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Chapter 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Exodus, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
God’s Identity and Power
Redemption and Deliverance
The Covenant
Mediators and the Priesthood
Summary
Analysis
Moses asks God what he should do if the elders do not believe that God appeared to him. God orders Moses to throw the staff he’s holding onto the ground. When Moses does, the staff turns into a snake. God tells Moses to grab the snake by its tail, and when he does, the snake turns back into a staff. This sign will demonstrate that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob really did send Moses.
God gives Moses miraculous signs that will demonstrate his God-given authority to his fellow Israelites and persuade them to listen to Moses’s message. The signs also serve to reassure Moses himself. The staff-to-snake sign will reoccur later, when Moses goes before Pharaoh himself.
Themes
God gives Moses another miraculous sign. He tells Moses to put his hand inside his cloak; when Moses withdraws his hand, it is white and leprous. When he puts his hand inside his cloak again, the skin is restored. If the elders don’t believe Moses’s first sign, they might believe this one. If they believe neither of these signs, then Moses should pour some water from the Nile onto the ground, and the water will become blood.
Subsequent signs—of a diseased hand and water turned to blood—might persuade skeptical holdouts of Moses’s authority. All three of the miraculous signs show God’s power over creatures, people, and elements. These signs also foreshadow God’s deliverance of Israel through miraculous “plagues.”
Themes
But Moses is still troubled. He tells the LORD that he’s never been eloquent—he’s “slow of speech.” The LORD replies that he is the one who gives human beings the power of speech, and he will help Moses speak. But Moses begs God to send somebody else instead. God is angry, but he tells Moses that his brother, Aaron the Levite, who is a fluent speaker, can speak on Moses’s behalf.
Moses grew up in Pharaoh’s court, so he knows that his speaking ability won’t measure up. His continued reluctance shows his weakness as a leader and his need of God’s power. God is angry because Moses ought to trust God enough by now to obey his command. Nevertheless, God graciously offers an alternative.
Themes
God assures Moses that the Egyptians who’d threatened Moses’s life are dead, so Moses prepares his family for the journey back to Egypt. God also tells Moses that when he performs wonders before Pharaoh, God will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he won’t let the people go on their journey. Then Moses must tell Pharaoh that because Pharaoh won’t release God’s “firstborn son,” meaning Israel, God will now kill Pharaoh’s firstborn son.
Recall that Moses fled to Midian because he killed an Egyptian who abused a Hebrew. Just returning to Egypt is a risky move. What’s more, Moses knows in advance that his mission won’t be successful at first: God will cause Pharaoh to resist him (“harden his heart”), escalating the conflict. “Firstborn son” refers to the Israelites’ special relationship with God, implying that the Egyptian people as a whole will be threatened if Pharaoh continues to mistreat Israel.
Themes
Get the entire Exodus LitChart as a printable PDF.
On the way to Egypt, when Moses’s family stops to spend the night, the LORD tries to kill Moses. His wife Zipporah cuts off her son’s foreskin and touches Moses’s feet with it, calling Moses her “bridegroom of blood.” Then God leaves Moses alone.
In Genesis, God required that males be circumcised as a sign that they’re in a covenant with him. Disobedient people and families would be “cut off” from their people. That’s presumably what’s happened here—for whatever reason, Moses hadn’t circumcised his son. Like other quick-thinking, resourceful women in Exodus, Zipporah intervenes to spare Moses’s life.
Themes
The LORD tells Aaron to meet Moses at Mount Horeb. Moses tells Aaron everything that God has commanded him. Then Moses and Aaron gather the elders of the Israelites, and Aaron speaks the words that God had spoken to Moses and performs the signs. The elders believe, and they worship God, knowing he has heeded their misery.
Mount Horeb (later Mount Sinai) is associated with God’s revelation of himself, his promise to deliver his people, and his covenant with them. Moses tells Aaron about God’s commands at Mount Horeb, where God commissioned Moses initially, and Aaron undertakes his duties as Moses’s spokesman for the first time. Mount Horeb is also where the Israelites will worship God after they’ve been freed from Egypt.
Themes
