EXODUS BEGINS

MOSES FIRST

Moses was perhaps the best prepared man, with the possible exception of Paul in the NT, to carry out God's impossible mission. Consider his education at the point he stood before the burning bush:

Raised in the Pharaoh's palace as a son of the Princess. Very likely he played with some of the courtiers now working in that palace – maybe even Pharaoh. He was therefore familiar with life among royalty and so would feel more at home there. He could even speak their language without an accent!

As the Princess's son, he had received the best education the world offered at that time among the most advanced society of that day.

With his Hebrew mother as his wet nurse and possibly his nanny later, he also received a Hebrew education, learning about Abraham through Joseph.

He developed great strength, and a strong attachment to his Hebrew people as shown in killing the Egyptian who was attacking a fellow Hebrew. His strength was also shown in running off the shepherds harassing Jethro's daughters and uncovering the stone well covering.

He fled into exile, married the daughter of a priest who seems to have worshiped the same God and had a gift for organization which Moses had not displayed. He then became Jethro's shepherd and wandered over 300 miles south into the area around Mt Sinai where he saw the burning bush. Have you realized that Moses had a lifetime of experience in the “wilderness” over which he led Israel for 40 years!

BACKGROUND: Chapter One links up with Genesis. Remember Jacob and his other 11 sons moved to Egypt during a drought when Joseph was equivalent to prime minister. But time passed, the dynasty changed, and a new king came to the throne. After all those years, the Hebrew population had grown tremendously. They had become a problem, comparable to today's refugee and immigrant problem. Just as the American South feared slave uprisings, so Pharaoh and his advisers feared the Hebrews would rebel and create problems. (If he only knew how much problem!) So Pharaoh decided to diminish the population of Hebrews, or at least their men. He did this by enslaving them and putting them to work on his various building programs. This reduced the time they had to conceive kids and wore them down. In addition they would be a financial boon reducing the cost of building.

He then turned to the Hebrew midwives and ordered them to execute any newborn male. The midwives resisted and excused themselves by saying the Hebrew women delivered before the midwives got there. Thus Moses survived birth, but Pharaoh made it legal for any Egyptian to kill boy babies. So his parents created a waterproof basket to place in a quiet pool of the river and set his older sister, Miriam, to watch him. Pharaoh's daughter came down to the river, discovered the baby that she recognized as a Hebrew baby, but decided to keep it. Thinking quickly, Miriam asked the princess whether she would like her to find a wet nurse for the baby. She then was able to bring the boy's mother into the picture to help in raising him.

As a young man, Moses identified with the Hebrews and killed a man, then fled for his life. He fled to Midian, which was probably across the Gulf of Aqaba from the Sinai Peninsula. Mount Jebel al Lawz in Midian is an alternate site proposed by some scholars to be Mount Sinai as opposed to what is today Mt Sinai on the other side of the gulf on the Peninsula. I prefer the traditional site, because the story takes them more directly there, and it is a much longer trip to Jebel.

Anyway, He arrived in Midian and came to a well, a normal meeting place for villagers, perhaps like a coffee shop today. A group of women shepherdesses we trying to water their flock, but some guys were harassing them and wouldn't let them. Underscoring Moses's strength, he ran the bullies off and helped the gals water their flocks. The women proved to be the seven daughters of a priest named Reuel, aka Jethro, who remarked they got home early that day. Their father insisted they go bring Moses home, which he did and hired him to tend his flocks.

He also married off his daughter Zipporah, which translates to Bird, or Birdie, or Little Bird. I once knew a lady named Bird, but her husband was neither Ruel nor Jethro...

Verses 2:23-25 are vitally important. While Israel was enslaved in Egypt and attacked on every side, God had not forgotten them. He remembered His covenant going back to Abraham. Even when we wonder whether God is dead, He remembers His promises to us. All of them. He also saw them. He was monitoring what they were going through.

The last two Hebrew words in Chapter 2 are “God knew.” Remember in the Bible the word know or knew is talking about experiential knowledge, involved knowledge, not merely head knowledge or theory. God understood their pain, and in Chapter 3He begins to move toward salvation!