...snakes and faithful living...

“1 Then Moses answered the Lord, ‘But suppose they do not believe me or listen to me, but say, “The Lord did not appear to you.”’ 2 The Lord said to him, ‘What is that in your hand?’ He said, ‘A staff.’ 3 And he said, ‘Throw it on the ground.’ So he threw the staff on the ground, and it became a snake; and Moses drew back from it. 4 Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Reach out your hand, and seize it by the tail’— so he reached out his hand and grasped it, and it became a staff in his hand — 5 ‘so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.’

6 Again, the Lord said to him, ‘Put your hand inside your cloak.’ He put his hand into his cloak; and when he took it out, his hand was leprous, as white as snow. 7 Then God said, ‘Put your hand back into your cloak’— so he put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored like the rest of his body — 8 ‘If they will not believe you or heed the first sign, they may believe the second sign. 9 If they will not believe even these two signs or heed you, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground; and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground’” Exodus 4:1-9.

Here Moses is calling God “Yahweh.” We also see the three miraculous signs all involved changing something into something else. In the case of the first two (staff to snake, normal hand to leprous hand) what got changed was immediately changed back into what it was at first, so that the change was only temporarily frightening. In the case of the third (water to blood), what got changed stayed changed—and the consequences were far more widespread and life threatening.

The fact that Moses’ common wooden shepherd's staff could become a snake and vice versa would presented itself as a perfectly convincing demonstration of divine power. The presumption here is that this sign could be done over and over again, for various groups of Israelites as they were encountered, because Moses would routinely have had his staff with him. There is, however, a greater importance to the use of the staff: this is the  beginning of the development of the concept that Moses' staff symbolized Yahweh's power, a concept that culminates in Moses' holding up the staff at the Battle of Rephidim as a symbol of God's throne (see 17:16).

Snakes are frightening to most people when suddenly encountered, and it is fully understandable that Moses should run from one that sprung to life from his staff. Nothing in the text suggests that this snake was poisonous, and nothing links it with the Gen. 3 account of Satan in the form of the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Moses simply did what I would have done — run from a snake that suddenly appeared in front of me until I could get far enough away to see whether or not it was poisonous. The purpose was not to scare Moses or anyone else; the purpose was to help introduce Yahweh as the true God to people who didn't know Him yet but who desperately needed his salvation. Yahweh's control of something as frightening as a snake, including his ability to make it materialize from a piece of wood, was evidence of his powerful reality.

Dear friends, Yahweh is the true God, especially to people who don't know Him yet but who desperately needed His salvation. You and I ought to spend some time today in prayer asking good for His grace to help us live our lives as people who truly know Him. Take time and talk to God about blessing you with salvation, despite your sin. Envision yourself as a faithful Israelite who journeyed across the desert as a faithful follower of God. And when you fail in this regard, pray for the grace to run back to God and follow Him again.

Lord Jesus Christ, son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.