Then Moses answered, “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The LORD did not appear to you.’”
1. And Moses answered. Moses relates in this chapter how hesitatingly he obeyed God, not from stubbornness, but from timidity, for he does not shake off the yoke, as unruly beasts do, but shrinks away from it, that it may not be placed upon him. “Pensant qu’il ne luy peut estre approprie;” thinking that it cannot be fitted to him. — Fr.
It was a very great honour that Moses was called to when God commissioned him to bring Israel out of Egypt; yet he is with difficulty persuaded to accept the commission, and does it at last with great reluctance, which we should rather impute to a humble diffidence of himself and his own sufficiency than to any unbelieving distrust of God and his word and power.
Commenting on Exodus 4:1-9
And Moses answered and said,.... In reference to what Jehovah had declared to him in the latter end of the preceding chapter: but, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken to my voice; this seems to contradict what God had said to him, Exo 3:18 that they would hearken to his voice; but it can hardly be thought, that so good a man, and...