"And the Lord said furthermore unto him, 'Put now thine hand into thy bosom.' And he put his hand into his bosom; and when he took it out, behold his hand was leprous as snow. And He said, 'Put thine hand into thy bosom again.' And he put his hand into his bosom again, and plucked it out of his bosom; and, behold, it was turned again as his other flesh." The leprous hand and the cleansing thereof present to us the moral effect of sin, as also the way in which sin has been met in the perfect work of Christ. The clean hand, placed in the bosom, becomes leprous; and the leprous hand, placed there, becomes clean. Leprosy is the well-known type of sin; and sin came in by the first man and was put away by the second. "By man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead." (1 Cor. xv. 21.) Man brought in ruin, man brought in redemption; man brought in guilt, man brought in pardon; man brought in sin, man brought in righteousness; man filled the scene with death, man abolished death and filled the scene with life, righteousness, and glory. Thus, not only shall the serpent himself be eternally defeated and confounded, but every trace of his abominable work shall be eradicated and wiped away by the atoning sacrifice of Him "who was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil."
"And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe also these two signs, neither hearken unto thy voice, that thou shalt take of the water of the river, and pour it upon the dry land; and the water which thou takest out of the river shall become blood upon the dry land." This was a solemn and most expressive figure of the consequence of refusing to bow to the divine testimony. This sign was only to be wrought in the event of their refusing the other two. It was first to be a sign to Israel, and afterwards a plague upon Egypt. (Comp. chapter vii. 17.)
All this, however, fails to satisfy the heart of Moses. "And Moses said unto the Lord, 'O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant; but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.'" Terrible backwardness! Naught save Jehovah's infinite patience could have endured it. Surely, when God Himself had said, "I will be with thee," it was an infallible security, in reference to everything which could possibly be needed. If an eloquent tongue were necessary, what had Moses to do but to set it over against "I AM"? Eloquence, wisdom, might, energy,--everything was contained in that exhaustless treasury. "And the Lord said unto him, 'Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not _I the Lord_? Now, therefore, go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.'" Profound, adorable, matchless grace! worthy of God! There is none like unto the Lord our God, whose patient grace surmounts all our difficulties, and proves itself amply sufficient for our manifold need and weakness. "I THE LORD" ought to silence forever the reasonings of our carnal hearts. But, alas! these reasonings are hard to be put down. Again and again they rise to the surface, to the disturbance of our peace, and the dishonor of that blessed One, who sets Himself before our souls, in all His own essential fullness, to be used according to our need.
It is well to bear in mind that when we have the Lord with us, our very deficiences and infirmities become an occasion for the display of His all-sufficient grace and perfect patience. Had Moses remembered this, his want of eloquence need not have troubled him. The apostle Paul learnt to say, "Most gladly, therefore, _will I rather glory_ in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore _I take pleasure_ in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then am I strong." (2 Cor. xii. 9, 10.) This is, assuredly, the utterance of one who had reached an advanced form in the school of Christ. It is the experience of one who would not have been much troubled because of not possessing an eloquent tongue, inasmuch as he had found an answer to every description of need in the precious grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.