleading and miracles demonstrated, and Moses finally saying, “I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue,” God really kind of pulls the ultimate trump card, answering, “Who hath made man’s mouth? Or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I the Lord?” I’ve had have an experience like this before and I think I talked about it here before but back probably 10 years ago, I was working the night shift at the hospital but it was this weird quasi-swing shift and I only saw my kids for like an hour a day and I was SO tired and the work sucked, etc. Another tech got into big trouble because of something that kind of got out of hand and when I heard that she was possibly going to be fired, I was SO happy because that meant that I could move into her day shift. A strong voice said to me, “do I care for you so poorly that you hope for someone else’s downfall? If I wanted, I could deposit $25 million into your bank account. I could create the perfect shift just for you, but I don’t. You have exactly what I want you to have right now.”

It was so incredibly powerful, obviously because I still remember it to this day, and it has been so helpful at different times and stages throughout my life since because I get so caught up in what I have and what I don’t and what I want, etc. And honestly, it’s something that I really needed to remember today, God could provide, instantly, anything that I wanted or needed, and he’s done it many times, so I have exactly what he wants me to have right now. Similarly, Moses has exactly what God wants him to have at that moment, he has all the skills and knowledge and ability that God wants him to have.

The fact that Moses doesn’t accept that God can make him whatever is needed shows, according to TB, “that Moses really had little idea of God was, what He was about, what His purposes were, just HOW omnipotent God is.” God continues not only that He created Moses as he was, but “I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.” This is a difficult concept for us mortals to understand because we usually don’t physically SEE God or have him interact with us aurally, we are talking about interacting with the spiritual realm while dwelling in the physical one.

The answer of “I will be with you,” makes more sense to us today because we have 2,000 years of the concept of the Holy Spirit, which I didn’t know but TB points out wasn’t even know at Moses’ time, he says, “at this time in history the Holy Spirit had not yet dwelt within man; that spiritual mystery was still 1400 years into the future.” What’s interesting as an explanation though goes back to what God named Himself to Moses ehyeh asher ehyeh” which TB explains, is “most typically translated ‘I am that I am’? But, equally as correct, would be ‘I will be-there howsoever I will be-there.’ In fact, this is MUCH more literal than ‘I am that I am’ translation. Several times now in Exodus we’re going to encounter ‘ehyeh’ and ‘asher’ when God is telling Moses that He will be-there with him in some situation or another… In other words, we couldn’t comprehend it even if He explained it.”

I take this to mean that God will be there in whatever way we need, if we need guidance, he will give us guidance, if we need the words to speak, he will give us the words to speak, if we need physical protection, He will give us physical protection. Whatever we need, that need will be fulfilled by God. That is what God’s name means, it means everything and everywhere and everyone, it’s a very abstract concept.