World's Worst Promotion - Exodus 4:13-18

4:13-18 - Finally, for the last time, Moses BEGS “O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send.” Now this might sound like Moses is accepting, but he, in fact, is not, and as TB so precisely put it, “wrong answer.” God answers, saying, “Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well.” This is the solution that God has presented, “your brother Aaron will speak for you.” The appointment of Aaron as spokesman makes a few important points. First, it makes me wonder just how involved Moses had been with his birth family the whole time he was in Egypt. This might seem obvious because Miriam took Moses as a baby back to his mother to be raised, but because I mostly only know the movies, according to them, when Moses meets Aaron and Miriam for the first time, they don’t know each other. This is obviously incorrect, but it makes me wonder just how involved he was with them before he left Egypt completely.

Second, is that is that Aaron is a Levite, which I didn’t think was significant at first, but TB explains, “It should not go unnoticed that God referred to Aaron as the ‘Levite.’ I mean, after all, since this was Moses’ own brother, Moses rather well knew that Aaron was of the tribe of Levi. I think the thing to take from this, is that right here we see God’s intention that the tribe of Levi is going to be set apart as special.” We also have to remember that this was written by Moses *probably* decades after it happened, so he has the benefit of hindsight and might have thought or remembered to include this to show that the Levite appointment to priesthood service started here.

Third, when God continues, “behold, he cometh forth to meet thee: and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart,” shows that God knew that Moses would refuse to do it alone and so has been preparing Aaron for quite some time as well. If God truly didn’t know that Moses would refuse, he would have said something like, “well who else can I send?” which obviously he didn’t so God knew and prepared for this situation. And Aaron was at least willing, and knew that Moses was coming back to the point of meeting him outside of the city.

God acquiesces but it doesn’t let Moses off the hook like he hopes it will. Aaron can be the actual speaker, but Moses will have to “put works in his mouth: and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do.” Moses isn’t getting out of the assignment, he’s just getting more of a management role. Not only will he have to teach Aaron God’s will, but instead of the communication chain being God -> Moses -> people now it’s going to be Moses -> Aaron -> people, which means that “thou shalt be to him instead of God.” Moses has been promoted from prophet for God to prophet OF God. This probably isn’t the way Moses wanted this to go. Instead of being excused from service, he’s now taking on a more serious role and even though he might not have to physically speak to the people, he still has to “take this rod in thine hand, wherewith thou shalt do signs.” Moses isn’t getting out of going the signs and wonders. I wonder just how relieved he felt after this conversation.

TB mentions, “the pecking order is established: God speaks to Moses, and Moses speaks to Aaron, and Aaron speaks to Pharaoh and to the people… God, for His own divine purposes, has decided that whatever Moses speaks shall carry with it the same authority as if God Himself spoke it… God sure seemed to see Moses as very special, as he was given the power to work miracles, and the position of speaking AS God. What an incredible responsibility. NO wonder he didn’t want the job.”

Seeing that Moses was now going to be required to leave the place where he had lived for decades to return to a land he left out of fear of being killed, he basically had to put in his two weeks notice, but in the ancient middle eastern custom at the time. He worked as an employee for his father-in-law Jethro, so he went to him and asked for permission to leave and go back to Egypt to check on his family. Jethro answered, “go in peace.” I just want to point out the vast difference in how that conversation went with Jethro than how it went with Laban when Jacob tried to leave. Jacob was even taking part of Laban’s increase as his wages and building his own wealth, and Jacob and his wives STILL had to tip toe around and trick Laban into letting them go, running away in the middle of the night. Whereas, Moses was not taking any of Jethro’s increase so he was a huge asset, and yet Jethro basically wishes him luck on his journey. Just a view on how each of them men were on the opposite ends of the spectrum as far as what kind of people they were personally.