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God Gives Moses Miraculous Powers
v. 1. And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice; for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee. The fear and anxiety of Moses here discovered another objection, that based upon the fact that the people were no longer accustomed to prophetic voices and would therefore not acknowledge his call.
v. 2. And the Lord said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod. Moses held his shepherd's staff in his hand.
v. 3. And He said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it. The serpent was no delusion, but a fact, and looked dangerous enough to fill the heart of Moses with fear.
v. 4. And the Lord said unto Moses, Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he put forth his hand and caught it, and it became a rod in his land;
v. 5. that they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee. The simple shepherd's staff, according to the will of God, became the instrument by which Pharaoh and his land were punished, for the miracle showed that God would deliver His people from the hostile power which was holding it captive. Moses received the commission, the power. to overcome the might, the wickedness of Satan, and this fact could not be hidden from the eyes of the children of Israel: they were bound to acknowledge his call.
v. 6. And the Lord said furthermore unto him, Put now thy hand into thy bosom. And he put his hand into his bosom; and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as snow, infected with the white leprosy, Lev_13:3.
v. 7. And he said, Put thine hand into thy bosom again. And he put his hand into his bosom again; and plucked it out of his bosom, and, behold, it was turned again as his other flesh. Thereby the Lord signified that He intended to cleanse His people, the children of Israel, of the spiritual leprosy of sin by the sacrifices and purifications which typified the cleansing through the redemption of Christ.
v. 8. And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, to its unmistakable evidence, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign.
v. 9. And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe also these two signs, neither hearken unto thy voice, that thou shalt take of the water of the river (Nile), and pour it upon the dry land; and the water which thou takest out of the river shall become blood upon the dry land. The Nile was given the veneration of a god in Egypt on account of the fact that the fertility of the entire country depended upon its annual overflow. If Moses, therefore. had the power to turn this water of blessing into blood, he commanded a power which exceeded that of Pharaoh: death and destruction upon the tyrants was in his hand. The same almighty power of God is able to deliver us from every evil work and to give us the possession of the saints in light.