it was restored like the rest of his flesh. “If they will not believe you or heed the witness of the first sign, they may believe the witness of the last sign. “But if they will not believe even these two signs or heed what you say, then you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground; and the water which you take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.” “that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you” (Ex 4:1-9).
Moses’ third excuse: “Then Moses said to the Lord, “Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, [in speech] neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”… Then the anger of the Lord burned against Moses, and He said, “Is there not your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he speaks fluently…. “You are to speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I, even I, will be with your mouth and his mouth, and I will teach you what you are to do. “Moreover, he shall speak for you to the people; and he will be as a mouth for you and you will be as God to him (Ex 4:10-17).
There is a bit of irony in all of this. God the Father sent the burning bush to Moses but it was Christ [called the angel of the Lord] who did all of the speaking to Moses. Remember Christ is the logos the Word of God. Now we find Moses was unable to speak correctly so God sends his brother-in-law Aaron to do the speaking for Moses. God through Moses was going to do all the miracles but Aaron was to do the speaking. Here we have a physical manifestation of Christ, centuries before He appeared in human form, but was Christ nevertheless. Now Christ, the Word, was going to speak through Aaron while the Father did His works through Moses. There was never any doubt that Moses was the one who carried the authority but he would speak through an intermediary Aaron.
Aaron said goodbye to Jethro in Midian and the Lord spoke to him: “Now the Lord said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.” So Moses took his wife and his sons and mounted them on a donkey, and returned to the land of Egypt. Moses also took the staff of God in his hand. (4:19-22).
So Moses and Aaron confronted the Pharaoh for the first time. “And afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness.’ ” But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and besides, I will not let Israel go.”… Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please, let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, otherwise He will fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.” But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you draw the people away from their work? Get back to your labors!” Again Pharaoh said, “Look, the people of the land are now many, and you would have them cease from their labors!” So the same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters over the people and their foremen, saying, “You are no longer to give the people straw to make brick as previously; let them go and gather straw for themselves” (Ex 5:1-7). So it seems that Pharaoh made it worse for the Sons of Israel by not giving them straw for their bricks.
Who was the Pharaoh in charge at this time who hardened his heart and would not, at first, let the Israelites go. There is significant scholastic confusion over who the Pharaoh of Egypt was the time of the Exodus. Although the Bible does not specifically name the pharaoh of the Exodus, enough data is supplied for us to be relatively sure who he was. Admittedly, there are two schools of thought concerning the date of the Exodus (i.e., the early date and late date theories). Proponents of the late date theory (1290 B.C.), which would put the Pharaoh as Ramses II. The late date theorists claim that since the Israelites were building a city called Raamses that he must have been Pharaoh at the time. Scriptures say: “And they [the Israelites] built for Pharaoh storage cities, Pithom and Raamses” (Exodus 1:11). Late date theorists mistake the storage city of Ramses as the great city of Pi-Ramses (Pi-Ramesses Aa-nakhtu, meaning "House of Ramesses, Great in Victory") was the new capital built by the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt Pharaoh Ramesses II (Ramesses the Great). The Bible describes the city being built by the Israeli’s called Raamses as a "store-city". The exact meaning of the Hebrew phrase is not certain, but it does suggest supply depots on or near the frontier. This would be an appropriate description for Pithom (Tel al-Maskhuta) in the 6th century BC, but not for the royal capital in the time of Ramesses, when the nearest frontier was far off in the north of Syria. Hebrews had to labor on Pharaoh’s store-cities Pithom and Ra‘amses on the eve of the Exodus (Ex. 1:11). But these “store cities” were certainly not the glorious city of Pi-Ramesses, which was magnificently built as Egypt’s new Capitol City on or around 1290 B.C.
However modern scholars place the date of the exodus at about 1446 B.C. hundreds of years before Ramses. In I Kings 6:1 the Scriptures say: "And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Zif, which is the second month that he began to build the house of the Lord.". Scholars have identified the fourth year of Solomon's reign as 966 B.C. (Gleason, A Survey of Old Testamsnt Introduction, 1974, p. 223). Counting backwards from 996 B.C. we find that the Exodus took place in 1445 B.C. Now, if this information is correct, the Exodus occurred in the third year of the reign of the Pharaoh Amenhotep II.
History tells us that for several years after 1445 B.C. Amenhotep II was unable to carry out any invasions or extensive military operations. This would seem like very strange behavior for a Pharaoh who hoped to equal his father's record of no less than seventeen military campaigns in nineteen years. But this is exactly what one would expect from a Pharaoh who had lost almost all his cavalry, chariotry, and army at the Red (Reed) Sea (Exodus 14:23, 27-30).
Furthermore, we learn from the Dream Stela of Thutmose IV, son of Amenhotep II, that he was not the legitimate successor to the throne (J.B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near-Eastern Texts, p. 449). This means that Thutmose IV was not the firstborn son, who would have been the legitimate heir. The firstborn son of Amenhotep II had evidently died prior to taking the throne of Egypt. This would agree with Exodus 12:29 which says the Pharaoh's first-born son was killed during the Passover. Although in a Hollywood sense the Exodus would be more exciting if it occurred during the reign of the Great Ramses, but that is not the case. If the Exodus did take place in 1445 B.C., forty years of wilderness wandering would bring us about to 1400 B.C. for the destruction of Jericho. Interestingly enough, John Garstang, who excavated the site of ancient Jericho, came to the conclusion that the destruction of the city took place around 1400 B.C. (Garstang, The Story of Jericho, 1948, p. 122). He also concluded that the walls of the city toppled outward, which would compare favorably with Joshua 6:20. Amenhotep II was also known as Amenophis II and he was the son of Thutmose III. If Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt during the reign of Amenophis II, then the main oppressor of Israel would have been his father Thutmose III who was also the greatest conqueror in Egyptian history. His sister Queen Hatshepsut would have rescued Moses and brought him up.
Scholars have been fascinated by a revolutionary religious doctrine which developed shortly after 1445 B.C. that threatened to sweep away Egypt’s polytheistic theological dogmas of centuries. These scholars have credited Amenhotep IV, great grandson of Amenhotep II, with founding the religious concept of Monotheism (the idea that there is only one God). This Pharoh started the cult of Aton [a Sun god] removing all the other polytheistic gods and setting
