Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 99 · April 9
Cast It on the Ground
“And the LORD said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod.”
What was the rod actually for?
Start with the objection it answers. Moses has just said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The LORD hath not appeared unto thee. His problem is credibility. Into that comes the question: What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod. A shepherd's stick, forty years of leaning on it in Midian.
Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it. He runs from his own walking stick. Then he is told to pick it up by the tail, the end no man who has handled snakes would choose, and it goes stiff in his hand. The purpose is printed plainly after it: That they may believe that the LORD God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee. The sign is a credential, aimed at the elders in Egypt, and its subject is God.
Worth saying, because the question gets lifted out and used as a line about the resources you already hold: what is in your hand, use what you have. The chapter refuses to go there. Moses is given a second sign and a third, and then says, O my LORD, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send. Three demonstrations of divine power, and he still asks for somebody else, and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses.
So how many signs would settle it for you? Count back over the ones you have had, and ask what the last one settled, and for how long.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 99 is Seated in Heavenly Places (Ephesians 2:6).