Bible Strands
Exodus 4:1
Then Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to my voice? For they may say, ‘The LORD has not appeared to you.’”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Moses speaks to the LORD at the burning bush, voicing a fear that the Israelites will not believe or listen to his voice. He anticipates their objection that the LORD has not appeared to him.
The words — The text records יַאֲמִ֣ינוּ (ya.'a.Mi.nu) as "they will believe" and יִשְׁמְע֖וּ (yish.me.'U) as "they will listen." Moses uses these future-tense verbs to frame his doubt about the people's response.
The thread — The text notes in Exodus 3:18 that the elders will listen to what Moses says, and in Exodus 4:31 that they ultimately believed and heard that the LORD had attended to them. This pattern of listening and believing also contrasts with the resistance recorded in Exodus 2:14, where the Israelites question his authority.
Why it lands — The verse demands a reader to confront the gap between divine commission and anticipated human resistance. It requires honest acknowledgment of fear when receiving a task that seems impossible to fulfill.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee.
Cross-references
- Exodus 3:18 The elders of Israel will listen to what you say, and you must go with them to the king of Egypt and tell him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now please let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness, so that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.’
- Exodus 4:31 and they believed. And when they heard that the LORD had attended to the Israelites and had seen their affliction, they bowed down and worshiped.
- Exodus 2:14 But the man replied, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you planning to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “This thing I have done has surely become known.”
- Exodus 6:30 But in the LORD’s presence Moses replied, “Since I am unskilled in speech, why would Pharaoh listen to me?”
- Jeremiah 1:6 “Ah, Lord GOD,” I said, “I surely do not know how to speak, for I am only a child!”
- Acts 7:25 He assumed his brothers would understand that God was using him to deliver them, but they did not.
- Ezekiel 3:14 So the Spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness and in the anger of my spirit, with the strong hand of the LORD upon me.