What Does Exodus 4:7 Mean?

Then God said, "Put your hand back inside your cloak," so he put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. The restoration of Moses' hand is as immediate and total as the disease's onset. The reversal of tzara'at in the biblical world was associated with divine intervention: Miriam's leprosy and its reversal (Numbers 12), Naaman's leprosy and its healing through Elisha (2 Kings 5), and the ten lepers healed by Jesus (Luke 17:14). In each case, the healing is presented as evidence of divine presence or divine authority operative through an agent.

The phrase "restored like the rest of his flesh" emphasizes completeness: there is no gradual recovery, no residual Mark, no less-than-perfect healing. The hand that comes out of the garment the second time is as it was before Moses was born. This total and instant reversal is itself the sign: what took the course of its appearance in a moment can be undone in the same moment. The God who can produce and reverse leprosy on command is demonstrating the scope of his authority over the physical world that will express itself in the plagues of Egypt.

The significance of the two-sign sequence (staff-Serpent-staff, hand-leper-healed) is that both demonstrate power over reversal, rather than over transformation. A God who can only transform things in one direction is limited; a God who can produce and reverse unexpected conditions demonstrates full authority. The Exodus narrative is structured around reversals: slavery reverses to freedom, the Nile's life-giving purpose reverses to death and then to blood, the pursuing army reverses to drowning. The signs at the burning bush preview in miniature the reversal-structure of the entire book.