vii. 4, etc.), should
never in the Pentateuch be called the Lord of Hosts, if that title were
in common use when it was written; for no epithet would better suit the
song of Miriam or the poetry of the Fifth Book.

When Moses complained that he was of uncircumcised lips, the Lord
announced that He had already made His servant as a god unto Pharaoh,
having armed him, even then, with the terrors which are soon to shake
the tyrant's soul.

It is suggestive and natural that his very education in a court should
render him fastidious, less willing than a rougher man might have been
to appear before the king after forty years of retirement, and feeling
almost physically incapable of speaking what he felt so deeply, in words
that would satisfy his own judgment. Yet God had endowed him, even then,
with a supernatural power far greater than any facility of expression.
In his weakness he would thus be made strong; and the less fit he was to
assert for himself any ascendency over Pharaoh, the more signal would be
the victory of his Lord, when he became "very great in the land of
Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the
people" (xi. 3).

As a proof of this mastery he was from the first to speak to the haughty
king through his brother, as a god through some prophet, being too great
to reveal himself directly. It is a memorable phrase; and so lofty an
assertion could never, in the myth of a later period, have been ascribed
to an origin so lowly as the reluctance of Moses to expose his
deficiency in elocution.

Therefore he should henceforth be emboldened by the assurance of
qualification bestowed already: not only by the hope of help and
achievement yet to come, but by the certainty of present endowment. And
so should each of us, in his degree, be bold, who have gifts differing
according to the grace given unto us.

It is certain that every living soul has at least one talent, and is
bound to improve it. But how many of us remember that this loan implies
a commission from God, as real as that of prophet and deliverer, and
that nothing but our own default can prevent it from being, at the last,
received again with usury?

The same bravery, the same confidence when standing where his Captain
has planted him, should inspire the prophet, and him that giveth alms,
and him that showeth mercy; for all are members in one body, and
therefore animated by one invincible Spirit from above (Rom. xii. 4-9).

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