EXODUS – CHAPTER TWO

Verses 1-4:

The “man” of verse 1 was Amram. He was a descendant of Levi, by his son Kohath (for additional comments, see Ex 6:12-20). His wife was Jochebed, whose name means “the glory of Jehovah.” She was a “daughter” (descendant) of Levi, the sister of Amram’s father. Marriages with aunts and nieces were not uncommon, and natural instinct did not forbid them. It was not until the giving of the Mosaic Law that this became unlawful (see Le 18:6-18).

“Went” is “had gone,” at some time prior. The oldest child of Amram and Jochebed was a daughter, Miriam, who at this time was likely about fourteen years old. A son was born about three years prior to this occasion, named Aaron. Pharaoh’s edict demanding the death of all male babies likely occurred after Aaron’s birth, at some point prior to the events of these verses.

Jochebed’s third child was a “goodly,” tob or toar, child. This denotes that he was strong and healthy, of a “goodly” form. She was unwilling to obey the king’s mandate and cast her son into the river. The text indicates she concealed him “in the house,” likely in the female apartments. When he reached the age of three months, it was no longer possible to conceal him, so she was forced to make other arrangements.

Jochebed followed the exact letter of Pharaoh’s edit: she cast her son into the river – but in such a way that he was saved alive, and not drowned. She fashioned an “ark” teb or teba, a chest, from “bulrushes” gome, the papyrus common to the Egyptian river banks. This plant grew to a height of 10 to 15 feet. The Egyptians used its pithy fiber to make papyrus or paper for writing. Jochebed waterproofed this chest with “slime’ chemar, bitumen (see Ge 11:3; 14:10) and “pitch” zepheth, possibly vegetable pitch of some kind. She then placed her infant son in the chest, and laid it in the “flags” suph, water plants growing in the backwaters of the Nile River.

The mother stationed Miriam nearby to watch over the precious cargo in the little “ark” or boat.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

1. And there went. I have preferred rendering the verb in the pluperfect tense (abierat, “there had gone”) to prevent all ambiguity; for unless we say that Miriam and Aaron were the children of another mother, it would not be probable otherwise that this marriage was contracted after the passing of the edict. Aaron was three years old when Moses was born; and we may easily conjecture that he was brought up openly and securely. But there is no doubt but that the cruelty was greatest at its commencement. Therefore, if they were uterine brothers, there is no other explanation except to say that, by the figure called ὕστερον πρότερον, he now relates what had happened before. But mention is only made of Moses, because it then first began to be criminal to breed up male infants. The Hebrews use the word for going or departing, to signify the undertaking of any serious or momentous matter, or when they put any proposal into operation. Nor is it superfluous for Moses to say that his father married a wife of his own tribe, because this double tie of kindred should have confirmed them in their attempt to preserve their offspring. But soon afterwards we shall see how timidly they acted. They hide the child for a short time, rather from the transient impulse of love than from firm affection. When three months had elapsed, and that impulse had passed away, they almost abandon the child, in order to escape from danger. For although the mother would have probably come next day, if he had passed the night there, to give him the breast, yet had she exposed him as an outcast to innumerable risks. By this example, we perceive what terror had taken possession of every mind, when a man and his wife, united to each other by close natural relationship, prefer exposing their common offspring, whose beauty moved them to pity, to peril of wild beasts, of the atmosphere, of the water, and of every kind, rather than that they should perish with him. But on this point different opinions are maintained: whether or not it would have been better to discharge themselves of the care of their child, or to await whatever danger attended its secret preservation. I confess, indeed, that whilst it is difficult in such perplexities to come to a right conclusion, so also our conclusions are apt to be variously judged; still I affirm that the timidity of the parents of Moses, by which they were induced to forget their duty, cannot advisedly be excused.

We see that God has implanted even in wild and brute beasts so great instinctive anxiety for the protection and cherishing of their young, that the dam often despises her own life in their defense. Wherefore it is the more base, that men, created in the divine image, should be driven by fear to such a pitch of inhumanity as to desert the children who are intrusted to their fidelity and protection. The reply of those who assert that there was no better course in their desperate circumstances than to repose on the providence of God, has something in it, but is not complete. It is the chief consolation of believers to cast their cares on the bosom of God; provided that, in the meantime, they perform their own duties, overpass not the bounds of their vocation, and turn not away from the path set before them; but it is a perversion to make the providence of God an excuse for negligence and sloth. The parents of Moses ought rather to have looked forward with hope that God would be the safeguard of themselves and their child. His mother made the ark with great pains, and daubed it; but for what purpose? Was it not to bury her child in it? I allow that she always seemed anxious for him, yet in such a way that her proceedings would have been ridiculous and ineffectual, unless God had unexpectedly appeared from heaven as the author of their preservation, of which she herself despaired. Nevertheless, we must not judge either the father or mother as if they had lived in quiet times; for it is easy to conceive with what bitter grief they compassed the death of their child; nay, to speak more correctly, we can scarcely conceive what terrible agonies they suffered. Therefore, when Moses relates how his mother made and prepared an ark, he hints that the father was so overwhelmed with sorrow as to be incapable of doing anything. Thus the power of the Lord more clearly manifested itself, when the mother, her husband being entirely disheartened, took the whole burden on herself. For, if they had acted in concert, Moses would not have assigned the whole praise to his mother. The Apostle, indeed, (Heb 11:23,) gives a share of the praise to the husband, and not undeservedly, since it is probable that the child was not hidden without his cognizance and approval. But God, who generally “chooses the weak things of the world,” strengthened with the power of his Spirit a woman rather than a man, to stand foremost in the matter. And the same reasoning applies to his sister, into whose hands his mother resigned the last and most important act, so that while Miriam, who, on account of her tender age, appeared to be exempt from danger, is appointed to watch over her brother’s life, both parents appear to have neglected their duty.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

