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CHAPTER 4: The Call Of Moses - The Vision Of The Burning Bush -The
Commission To Pharaoh And To Israel-And The Three " Signs," And Their
MeaningExodus 2:23; 4:17
WHEN God is about to do any of His great works, He first silently prepares all for it.
Not only thegood seed to be scattered, but the breaking up of the soil for its reception
is His. Instrumentalities,unrecognized at the time, are silently at work; and, together
with the good gift to be bestowed on Hisown, He grants them the felt need and the
earnest seeking of it. Thus prayers and answers are, as itwere, the scales of grace in
equipoise.
It was not otherwise when God would work the great deliverance of His people from
Egypt. Oncemore it seemed as if the clouds overhead were just then darkest and
heaviest. One king had diedand another succeeded; but the change of government
brought not to Israel that relief which theyhad probably expected. Their bondage
seemed now part of the settled policy of the Pharaohs. Notone ray of hope lit up their
sufferings other than what might have been derived from faith. Butcenturies had
passed without any communication or revelation from the God of their fathers!
It must therefore be considered a revival of religion when, under such circumstances,
the people,instead of either despairing or plotting rebellion against Pharaoh, turned in
earnest prayer unto theLord, or, as the sacred text puts it, significantly adding the
definite article before God, (Exodus 2:23)"cried" "unto the God," that is, not as unto
one out of many, but unto the only true and living God.This spirit of prayer, now for
the first time appearing among them, was the first pledge and harbinger,indeed, the
commencement of their deliverance. (Exodus 3:7; Deuteronomy 26:7) For though
only "acry," so to speak, spiritually inarticulate, no intervening period of time divided
their prayer from itsanswer. "And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His
covenant with Abraham, withIsaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the
children of Israel, and God had respect untothem" - literally, He "knew them," that is,
recognized them as the chosen seed of Abraham, and,recognizing, manifested His love
towards them.
The southern end of the peninsula of Sinai, to which the sacred narrative now takes us,
consists of aconfused mass of peaks (the highest above 9,000 feet), some of dark
green porphyry, but mostlyred granite of different hues, which is broken by strips of
sand or gravel, intersected by wadies orglens, which are the beds of winter torrents,
and dotted here and there with green spots, chiefly dueto perennial fountains. The
great central group among these mountains is that of Horeb, and onespecial height in
it Sinai, the "mount of God." Strangely enough it is just here amidst this
awfuldesolateness that the most fertile places in "the wilderness" are also found. Even
(^)