“If they will not believe you,” God said, “or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign.
8. And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee. In these words God took away from Moses every handle for doubt; as much as to say, that he was sufficiently provided and strengthened to overcome the stubbornness of the people; and yet, heaping up the measure to overflowing, he afterwards added a third sign, from whence Moses might attain full confidence...
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 it shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee,.... Will not give credit to the commission he had from God, but question the truth of it: neither hearken to the voice of the first sign; which miracle wrought, spoke plain enough that he that wrought it, or for whose sake it was wrought, must be one come from God, or such a...