Moses’ First Response to God’s Call

As a younger man, Moses showed much evidence of being full of confidence in his own strength. He took it upon himself, for example, to take vengeance on an Egyptian for beating an Israelite, and he intervened in a fight between two Hebrew men to adjudicate their dispute (Ex. 2:11–13). By the time God revealed Himself to Moses at Mount Horeb, however, Moses had lost much of his earlier self-confidence.

We see evidence of this in today’s passage. The Lord has just spoken to Moses from a burning bush, declaring that Moses will be His ambassador to Pharaoh to get the king to release Israel from slavery (3:1–10). Moses’ response is not to accept the call right away but to reply to the Lord, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (v. 11). This is not an expression of humble submission to the Lord’s will that recognizes one’s unworthiness and yet agrees with what God has spoken. David, after hearing that the Lord was entering into an everlasting covenant with him, asked a similar question, but he was clearly accepting the Lord’s words and submitting to them (see 2 Sam. 7). As the narrative of Moses’ interchange with God goes on, however, we see that acceptance is far from the mind of the chosen prophet (see Ex. 4:1–17). Moses is reluctant to obey, not ready to serve. Interestingly, this helps to confirm the accuracy of the historical record. It would have been easy for Moses to record that he had no hesitation to follow the Lord’s command, since it would have demonstrated his superior piety to the reader and bolstered his claim to being a true prophet. But Moses is not interested in making himself look better than he actually was. He records even the accounts that make him look bad, which would not be the case if he were falsifying history.

Although Moses’ lack of confidence was mingled with sinful doubt of the Lord, the question “Who am I?” in itself is not out of place. Indeed, Moses in himself would be unable to accomplish the mission given to him. Yet, Moses would not be alone. God promised to go with him and said that the sign of his call would be that the Israelites would gather at that very mountain to serve the Lord (Ex. 3:12). The Lord was calling Moses to take his eyes off himself and his doubts and to look to God and to the future fulfillment of His promises. Indeed, He calls all of us to do that (Heb. 11:6).