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Moses, since he knew the hardness of heart of the sons of his people, asked himself for signs with which he could assure them: “They will not listen to my voice, but they will say... God has not appeared to you” (Ex. 4:1). And God said to Moses asking for signs: So that they may believe you that I have sent you, “lay down your staff to the ground.” “And Moses was cast down, and the serpent became: and Moses fled...” (Exodus 4:3). With this sign, which God gave him to convince the people, he convinces Moses himself: Just as you fear Pharaoh, so you are now afraid of the serpent, but your strength will overcome the power of Pharaoh with executions, just as you overcame yourself and took the serpent, which turned into a rod, you, who feared the rod, which turned into a serpent. And God also says to him: “Put your hand into your bosom.” Moses put in, “and his hand became leprous” (Ex. 4:6), and he put in again, and it became clean. God commands to assure the people first with the sign of the serpent, and then with the sign of the hand covered with leprosy and cleansed. Pharaoh and his army are not stronger than the serpent, and it is not difficult for Me, like your hand, to change them into what I want. “If the two Egyptians do not believe you through these signs” (Ex. 4:9), which you perform before them and before the sons of your people, pour river water on the dry land, and there will be blood. When God gave Moses the signs that he asked for, then he asks the Lord to resolve his tongue-tied tongue and says: “I am unkind... the man below began to speak” (Ex. 4:10) to me, my tongue-tiedness was resolved. The Lord says to him: The very thing with which you are humbled will make you great. For you, like the silent God, will have a prophetic Prophet. “And I will be with your mouth” (Ex. 4:12), but not in order to loosen your tongue and make your speech clear, but so that what you say in a tongue-tied manner will be followed by great deeds. After this, Moses returns to the land of Midian and says to his father-in-law: “I will go... and see... my brothers who are in Egypt” (Ex. 4:18). Although it was regrettable to be separated from Moses, he was not restrained, according to the will of God, revealed from above. Since Moses feared that the Egyptian nobles, whom he attacked for oppressing his people, would arouse anger against him in the new Pharaoh, as they aroused in the previous one, God says to him: “For all who seek thy soul are cut off” (Ex. 4:19). “Moses took with him his wife... and sons” (Ex. 4:20), he also took the rod, and went to Egypt. When he left the land of Midian, God again commanded him to say to Pharaoh: “Let My firstborn son go, that He may serve Me.” Otherwise, for My firstborn son, whom you will hold, although you are not able to hold him, “I will kill your firstborn son” (Ex. 4:23), what can I do. So God, in words, before all the executions, threatens Pharaoh with this execution: “I will kill your firstborn son,” which was more than all the executions. In fact, it shows the least of all signs - the sign of the serpent. “When Moses was on his way to the camp, he cut him off... The Lord sought to kill him” (Ex. 4:24) - for neglecting circumcision, because he left one of the sons born in the land of Midian uncircumcised. For from the day that God spoke to Moses at Horeb, he had not seen his wife. And Zipporah was worried by the thought that, not fully trusting the truth of her husband’s words, she had thereby made herself guilty. And Moses himself found himself guilty because he did not circumcise his son. But when they indulged in such thoughts, an Angel appeared to both of them. He announces that he came to demand circumcision, so that Moses, when he came to the Jews, would not be ridiculed because, being out of all danger, he neglected circumcision, while they do not neglect circumcision even with all their grief over the death of their sons. The angel appears to Moses angry, admonishing him about whom he should fear - either God, who established circumcision, or the rib, who prevents him from circumcision. Zipporah, seeing that Moses was threatened with death because she neglected circumcision, about which she argued with Moses in the evening, and was frightened by the vision of the Angel, “taking up... the stone of the circumcision... of her son” (Ex. 4:25). And leaving him, stained with his blood, he embraces the feet of the Angel and says: “I have a bridegroom of blood” (Ex. 4:25), you will not cause sorrow on the day of the marriage of circumcision, because great was the joy of Abraham on the day when he circumcised Isaac. "The bridegroom is of my blood." You will not cause sorrow for the sake of me, who circumcised my son with my own hands, and for the sake of Moses, and for the sake of Him who gave the commandment of circumcision, which has now been fulfilled. When the Angel left them, Moses had the opportunity to say to Zipporah: If you were filled with fear at one hour when the Angel appeared, then how much reverence and in what holiness should I keep my soul before God, who continually reveals Himself to me, works signs with my hand, guided me with this rod and sent me for the deliverance of six hundred thousand people? Having said this, Moses returned Zipporah to his father, firstly, for the sake of his circumcised son, so that his illness would not increase along the way, and secondly, because it would be untimely for Zipporah and his sons to come to Egypt, when all Israel was about to leave Egypt. Meanwhile, the Lord appeared to Aaron and sent him “to meet Moses” (Ex. 4:27), so that after the actual completion of what was said to him, he would believe in the fulfillment of what was to happen later. You might be interested in: