Exodus 4:17

World English Bible

Contextual Overview

¹⁰ Moses said to Yahweh, "Oh, Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before now, nor since you have spoken to your servant; for I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue." ¹¹ Yahweh said to him, "Who made man's mouth? Or who makes one mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Isn't it I, Yahweh? ¹² Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth, and teach you what you shall speak." ¹³ He said, "Oh, Lord, please send someone else." ¹⁴ The anger of Yahweh was kindled against Moses, and he said, "What about Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Also, behold, he comes forth to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. ¹⁵ You shall speak to him, and put the words in his mouth. I will be with your mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do. ¹⁶ He will be your spokesman to the people; and it will happen, that he will be to you a mouth, and you will be to him as God. ¹⁷ You shall take this rod in your hand, with which you shall do the signs."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Exodus 4:2, Exodus 7:9, Exodus 7:19, 1 Corinthians 1:27

Reciprocal: Exodus 4:3 - it became Exodus 4:14 - cometh Exodus 4:20 - the rod of God Exodus 14:16 - lift Leviticus 8:11 - General Numbers 17:2 - twelve rods Numbers 20:8 - the rod 2 Kings 4:29 - take my 2 Kings 13:17 - The arrow

Cross-References

Genesis 4:4
Abel also brought some of the firstborn of his flock and of the fat of it. Yahweh respected Abel and his offering,

Genesis 4:11
Now you are cursed because of the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.

Genesis 5:18
Jared lived one hundred sixty-two years, and became the father of Enoch.

Genesis 5:22
Enoch walked with God after he became the father of Methuselah three hundred years, and became the father of sons and daughters.

Genesis 11:4
They said, "Come, let's build us a city, and a tower, whose top reaches to the sky, and let's make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad on the surface of the whole earth."

2 Samuel 18:18
Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself the pillar, which is in the king's dale; for he said, I have no son to keep my name in memory: and he called the pillar after his own name; and it is called Absalom's monument, to this day.

Psalms 49:11
Their inward thought is, that their houses will endure forever, And their dwelling places to all generations. They name their lands after themselves.

Daniel 4:30
The king spoke and said, Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling-place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And thou shall take this rod in thine hand,.... Which he then had in his hand, and was no other than his shepherd's staff:

wherewith thou shall do signs: wondrous things, meaning the ten plagues inflicted on Egypt.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Exodus 4:17. Thou shalt take this rod — From the story of Moses's rod the heathens have invented the fables of the thyrsus of Bacchus, and the caduceus of Mercury. Cicero reckons five Bacchuses, one of which, according to Orpheus, was born of the river Nile; but, according to the common opinion, he was born on the banks of that river. Bacchus is expressly said to have been exposed on the river Nile, hence he is called Nilus, both by Diodorus and Macrobius; and in the hymns of Orpheus he is named Myses, because he was drawn out of the water. He is represented by the poets as being very beautiful, and an illustrious warrior; they report him to have overrun all Arabia with a numerous army both of men and women. He is said also to have been an eminent law-giver, and to have written his laws on two tables. He always carried in his hand the thyrsus, a rod wreathed with serpents, and by which he is reported to have wrought many miracles. Any person acquainted with the birth and exploits of the poetic Bacchus will at once perceive them to be all borrowed from the life and acts of Moses, as recorded in the Pentateuch; and it would be losing time to show the parallel, by quoting passages from the book of Exodus.

The caduceus or rod of Mercury is well known in poetic fables. It is another copy Of the rod of Moses. He also is reported to have wrought a multitude of miracles by this rod; and particularly he is said to kill and make alive, to send souls to the invisible world and bring them back from thence. Homer represents Mercury taking his rod to work miracles precisely in the same way as God commands Moses to take his.

Ἑρμης δε ψυχας Κυλληνιος εξεκαλειτο

Ανδρων μνηστηρων· εχε δε ῬΑΒΔΟΝ μετα χερσιν

Καλην, χρυσειην, τῃ τ' ανδρων ομματα θελγει,

Ὡν εθελει, τους δ' αυτε και ὑπνωοντας εγειρει.

Odyss., lib. xxiv., ver. 1.

Cyllenian Hermes now call'd forth the souls

Of all the suitors; with his golden WAND

Of power, to seal in balmy sleep whose eyes

Soe'er he will, and open them again. COWPER.

Virgil copies Homer, but carries the parallel farther, tradition having probably furnished him with more particulars; but in both we may see a disguised copy of the sacred history, from which indeed the Greek and Roman poets borrowed most of their beauties.

TUM VIRGAM CAPIT: hac animas ille evocat Orco

Pallentes, alias sub tristia Tartara mittit;

Dat somnos, adimitque, et lumina morte resignat

ILLA fretus agit, ventos, et turbida tranat.

AEneid, lib. iv., ver. 242.

But first he grasps within his awful hand

The mark of sovereign power, the magic wand;

With this he draws the ghosts from hollow graves,

With this he drives them down the Stygian waves;

With this he seals in sleep the wakeful sight,

And eyes, though closed in death, restores to light.

Thus arm'd, the god begins his airy race,

And drives the racking clouds along the liquid space.

DRYDEN.

Many other resemblances between the rod of the poets and that of Moses, the learned reader will readily recollect. These specimens may be deemed sufficient.