“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.”
Moses makes yet another objection: pardon your servant, Lord — I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to me. I am slow of speech and tongue. This is Moses' fourth deflection, and the most personal. He is not questioning God's power or Israel's readiness — he is questioning his own voice. The deliverer of a nation is telling God he cannot speak. It is worth pausing on the honesty of this: Moses does not perform confidence before God. He names his limitation directly. Some scholars speculate Moses had a stutter or speech impediment; others read it as social anxiety after forty years of near-solitude. Either way, the limitation is real to him. 1 Corinthians 2:1–4 says Paul himself came to Corinth in weakness and fear and much trembling, his speech not with wise and persuasive words but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power. God consistently deploys people whose voices are inadequate so that the message is attributed to Him.
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