Bible Commentaries
Exodus 6

Verses 1-30

Here commences the section of Exodus devoted to the subject of national deliverance. Everything began with a solemn charge to Moses. It is first an answer to the complaint which God's servant had uttered in His presence. It was a message of divine self-assertion and, therefore, necessarily a message of grace. Mark the recurrence of the personal pronoun. That is the permanent value of this wonderful passage. The supreme need in every hour of difficulty and depression is a vision of God. To see Him is to see all else in proper proportion and perspective. Moreover, in this passage we have the unfolding of the real value of the name Jehovah.

After this the command to go to Pharaoh was reiterated and a new fear took possession of the heart of Moses which again was expressed in the presence of God. He no longer complained at God's treatment of the people but spoke of his own inability to deliver God's message. That inability was now born of a sense, not as before of his lack of eloquence, but of his uncleanness. He spoke of himself as of uncircumcised lips. As when Isaiah beheld the glory of God he cried, "I am a man of unclean lips"; and as Daniel in the presence of the same glory said, "My comeliness was turned in me into corruption"; and as Job in the presence of the matchless splendor of God said, "Behold, I am of small account"; so Moses became conscious of his own moral imperfection.