MOSES-THE MATCHLESS AMONG MEN

Exo 2:1-2; Exo 2:10

THERE are lives so great that all men must have some familiarity with them, and yet no man has exhausted their study, and no speakers have brought to the thought of their fellows all the facts they inspire. Moses is one of those names! I say it without hesitation, that aside from Jesus Christ, Moses is the man of the Sacred Word. Peter was not one half so great; Paul was not his peer; and if we are disposed to dispute the claim, it only proves that while none of us know the New Testament too well, many are inexcusably ignorant of the Old, and hence unacquainted with some names that have inspired the past, and will profoundly influence the future.

Moses is not one of those names! He is the one of them. Ingersoll bleated about his blunders, and more honest and competent critics have and will add their attacks upon his name and the books that bear it; but when Ingersoll is forgotten and Infidelity comes to its grave, Moses will live in the memory of sainted minds, and the angel choirs in their grandest oratorio shall couple his name with that of The Lamb.

In order that we may understand his life, let us think about the facts that entered into it and made up the sum total. I dont know that they are different in quality from those that enter every life; but in quantity, how great!

I. THE ENVIRONMENT OF MOSES LIFE INFLUENCED AND AFFECTED THE MAN.

Cicero said, It is not the place which makes the man; but the man that makes the place. The same may be said of times and circumstances. They dont make men. The growth of plants may depend upon place, seasons, circumstances, but man is of other stuff, and, in a much greater measure, his life is independent of its environment. But true as that is, it is equally true that it touches him, influences him, and furnishes its share to the colors that go to make up his history. No student of the Pentateuch can question that Moses was affected by several factors in his environment.

Who can measure the result of the conjunction of the sacred and the secular in his education? From the account of Moses youth as related in the second chapter of Exodus, we know that the childs mother was the fortunate nurse to whom the Princess committed the care of the strangely saved little one. The record of her instruction is not to be found, save as men are able to read it in Moses after-life, and yet from that we know what it must have been. Whence his sense of brotherhood with the despised and degraded slaves of the land save from a mothers teaching? Whence his hot indignation at the injustice of the Egyptian lash, laid often and heavily on the poorly clad back of a Jew, save from a mothers teaching? Whence his own fine sense of virtue and right that left his name as clean as that of his illustrious predecessor, Joseph, save from a mothers restraining influence, and her example of chastity? Whence his faith in Jehovah as opposed to the calf of Egypt, save as Jochebed had whispered it into his soul, and prayed it into his hearts core? See the mother in the son! He is fortunate indeed whose early education is encompassed by the tender concern of a mother whose habits of life are simple, whose virtues are sung of angels, and whose faith in God is supreme! Some people seem to think that a mans complete education may be secular, and can be had from touching the world and studying books. That is a mistake! The best part of any youths training is had from the sacred instruction of a mothers life, and learned while yet in the school of the home.

In a sermon of John McNeils, he relates that true story brought from his native land, by saying, One day, long ago, a lad was setting out from a home in Fife in Scotland. He was beginning life; his childhoods days were gone. His mother was going along the road with him, and that mother was a true mother in Israel. He was not converted, and at the turning point of the road where mother and son were to part, she said, Now, Robert; just one thing I have to ask you, and you will promise me before I speak it? Robert was somewhat canny like his mother, and he said, No, I will not promise until I know. He had some notion what that promise would be. Oh! she said, it is not anything that will trouble you. It will not be hard or severe. Well, mother, he said, I will, Promise, said she, that every night before you lie down to sleep you will read a chapter from your Bible, and pray. He screwed his face, for it was an unpalatable promise, but he made it. Who was that Robert? That Robert was Robert Moffat, and Africa is coming into the Kingdom of God behind him, Who says that an education can be complete without a mothers lessons? Who dares affirm that the sacred lessons about God and Christ and the Bible and Eternity are non-essentials?

And yet, secular education has its place. It was the good fortune of Moses environment that at the Princess expense he came to be learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. When the boy comes to be the man, a mother cannot continue in her office of instructor. He yearns for wider fields of thought than she has explored, and seeks to be instructed by those who speak the language of exact sciences.

In Egypt, as the heir-apparent, Moses had every school open to him. In art, he was educated by the very furnishings of the palace in which he lived. No man can visit the Art Museums and look upon the Egyptian display in statuary, painting, and other antiquities without getting some idea of the scenes with which this fortunate son of a bond-woman was familiar in his early life. What an education for the finer tastes when a child is born and brought up among the richest hangings, looks on great paintings, listens to ennobling musiccontributions of Masters among the men of art. I cannot explain why a child of lowly birth and humble breeding should take pleasure in these things, and yet I know that the child in my life has its very soul inspired, and seems lifted above the sensual to commune with the great spirit of all good, when the sweeter notes of music touch the ear, when the finer strokes of the brush appeal to the eye, or when the perfect work of the chisel lifts before me a form that seems hiding a soul. If learning in Egypt included Egypts art, then I can understand where Moses caught harmonies of sound and color and form that enlarged his life.

