Moses' Call to Leadership

God called Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and into the land of Canaan, the place God earlier promised to Abraham.

One of those Israelite babies was not thrown into the Nile. After putting him in a basket, his mother set it afloat in the Nile, trusting God to protect him. Pharaoh’s daughter found the boy and reared him, naming him Moses. Ironically, one of the boys Pharaoh wanted dead grew up in his own home.

After Moses became a man, he killed an Egyptian whom he had seen beating a Hebrew (one of his people). He fled Egypt and became a shepherd in the wilderness of Sinai for 40 years.

One day, as he led his flock near Mount Horeb, he saw a bush all ablaze that wasn’t consumed by the fire. He thought it unusual, so he approached the bush.

“Moses! Moses!” God called from the bush.

“Here I am,” Moses answered.

“Stay where you are. Take off your sandals. You are standing on holy ground. I am the God your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob worshiped.”

Moses, afraid to look at God, shed his shoes and covered his face. God continued to speak.

“I have seen the misery and oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard them beg for help and have come down to rescue them. I will deliver them out of Egypt and give them the fruitful land of the Canaanites. So go to Pharaoh. I am sending you to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

But Moses said to God, “I am nobody special. How can I go to Pharaoh?”

“How? I will be with you! You will know that I am the one who sent you when you worship me again on this mountain after you lead my people out of Egypt.”

Moses asked another question: “If I go to the Israelites in that land of many gods and say, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me,’ they might ask me your name. What should I say?”

“I am the eternal God, the self-existent One. Tell the Israelites ‘I Am’ has sent you. This is my eternal name and the name by which I will be remembered. Bring the leaders together and tell them that the LORD, the God of your ancestors, appeared to you and said, ‘I have seen your trouble. I promise to deliver you and bring you to the land of the Canaanites.’”

Moses asked a third question: “What if they don’t believe me or say, ‘God didn’t appear to you’?”

God asked, “What’s in your hand?”

Moses replied, “A walking stick.”

“Throw it down.”

Moses threw it on the ground. Immediately it became a snake, and Moses jumped away.

“Pick it up by its tail.” When Moses did, it turned right back into his walking stick.

“Do this so they will believe that the God of their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has sent you.”

Moses went back to Egypt, and with his brother, Aaron, called a meeting of the Israelite leaders. They told the leaders what God said to Moses and performed the miracle. The Israelites believed and worshiped God because they knew He had seen their suffering and was going to deliver them.