NOTES for Exo 4:1-31
No plan of God was ever carried out without the direct participation of the people of God. But no plan of His was ever carried out without that one person, chosen by Him Himself, on whom, so to speak, personal responsibility for carrying out God's plan was laid. And now Moses was to become such a person (Exod. 3:10).
And here Moses becomes afraid. He asks God a completely natural question in such a situation: "And who exactly am I, to take on this task?" (Exod. 3:11). And immediately he receives a completely unambiguous answer: "The point is not who you are. I am sending you, and therefore, whoever you may be, you will return to Egypt and do everything I command you to do" (Exod. 3:16-20).
But it is not easy for a person to accept such a commission on such terms. And Moses tries to refuse the commission.
It begins with a completely natural question: what if they do not believe me (v. 4)? This could indeed have happened, but God resolves this problem without any difficulty (vv. 2-9). At first glance, these "miracles" resemble either circus tricks or magical techniques more than anything else; but the level of religious consciousness of the overwhelming majority of Moses' tribesmen in those days was such that it was impossible to convince them of the reality of God's intervention in any other way.
Next come statements about his own "slowness of speech," which could hinder Moses from fulfilling the commission God had given him (v. 10). This is hardly about some physical defect. Most likely, Moses wanted to say that he did not know how to speak the way the prophets of those times spoke, prophets who, feeling the nearness of higher powers, entered ecstasy and uttered inspired prophecies, often in poetic form. Moses knew perfectly well that he was not a prophet, because prophets were completely different. But God tells Moses that He is the One who gives inspiration and the gift of prophetic speech, and therefore Moses has nothing to be troubled about (vv. 11-12).
And then Moses asks directly: send someone else (v. 13). At this point it becomes clear: the issue is not that Moses is afraid they will not believe him, or that he doubts his prophetic calling. He simply cannot bring himself to rely on God alone, throwing aside all human conventions and ideas. And then he feels what God's anger is, while at the same time receiving his brother as a helper, a brother about whom we learn that he was a genuine, "proper" prophet (v. 14).
And yet, by sending Aaron to help Moses, God does not remove responsibility from Moses himself, leaving the leading role to him (vv. 15-16). Now Moses has nothing left to say against God, and he goes to fulfill the commission given to him (v. 18).