There were philosophers in Egypt even then men who had felt after the keys of life, and vainly imagined they had found them. In the palace at Memphis, in her schools, and on the street, Moses must have met and whetted arguments with them. That is an education! I know that we laugh at what men call philosophy today; but mistaken and foolish as much of it has been, the minds that have pushed far into its misty realm have found jewels at times and dragged the rough diamonds of truth to the light, and with them men have bestudded life.

There were Priests in the palace. From them Moses learned about the religion of his foster-mother and the government of the realm. In view of their idolatry doubtless the religion of his race shone the brighter and became his deeper study and better hope; and along with secular learning he kept his religion. He is a fortunate youth before whom the halls of learning in art, science, and philosophy are open. They are all factors in the sum total of a great, deep, broad education. But he is to be pitied who gets a knowledge of them at the expense of his faith. Learning without religion is a poor stock in trade. The wisdom of Egypt without the sacred stamp of Jochebeds belief in God, would have served, in all probability, to shipwreck Moses soul. I have often pitied the blundering parents who dismiss their children to schools of great names, but of reputed godlessness. Some people say they dont approve of sectarian institutions, but believe rather in great secular universities. Every man to his choice, but I would prefer to send a child to the college unknown beyond the borders of a single state, if in that school learning was handmaid to religion, than to send him to the first university of the world, if its atmosphere, like that of most secular institutions and now increasingly of our denominational schools, was rank and stifling with unbelief.

In an address at Princeton college some years ago, that noble President, Francis L. Patton, said, It is natural for young men to think that the old is false and the new is to supersede it, and that this should have a disturbing influence upon the early faiths of educated young men. I am sorry for the young man who feels that his faith is undergoing eclipse; and that his education is lifting a barrier between him and those who are most dear to him, by preventing him from sharing their religious beliefs in the fulness of the old and unhesitating confidence. I pity the man who feels as he leaves college that he has more philosophy and less Bible than when he entered. Far sooner would I that a son of mine should never enter a college door, than that his college learning should be gained at the cost of his Christian faith. Who shall answer Patton? A stripling, just now flinging away his mothers prayers, and denying the power of his fathers God, cannot answer him; for he has not yet seen the end of such a course. A godless professor cannot answer him, because he knows not the value of a faith that has inspired such men as Patton through a long series of years; and no man can answer him, for Patton is right. Learning without religion may be of some value, but learning at the expense of religion is a pitiable misfortune for any man. Ah, Moses, your fame lives and will live because in your familiarity with the wisdom of Egypt the training of the home remained, and the lessons from the sacred teaching of a mother helped your faith to survive even in the luxurious and sensual palace of Pharaoh, the King! I want to walk up and down the earth crying into the ears of my young auditors, this text: Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. But unless you would play the fool and fail, dont believe that wisdom is ever had until your learning is wedded to the religion of Jesus Christ, the Gospel of love.

A second factor of influence in this sum of environments effect is found in the fact that Moses tasted at once slavery and sovereignty. By reason of his birth he was destined to share with the people of his own blood all their indignities, shame, and suffering. Not that tasks were ever heaped upon him, nor that any Egyptian slave-driver dared touch him with the lash! But what men escape in body they sometimes share in sympathies, and experience in soul. The record in Exodus tallies with that in Acts in teaching that Moses was forty years old before he ever saw the abuses of his brethren that were the daily practice in the field. Already, doubtless, he had tasted the sweets of life as a sovereign. Those forty years are left unrecorded, but surely not by reason of inaction on the part of the Princess favorite in all that time.

John Lord says, What a career did the son of the Hebrew bondwoman probably lead in the palace of Memphis, sitting at the monarchs table, feted as a conqueror, adopted as a grandson, and perhaps as heir, a proficient in all the learning and arts of the most civilized nation of the earth, enrolled in the college of priests, discoursing with the most accomplished of his peers on the wonders of magical enchantment, the hidden meaning of religious rites, and even the being and attributes of a Supreme God, the esoteric wisdom from which even a Pythagoras drew his inspiration.

