Moses’ place in the story of Israel comes long before the establishment of a monarchy and the emergence of prophets as counterweight to the king. Yet the text presents Moses as the prophet par excellence. Patterns are established here that will mark the prophetic trajectory when its moment comes.
One of these patterns is counter-intituitive, at least if we begin from the modern perception of prophets as loud-mouthed, imposing, self-assured verbalists who spoke for God with little self-restraint and loved the perks that came with doing so.
Not so Moses, and no so those later prophets whose legacy has preserved for us what scholars term a ‘call narrative’.
Reluctance rather than ambition pervades the awful summons to speak for YHWH.
Moses employs repeated tactics to evade the divine call to serve as YHWH’s spokesman before a recalcitrant, slave-holding Pharoah. Not one of them works, certainly not his claim be ‘a child’, far too small, insignificant, and naive about grown-up matters of life and death. The counter-argument and refusal with which YHWH confronts the evasive maneuvers of his prototypical prophet include a brief and paradigmatic word: ‘I will be with you.’
This, we are led to believe, is all that the prophet must really know.
YHWH, the ever-adequate one, promises to be the accompanying sufficiency that any prophet requires.
In asserting this promise, YHWH also veritably defines the office of the prophet, a man who often places his life at risk by becoming the adversary of powerful figures, emboldened by the one thing he knows. God is with him.
Canter Bridge 
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