Exodus 2
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CHAPTER 2
The Birth of Moses (2:1–10)
1–3 Some time after Pharaoh had commanded the Egyptians to drown all male Hebrew babies in the Nile, a Levite couple gave birth to a son.4 This baby boy was no ordinary child (Acts 7:20). The mother saw that he was a fine child. She devised a desperate plan to save the baby’s life. The plan had almost no hope of succeeding on its own; divine intervention would be required. And divine intervention is what she got!
Notice that the mother took practical steps to implement her plan.5 We know that she had faith in God and in God’s power (Hebrews 11:23), but she didn’t just sit back and do nothing. To take practical action doesn’t mean we stop trusting God; action and trust should go hand in hand. And so the mother put her baby in a basket and let it float down the Nile River.
4–6 The baby’s sister, Miriam, stood by the river and watched what would happen to the basket and its precious contents. She didn’t have to wait long. The daughter of Pharaoh discovered the basket; when she heard the baby crying she felt sorry for him and decided to keep him (verse 6). Pharaoh’s own daughter was now defying his edict!
7–9 Then Miriam, with exactly the right timing and exactly the right words, offered to fetch a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby. And Miriam went and “found”—who else?—the baby’s own mother! Surely God was directing Miriam’s words and steps; surely it was God who brought Pharaoh’s daughter to that spot and moved her to save the baby Moses. And now Moses’ mother was going to be paid for nursing her own baby!
10 In the early years of Moses’ life, his father and mother would have been able to teach him something about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But when he grew older, Moses was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter and became part of her household (Acts 7:21–22). She named him Moses, which sounds like the Hebrew word for “draw out”—for she had drawn him out of the water. Thus Moses came under the protection of the very one—Pharaoh—who had originally wanted him killed.
Moses Flees to Midian (2:11–25)
11–14 Moses grew up with the awareness that he was a Hebrew. He observed how the Egyptians oppressed the Hebrews; and he gradually made the decision to stand on their side, even though he knew it would mean losing his comfortable status as a prince of Egypt (Hebrews 11:24–26).
When Moses was forty years old, he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew (Acts 7:23–24). He acted impulsively. He sensed his action was wrong: he glanced this way and that and then hid the body (verse 12). But though the act itself was wrong, Moses’ motives were right. He was seeking to protect the oppressed and downtrodden.
Thus Moses possessed a strong virtue: a sense of justice. At the same time, Moses possessed a corresponding weakness: a tendency to judge quickly and act impulsively. Moses would have to spend an extra forty years in the desert of Midian to learn how to render justice in God’s time and in God’s way.
Just as the Apostle Peter used a sword to cut off a man’s ear (John 18:10), so Moses used a sword to cut off a man’s life. Later Moses would replace his sword with a shepherd’s staff, and instead of the power being in his own hand it would thenceforth be in God’s hand (Exodus 6:1). The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world (2 Corinthians 10:4).
The very next day after killing the Egyptian, Moses found two Hebrews fighting each other. When Moses tried to rebuke the one who was in the wrong, the man reacted angrily: “Who made you ruler and judge over us?” (verse 14). The man didn‚t realize it, but forty years later God Himself would make Moses ruler and deliverer of the Israelites (Acts 7:35). Then the man revealed to Moses that he knew about the killing of the Egyptian the day before; the incident was now common knowledge. Then Moses was afraid6 (verse 14), and fled to Midian7 in northwestern Arabia (Acts 7:27–29).
15–20 A Midianite named Reuel (also called Jethro in Exodus 3:1) had seven daughters who came to a particular well to water their father‚s flock. Moses happened to be sitting there when he saw some shepherds come and attempt to drive away these seven daughters. Ever the defender of the oppressed, Moses rescued the girls and even watered their flock. This good service gained for Moses not only a place to stay but also a wife, Reuel‚s daughter Zipporah (verse 21). Sometimes our virtuous acts are rewarded in this life! But even when they‚re not, we must always be ready to aid those in distress without any thought of reward.
21–22 Zipporah bore Moses a son whom he named Gershom, which means “an alien there.”
23–25 Moses lived in Midian for forty years (Acts 7:30); during that long period the king from which Moses had fled finally died. But the oppression and suffering of the Hebrews continued. They cried out—probably not with true faith or a true knowledge of God—but in simple desperation. And God heard . . . and he remembered (verse 24).
God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and His promise to give the Israelites a land of their own, the land of Canaan (Genesis 15:18; 17:7–8; 26:2–3; 28:13; 35:12). God hadn’t forgotten His promise—as we humans so often do. When God “remembers,” it means He has decided that it‚s time to act (Genesis 8:1).
As God looked down on the Israelites and was concerned about them (verse 25), He was responding (as Moses had done) to people in distress. But He was also responding to His own word, His own promises. He had told Abraham that after his descendants had suffered (in Egypt) for four hundred years, He would punish the nation they serve as slaves, and that afterward they would come out with great possessions (Genesis 15:13–14). Now the time had come for the deliverance of the descendants of Abraham.