We’ve been tracking Moses’ response to his call. First, in Exodus 2, he called himself, and that didn’t go so well. Then 40 years later, God calls him, and Moses wants no part of it:

• Who am I?
• Who are you?

Moses opens chapter 4 with another question:

• What if they don’t believe me?

Then Moses answered and said, “What if they will not believe me and will not listen to my voice? For they may say, ‘Yahweh has not appeared to you.’” And Yahweh said to him, “What is this in your hand?” And he said, “A staff.” Then He said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it. (Exodus 4.1 – 3, LSB)

God gives him three signs: the serpent, the leprous hand, and water from the Nile turning into blood. (See Exodus 4.1 – 9)

Moses then just makes a flat statement:

• I can’t talk.

Then Moses said to Yahweh, “Please, Lord, I have never been a man of words, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your slave; for I am one with a hard mouth and a hard tongue.” And Yahweh said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes him mute or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, Yahweh? So now, go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth and will instruct you what you shall speak.” (Exodus 4.10 – 12, LSB)

With this, God is getting a bit put out: “Who made man’s mouth!?” It’s back to “I will be with you.” (Exodus 3.12)

But Moses wails:

But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.” (Exodus 4.13, ESV)

Wow. These Bible characters aren’t our best role models, are they?

Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD. (Jonah 1.1 – 3, ESV)