Old Testament - Exodus 2 - March 22, 2022

 3/22/2022 - Exodus 2

Moses’ parents were both Levites, and thus were under the edict from the Pharoah that all male children would to be killed at birth. But when Moses was born, his mother defied the law and hid him for 3 months. V 3 tells us that “when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink.” She had her daughter stood far off and followed Moses little boat (the scriptures call it an ark).  

The Pharoah’s daughter had come down to the river with her maidens, when she saw the ark and had one of her maidens bring it to the edge of the water. “And when she had opened it, she saw the child; and behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrew’ children.” (v 6) And that’s when Moses’ watchful sister came to Pharoah’s daughter, saying that she could get one of the Hebrew women who could nurse the baby. The sister brought her mother to Pharoah’s daughter, who commanded the woman to nurse Moses (her own son), and Pharoah’s daughter would pay her wages for this task. It is interesting to note that both Jesus Christ and Moses were in danger of being killed in infancy and were preserved through the Lord’s power, and watchful care.

Moses’ mother nursed him until he was able to be weaned, and then she brought him to Pharoah’s daughter, and Moses: “he became her son (that’s the son of the daughter of Pharoah). And she called his name Moses.”

At one point  after Moses was grown, he went out and looked at the Hebrew slaves “and looked upon their burdens; and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew…And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.” (v’s 11-12) But evidently, Moses missed seeing someone else who had been there, for when, on another day, he stopped to break up a fight between two Hebrews, that one of them said: “Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? Intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian?” (v 13)  

Eusebius IX:27 (an ancient historian) says that the slaying was the result of a court intrigue in which certain men plotted to assassinate Moses. In the encounter it is said that Moses successfully warded off the attacker and killed him. 

Then there is in the Midrash Rabbah (the traditional Jewish commentary on the Old Testament)  which says that Moses, with his bare fits, killed an Egyptian taskmaster who was in the act of seducing a Hebrew women. This is confirmed in the Koran.

Pharoah heard of this episode and “sought to slay Moses” but Moses fled. He got safely to the land of Midian. He sat down at a well, and once again found himself seeing a situation in which one group of people were taking advantage of another group. (v 16-17) There were seven daughters of the priest of Midian who “drew water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. And the shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.” His efforts not only got their flocks watered, but they got watered much faster than the girls had ever done it. When they brought the flocks back, their father asked how they had made such good time, and they explained what had happened at the well. The priest asked them to find Moses so that he could eat with them all. The next 2 verses tell the rest of the story: “And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter. And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom; for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.” (v’s 21-22)

As Moses had grown up, he was educated. He may have had access to the royal libraries of the Egyptians as well as the scriptural record of the Israelites. One of the study manuals says this:

“Paul, in Hebrews, added further to the concept, “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; … esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt” (Hebrews 11:24, 26). Moses’ mother, Jochebed, very likely taught him the principles and righteous traditions of the Hebrews as she nursed and cared for him (see Exodus 2:7–9).” In in the New Testament in Acts 7: 23, 25) Stephen speaks of Moses and implies that Moses understood his responsibility: “And when he was full forty years old, it came to his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel….For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not.” 

In v 24 we learn that the harsh Pharoah in Egypt had died, “and the Children of Israel  sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them”. V’s 23-25) He was cognizant of them, as He is of us when we call upon him. 

It's important to remember that the Lord did not immediately free them all, (we know the desert part of their journey away from Egypt lasted more than 40 years) but the Lord began to prepare the way for them to be delivered through Moses. The study manual says that much of this had been arranged before they ever cried to the Lord. So it is important to me to 1) call upon the Lord—talk to Him, tell him of my worries, and of the things I want to do in my life, and ask for His comforting guidance. But within all that, I know that if I am doing my best to follow his commandments—in the things I do, and also in the way I think, and how I treat others, and how I reach out to help those around me----then I can expect His promptings and a calmness in my heart and mind.