But Moses replied, “Please, Lord, send someone else.”
Parallel translations
- WEB He said, “Oh, Lord, please send someone else.”
- KJV And he said, O my LORD, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send.
- NKJV But he said, “O my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else You may send.”
- NASB But he said, “Please, Lord, now send the message by whomever You will.”
- NLT But Moses again pleaded, “Lord, please! Send anyone else.”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Moses finally pleads with God to send someone else, exposing reluctance beneath his objections. Even chosen servants can resist the call of God.
Overview
Stripped of further excuses, Moses simply asks God to send another, revealing that his hesitancy was rooted not only in inability but in unwillingness. This honest reluctance, met with God's response in the next verses, shows the patience of God toward a flawed servant. It also reminds believers that calling is grounded in God's will and provision, not in our eagerness or sense of fitness.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Exod 4:1Then 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.’”
- Jonah 1:3Jonah, however, got up to flee to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship bound for Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went aboard to sail for Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD.
- Judg 2:1Now the angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bochim and said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I had promised to your fathers, and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you,
- John 6:29Jesus replied, “The work of God is this: to believe in the One He has sent.”
- Ezek 3:14–15So 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.
- Jer 1:6“Ah, Lord GOD,” I said, “I surely do not know how to speak, for I am only a child!”
- Matt 13:41The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will weed out of His kingdom every cause of sin and all who practice lawlessness.
- Gen 48:16the angel who has redeemed me from all harm—may He bless these boys. And may they be called by my name and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they grow into a multitude upon the earth.”
- Jonah 1:6The captain approached him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call upon your God. Perhaps this God will consider us, so that we may not perish.”
- Jer 20:9If I say, “I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,” His message becomes a fire burning in my heart, shut up in my bones, and I become weary of holding it in, and I cannot prevail.
- Exod 23:20Behold, I am sending an angel before you to protect you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.
- 1 Kgs 19:4while he himself traveled on a day’s journey into the wilderness. He sat down under a broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”
- Gen 24:7The LORD, the God of heaven, who brought me from my father’s house and my native land, who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give this land’—He will send His angel before you so that you can take a wife for my son from there.
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Christ at the center
The Passover lamb whose blood turns away death, the exodus through the sea, the manna, the rock, and the tabernacle where God dwells with his people all foreshadow Jesus — our Passover, our redemption, the bread from heaven, and God-with-us in the flesh.
How Exodus 4:13 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.