But that sovereignty, while it educated him into feelings of all refinement, and acquainted him with what men style higher life, did not drown his sense of right, nor cause him to be indifferent to the woes of those who were poor, ignorant, and almost desperate in their bondage. It seems a strange thing how a little sovereignty exalteth some men to such heights that they come to despise all below. There were once small lords of the South who happened to be born white, and by inheritance owned a forty acre lot, who said, We doubt if a negro has a soul, and sported their right to rule the ebony skinned immortal without reference to his feelings or even physical comfort. Yes, and there are small lords in the North, who treat men, white of skin as themselves, though more humble in station, with an equal amount of indifference or even contempt. Haman was indeed the prototype of a multitude who have cursed the ages. Men, being promoted a little, at once conclude that all beneath them must bow themselves to the earth as they pass. It takes a great soul to occupy the superior positions of this world and yet keep his sympathies with the humble and oppressed. How many a boy has been sent to school with a trunk well-filled with clothes, every stitch in them having been taken by a poor, unlearned, yet great-souled and affectionate mother; with a purse that holds the last dollar that the old father earned and gladly added to his savings for the sake of the schooling of the son. A few years pass! That boy has made rapid strides. Society begins to toast him, and people of wealth often do honor to his culture by their attentions, and the hospitality of their homes. How will he behave now when the gap between him and his gets to be almost as great as that between the young prince of Pharaohs palace and the poor slave driven by Pharaohs lash? Will he come to the rescue of their declining years? Will he use his acquired power for their deliverance from burdens and seek to soothe them in sorrows hour? Or will he build a mansion of his own, surround himself with gay circles, move like a monarch among the titled, and prove himself as much of an ingrate as was George Elliots Tito Meleme? Which? Answer me that and I will tell you whether his better environment has developed him into the man that God can use, or the hypocrite in whom all hell delights. The spirit of every man is shown in his deportment toward those who hold lowest stations, but whose crimes are not blacker than misfortune, and whose lives have no other blight than crushing burdens.

Joseph Parker says finely enough of Moses, He was not ashamed to recognize the Hebrews as his brethren. He himself had had a day of wondrous luck, so-called; he might have sunned himself in the beams of his radiant fortune, and left his brethren to do as they could. Yes, he might, because other men have! I have known the mother of a man whose fortune was counted by hundreds of thousands, to beg; not because she was wicked and her name a reproach, but because he was stingy and wouldnt support her, and proud and would not own her as the fountain of his flesh and blood. That pride of life is contemptible and mean that makes the sovereign forget the slave. If the sovereignty is one of wealth and the slavery one of poverty; if the sovereignty is learning and the slavery is ignorance; if the sovereignty is one of good fortune and the slavery one of misfortune, the case is not altered. Be careful then how you treat the man that tends the stable and the woman that serves your table! God could reverse the order if He wished. Be ashamed when you seek to hide the fact that the ignorant old man, stooped with the weight of years, yet eternally fresh in his affection for you, is your father. Blush to the heart if you ever deny that sister or daughter whose sad experiences have taken away her beauty and broken her spirit, and cowed her to the dust. Only devils could be pleased with such haughty deportment. Heaven is happy when a Moses comes into the field and stoops to lift the bleeding slave to his jeweled bosom and says, He is my brother, rags and all.

You have read of the virtues of King Humbert. I saw a short time ago a bit of his history that well illustrates this point. Years ago Naples was being ravaged by the raging of cholera. At the same time the races were going on in Pardenone, and King Humbert had engaged to be present in their festive days. The news came to him that Naples was in distress and his answer by telegram to the racers was, At Pordenone they are having sport. At Naples they are dying. I will go to Naples. That was the spirit of Moses of whom the Apostle wrote, By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. Oh, Moses, how well might twentieth century men learn from thee how to make all sovereignty serve their suffering brothers good!

Finally, both the touch of

SOCIETY AND SECLUSION

gave coloring to his life. It is impossible for any man to become a rounded character who sees little or nothing of life among his fellows. Hermits have been reckoned as visionaries and wild dreamers as a rule. John the Baptist could never have attracted the people, led them to repentance, and added to their spiritual profit, had all his days been spent in the wilderness. But before he retired to that seclusion, he had moved through, and acquainted himself with the world. He only selected the wilderness as his auditorium. He knew the habits, character, and life of those about him from previous studya man in the midst of men. So did Moses. From the lords of a luxurious court down to the most despised among the Hebrew slaves, he was familiar with men. Does not that account for the language, life, and the laws that he laid down? There are a great many men in the world who know nothing outside of their study, counting-room, or office, save that men struggle for bread. They cant deal with their fellows; they cannot advise them when the besetments of life thicken; they cannot lay down laws for their conduct. The world is better off when they have least to say in the affairs that trouble. If we would know each other and help the weak, we must live in the world, and feel the throbbings of hearts that bleed and are ready to break.

And yet in every life, solitude should have a place. The man who is driven by the duties of each day from his waking moment to that in which he sleeps again, who has no moments for serious meditation, no solitude in which to reflect upon those greater problems of his present existence and his future good, is apt to become worn early and warped into unbelief; and life, losing its time for reflection and prayer, he is apt to become unbelieving and sick at heart. I was much pleased in reading Imago Christi to hear the author say of Christs habit of stealing away to a secluded spot to spend an hour or a night alone, There is more than solitude in such a situation to assist prayer; there is a ministry of nature which soothes the mind and disposes it to devotion. Never did I feel more strongly that in this habit Jesus had laid bare one of the great secrets of life than one day when I climbed all alone a hill above Invereray and lay on the summit, musing through a summer forenoon. On every hand there stretched a solitary world of mountain and moorland; the loch below was gleaming in the sun like a shield of silver; the town was visible at the foot of the hills, and the passengers could be seen moving in its streets but no sound of its bustle rose so high. The great sky was over all; and God seemed just at hand, waiting to hear every word. It was in spots like this that Jesus prayed. Who doubts that the Son of God got strength from the unheard language of such solitude? Great men in the past have given solitude a place in preparing for great work. Josephus tells how he got ready for his work by years of seclusion. John the Baptist, Paul, and Jesus enjoyed the same before their public ministry began. So of almost every reformer. Luther needed four hours a day, not for reading and study, but for reflection and prayer. The forty years in Midian were not so much lost from Moses life. The thoughts that occupied him then live today as do those that ran through the good John Bunyans mind while Bedford jail held his body within its iron grates. This great West of ours is wild in action; and energy well directed is right. But in justice to self, in the help of men, in the cause of God, he is stronger who keeps his closet of prayer, his time for reflection, and staying from the hurry of business and the mastering greed of gain, takes time to answer Gods ring, let Him into the room of the heart, and hold a quiet hour of communion with Him.

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

ISRAELS BONDAGE. MOSES AND THE EXODUS

Exo 1:1 to Exo 15:21.

DR. J. M. Grays five rules for Bible reading: Read the Book, Read the Book Continuously, Read the Book Repeatedly, Read the Book Independently, Read the Book Prayerfully, are all excellent; but the one upon which I would lay emphasis in this study of Exodus is the second of those rules, or, Read the Book Continuously. It is doubtful if there is any Book in the Bible which comes so nearly containing an outline, at least, of all revelation, as does the Book of Exodus. There is scarcely a doctrine in the New Testament, or a truth in the Old, which may not be traced in fair delineation in these forty chapters.

God speaks in this Book out of the burning bush. Sin, with its baneful effects, has a prominent place in its pages; and Salvation, for all them that trust in Him, with judgment for their opposers, is a conspicuous doctrine in this Old Testament document. God, Sin, Salvation, and Judgmentthese are great words! The Book that reveals each of them in fair outline is a great Book indeed, and its study will well repay the man of serious mind.

Exodus is a Book of bold outlines also! Its author, like a certain school of modern painters, draws his picture quickly and with but few strokes, and yet the product of his work approaches perfection. How much of time and history is put into these three verses:

And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls: for Joseph was in Egypt already. And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. And the Children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them (Exo 1:5-7).

These three verses contain 215 years of time, and all the events that crowded into that period would, if they were recorded, fill volumes without end. And, while there are instances of delineation in detail in the Book of Exodus, the greater part of the volume is given to the bolder outlines which sweep much history into single sentences.

In looking into these fifteen chapters, I have been engaged with the question of such arrangement as would best meet the demands of memory, and thereby make the lesson of this hour a permanent article in our mental furniture. Possibly, to do that, we must seize upon a few of the greater subjects that characterize these chapters, and so phrase them as to provide mental promontories from which to survey the field of our present study. Surely, The Bondage of Israel, The Rise of Moses, and the Exodus from Egypt, are such fundamentals.

THE BONDAGE OF ISRAEL.

The bondage of Israel, like her growth, requires but a few sentences for its expression.

Now, there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the Children of Israel are more and mightier than we; Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land. Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pit horn and Raamses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the Children of Israel. And the Egyptians made the Children of Israel to serve with rigour: And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour (Exo 1:8-22).

There are several features in Egypts conduct in effecting the bondage of Israel which characterize the conduct of all imperial nations.

The bondage began with injustice. Israel was in Egypt by invitation. When they came, Pharaoh welcomed them, and set apart for their use the fat of the land. The record is,

Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Raamses, as Pharaoh had commanded (Gen 47:11).

There they flourished until a king arose which knew not Joseph. Then a tax was laid upon them; eventually taskmasters were set over them, and those who came in response to Pharaohs invitation, Come unto me and I will give you the good of the, land of Egypt, and ye shall eat of the fat of the land, were compelled by his successors to take the place of slaves. It seems as difficult for a nation as it is for an individual to refrain from the abuse of power. A writer says, Revolution is caused by seeking to substitute expediency for justice, and that is exactly what the King of Egypt and his confederates attempted in the instance of these Israelites. It would seem that the result of that endeavor ought to be a lesson to the times in which we live, and to the nations entrusted with power. Injustice toward a supposedly weaker people is one of those offences against God which do not go unpunished, and its very practice always provokes a rebellion which converts a profitable people into powerful enemies.

It ought never to be forgotten either that injustice easily leads to oppression. We may suppose the tax at first imposed upon this people was comparatively slight, and honorable Egyptians found for it a satisfactory excuse, hardly expecting that the time would ever come when the Israelites should be regarded chattel-slaves. But he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. It is doubtful if there is any wrong in mans moral relations which blinds him so quickly and so effectually as the exercise of power against weakness.

Joseph Parker, in speaking of the combat between Moses and the Egyptian, says, Every honorable-minded man is a trustee of social justice and common fair play. We have nothing to do with the petty quarrels that fret society, but we certainly have to do with every controversysocial, imperial, or internationalwhich violates human right and impairs the claims of Divine honor. We must all fight for the right. We feel safer by so much if we know there are amongst us men who will not be silent in the presence of wrong, and will lift up a testimony in the name of righteousness, though there be none to cheer them with one word of encouragement.

It is only a step from enslaving to slaughter. That step was speedily taken, for Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river (Exo 1:22). Unquestionably there is a two-fold thought in this fact. Primarily this, whom the tyrant cannot control to his profit, he will slay to his pleasure; and then, in its deeper and more spiritual significance, it is Satans effort to bring an end to the people of God. The same serpent that effected the downfall of Adam and Eve whispered into Cains ear, Murder Abel; and into the ears of the Patriarchs, Put Joseph out of the way; and to Herod, Throttle all the male children of the land; and to the Pharisee and Roman soldier, Crucify Jesus of Nazareth. It remains for us of more modern times to learn that the slaughter of the weak may be accomplished in other ways than by the knife, the Nile, or the Cross. It was no worse to send a sword against a feeble people, than, for the sake of filthy lucre, to plant among them the accursed saloon. Benjamin Harrison, in a notable address before the Ecumenical Missionary Conference held in the City of New York years ago, said, The men who, like Paul, have gone to heathen lands with the message, We seek not yours but you, have been hindered by those who, coming after, have reversed the message. Rum and other corrupting agencies come in with our boasted civilization, and the feeble races wither before the breath of the white mans vices.

Egypt sought to take away from Israel the physical life which Egypt feared; but God has forewarned us against a greater enemy when He said, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. * * Fear Him, which after He hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear Him. If in this hour of almost universal disturbance the sword cannot be sheathed, let us praise God that our Congress and Senate have removed the saloona slaughter-house from the midst of our soldiers, and our amended Constitution has swept it from the land.

THE RISE OF MOSES.

I do not know whether you have ever been impressed in studying this Book of Exodus with what is so evidently a Divine ordering of events. It is when the slaughter is on that we expect the Saviour to come. And that God who sits beside the dying sparrow never overlooks the affliction of His people. When an edict goes forth against them, then it is that He brings their deliverer to the birth; hence we read, And there went a man of the house of Levi and took to wife a daughter of the house of Levi, and the woman conceived and bare a son (Exo 2:1-2),

That is Moses; that is Gods man! It is no chance element that brings him to the kingdom at such a time as this. It is no mere happening that he is bred in Pharaohs house, and instructed by Jochebed. It is no accident that he is taught in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. It is all in perfect consequence of the fact that God is looking upon the Children of Israel, and is having respect unto them.

Against Pharaohs injustice He sets Moses keen sense of right. When Moses sees an Egyptian slay an oppressed Israelite, he cannot withhold his hand. And, when after forty years in the wilderness he comes back to behold afresh the affliction of his people, he chooses to suffer with them rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. God never does a better thing for a nation than when He raises up in it such a man. We have heard a great deal of Socrates wisdom, but it is not in the science of philosophy alone that that ancient shines; for when Athens was governed by thirty tyrants, who one day summoned him to the Senate House, and ordered him to go with others named to seize Leon, a man of rank and fortune, whose life was to be sacrificed that these rulers might enjoy his estate, the great philosopher flatly refused, saying, I will not willingly assist in an unjust act. Thereupon Chericles sharply asked, Dost thou think, Socrates, to talk in this high tone and not to suffer? Far from it, replied the philosopher, I expect to suffer a thousand ills, but none so great as to do unjustly. That day Socrates was a statesman of the very sort that would have saved Athens had his ideas of righteousness obtained.

Against Pharaohs oppression He sets Moses Divine appointment. There were many times when Moses was tempted to falter, but Gods commission constrained his service. When Moses said, Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh? God answered, Surely I will be with thee. When Moses feared his own people who would not believe in his commission, God answered, Thus shalt thou say unto the Children of Israel, I AM hath sent you. When Moses feared that the Israelites would doubt his Divine appointment, God turned the rod in his hand into a worker of wonders. And, when Moses excused himself on the ground of no eloquence, God replied, Go, and I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say. With any man, a conviction of Divine appointment is a power, but for him who would be a saviour of his fellows, it is an absolute essential.

Pastor Stalker, speaking to the subject of a Divine call to the service of soul-winning, said, Enthusiasm for humanity is a noble passion and sheds a beautiful glow over the first efforts of an unselfish life, but it is hardly stern enough for the uses of the world. There come hours of despair when men seem hardly worth our devotion. * * Worse still is the sickening consciousness that we have but little to give; perhaps we have mistaken our vocation; it is a world out of joint, but were we born to put it right? This is where a sterner motive is needed than love for men. Our retreating zeal requires to be rallied by the command of God. It is His work; these souls are His; He has committed them to our care, and at the judgment-seat He will demand an account of them. All Prophets and Apostles who have dealt with men for God have been driven on by this impulse which has recovered them in hours of weakness and enabled them to face the opposition of the world. * * This command came to Moses in the wilderness and drove him into public life in spite of strong resistance; and it bore him through the unparalleled trials of his subsequent career. How many times he would have surrendered the battle and left his fellows to suffer under Pharaohs heels, but for the sound of that voice which Joan of Arc heard, saying to him as it said to her, Go on! Go on!

Against Pharaohs slaughter God set up Moses as a Saviour. History has recorded the salvation of his people to many a man, who, either by his counsels in the time of peace or his valor in the time of war, has brought abiding victory. But where in annals, secular or sacred, can you find a philosopher who had such grave difficulties to deal with as Moses met in lifting his people from chattel slaves to a ruling nation? And where so many enemies to be fought as Moses faced in his journey from the place of the Pyramids to Pisgahs Heights?

Titus Flaminius freed the Grecians from the bondage with which they had long been oppressed. When the herald proclaimed the Articles of Peace, and the Greeks understood perfectly what Flaminius had accomplished for them, they cried out for joy, A Saviour! a Saviour! till the Heavens rang with their acclamations.

But Moses was worthy of greater honor because his was a more difficult deed. I dont know, but I suppose one reason why Moses name is coupled with that of the Lamb in the Oratorio of the Heavens, is because he saved Israel out of a bondage which was a mighty symbol of Satans power, and led them by a journey, which is the best type of the pilgrims wanderings in this world, and brought them at last to the borders of Canaan, which has always been regarded as representative of the rest that remaineth for the people of God.

THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT

involves some items of the deepest interest.

The ten plagues prepare for it. The river is turned into blood; frogs literally cover the land; the dust is changed to lice; flies swarm until all the houses are filled; the beasts are smitten with murrain; boils and blains, hail, locusts and darkness do their worst, and the death of the first-born furnishes the climax of Egyptian affliction, and compels the haughty Pharaoh to bow in humility and grief before the will of the Most High God (chaps. 7-12).

There is one feature of these plagues that ought never to be forgotten. Without exception, they spake in thunder tones against Egyptian idolatry. The Nile River had long been an object of their adoration. In a long poem dedicated to the Nile, these lines are found:

Oh, Nile, hymns are sung to thee on the harp,

Offerings are made to thee: oxen are slain to thee;

Great festivals are kept for thee;

Fowls are sacrificed to thee.

But when the waters of that river were turned to blood, the Egyptians supposed Typhon, the God of Evil, with whom blood had always been associated, had conquered over their bountiful and beautiful Osiristhe name under which the Nile was worshiped.

The second plague was no less a stroke at their hope of a resurrection, for a frog had long symbolized to them the subject of life coming out of death. The soil also they had worshiped, and now to see the dust of it turned suddenly into living pests, was to suffer under the very power from which they had hoped to receive greatest success. The flies that came in clouds were not all of one kind, but their countless myriads, according to the Hebrew word used, included winged pests of every sort, even the scarabaeus, or sacred beetle. Heretofore, it had been to them the emblem of the creative principle; but now God makes it the instrument of destruction instead. When the murrain came upon the beasts, the sacred cow and the sacred ox-Apis were humbled. And ~when the ashes from the furnace smote the skin of the Egyptians, they could not forget that they had often sprinkled ashes toward Heaven, believing that thus to throw the ashes of their sacrifices into the wind would be to avert evil from every part of the land whither they were blown. Geikie says that the seventh plague brought these devout worshipers of false gods to see that the waters, the earth and the air, the growth of the fields, the cattle, and even their own persons, all under the care of a host of divinities, were yet in succession smitten by a power against which these protectors were impotent. When the clouds of locusts had devoured the land, there remained another stroke to their idolatry more severe still, and that was to see the Sun, the supreme god of Egypt, veil his face and leave his worshipers in total darkness. It is no wonder that Pharaoh then called to Moses and said, Go ye, serve the Lord; but it is an amazing thing that even yet his greed of gain goads him on to claim their flocks and their herds as an indemnity against the exodus of the people. There remained nothing, therefore, for God to do but lift His hand again, and lo, death succeeded darkness, and Pharaoh himself became the subject of suffering, and the greatest idol of the nation was humbled to the dust, for the king was the supreme object of worship.

He is a foolish man who sets himself up to oppose the Almighty God. And that is a foolish people who think to afflict Gods faithful ones without feeling the mighty hand of that Father who never forgets His own.

One day I was talking with a woman whose husband formerly followed the habit of gambling. By this means he had amassed considerable wealth, and when she was converted and desired to unite with the church, he employed every power to prevent it, and even denied her the privilege of church attendance. One morning he awoke to find that he was a defeated man; his money had fled in the night, and in the humiliation of his losses, he begged his wifes pardon for ever having opposed her spirit of devotion. Since that time, though living in comparative poverty, she has been privileged to serve God as she pleased; and, as she said to me, finds in that service a daily joy such as she at one time feared she would never feel again. Gods plagues are always preparing the way for an exodus on the part of Gods oppressed.

The Passover interpreted this exodus. That greatest of all Jewish feasts stands as a memorial of Israels flight from Egypt as a symbol of Gods salvation for His own, and as an illustration of the saving power of the Blood of the Lamb.

The opponents of the exodus perished. Our study concludes with Israels Song of Deliverance, beginning, The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation, and concluding in the words of Miriam, Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea. See Exo 15:1-21. Such will ever be the end of those who oppress Gods people and oppose the Divine will.

When one studies the symbolism in all of this, and sees how Israel typifies Gods present-day people, and Moses, their deliverer, Jesus our Saviour, and defeated Pharaoh, the enemy of our souls, destined to be overthrown, he feels like joining in the same song of deliverance, changing the words only so far as to ascribe the greater praise to Him who gave His life a deliverance for all men; and with James Montgomery sing:

Hail to the Lords Anointed

Great Davids greater Son

Who, in the time appointed,

His reign on earth begun.

He comes to break oppression,

To set the captive free,

To take away transgression,

And rule in equity.

He comes, with succor speedy,

To those who suffer wrong;

To help the poor and needy,

And bid the weak be strong;

To give them songs for sighing,

Their darkness turn to light,

Whose souls, condemned and dying.

Were precious in His sight.

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

CRITICAL NOTES.

Exo. 2:3. Bulrushes] The well-known Eg. papyrus or paper-reed.

Exo. 2:4. Stood] Stationed herself.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Exo. 2:1-4

THE BIRTH OF MOSES

I. As occurring of noble parentage.

1. They were of moderate social position. Amram, the father of Moses, was the son of Kohath, who was the son of Levi. He espoused Jochebed, who was also of the tribe of Levi. They had three children, Aaron, Miriam, and Moses. Josephus says that Amram was of noble family. Not much is known about him. The social position of a child has a great influence upon its lifeeducationhabitsand associates. Many sons rise higher in social grade than those who gave them birtheither through fortuneProvidenceor industry. Moses was taken to be the son of a monarchs daughter. He was to become the supreme Lawgiver and Ruler, not merely of a vast nation, but of the moral life of the world. 2 They were of strong parental affection. They took great notice of their children, especially of Moses. The mother thought him a goodly child. This was mother-like. She was anxious for the safety of her infant. Hence she tried to evade the cruel edict of the king. She concealed him in the house. Then she hid him on the waters of the Nile. She may have had a strange presentiment that her young child was destined to be connected with the fortunes of Israel. This made her solicitous for his preservation. Few mothers but would have acted likewise. Would that mothers were as anxious for the moral preservation of their offspring as for the physical. Many mothers will hide their children from a tyrant king, who would not conceal them from a wicked companionship. There are many edicts for the moral slaughter of the youngthe edict of a wicked press. Parents should hide their children therefrom.

3. They were of good religious character. By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents. (Heb. 11:23.) Thus the parents of Moses were truly pious. They had faith in the unseen Jehovahnot weaklifelessinoperativebut powerfulso that it influenced their lifein its most tender spherein its most sacred relationsin its brightest hopesin its truest joysit made them willing to give up their child to the guardianship of the Nilenayto the guardianship of God. Here is a pattern for parents. Have such faith in God that you can trusteven your childrenin the most perilous circumstances of lifeto His care. Such trust on your part may enhance their temporal goodit may put them in the way of a monarchs daughter. Many a child has obtained social position through the piety of his mother. Happy the infancy that is linked to the providence of God by a mothers faith. We cannot tell how much the faith of the parents had to do with the future of their child. Faith in God is the preserving influence of a threatened lifephysicallymorallyeternally.

II. As happening in perilous times.

1. When his nation was in a condition of servitude. That this servitude was severeexactinggrievousdisastrousmurderousis evident from the last chapter. Thus Moses was not born to freedomto comfortbut to unrewarded toiland unmitigated sorrow. His earliest experiences would be of cruelty and degradation. It seems a pity, and an injustice, that young children should be born to slavery.

2. When a cruel edict was in force against the young. How were the parents of Moses enabled to conceal him from the officers of Pharaoh? Given a loving mothera kindly providencewe cannot wonder at the result.

III. As involving momentous issues.

1. Issues relating to the lives of individuals. The birth of Moses made Miriam a watchergave her an introduction to a kings daughterand has given immortality to her name. It brought Aaron into historical prominence in relation to the Exodus of Israel, inasmuch as Moses lacked the eloquent tongue possessed by his brother. The life of Moses touched these names into fame, gave them an impulse, invested them with a greater meaning than otherwise they would have hadthey derive lustre from his work.

2. Issues involving the freedom of an enslaved people. That ark upon the Nile waters contains a power that shall break the fetters of Israeland lead the nation to a land of promise. Infant lives are linked much more to the interests of freedom than of serfdom. People are little conscious of the instrumentalities that are to give them liberty. The freedom of a kingdom may be involved in the birth of a child. We know not the influence one infant life may have upon a nation.

3. Issues relating to the destiny of a proud nation. That childthe object of a mothers careof a sisters vigilancewill one day be the occasion of a monarchs feartormentoverthrow. Now the Nile carries on its tranquil waters a power that shall defeat the Pharaohs. The edict is vain. The slaughter of the young is uselessOne has escaped the horrid massacre; that is enough! Egypt is in peril. Israel may strike her first note of freedom. In the life of one child there may be wrapped up the destinies of an Empire. The potentiality of infant life!

IV. As exhibiting the inventiveness of maternal love.

1. In that she devised a scheme for the safety of her child. The mother was more clever than the tyrant king and his accomplices. Tyranny is too calculating to be clever. Maternal love is quick, and spontaneous in its thought, and sees a refuge where tyrants never suspect. The refuge chosen was unlikelycarefully selectedvigilantly guardedevidently sufficient. She was amply repaid. Only a mother would have thought of it.

V. As eluding the edict of a cruel king. The mother of Moses was justified in eluding this edictbecause it was unjustmurderousit did violence to family affectionto the laws of citizenshipand to the joyful anticipations of men.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Exo. 2:1. Providence is preparing good, while wickedness is working evil to the ChurchTimes, tribes, and persons are appointed by God, by whom He will work good to His people.

In the desolations of the Churchs seed, God will have His to marry and continue it.
Tribes cursed for their desert, may be made instrumental of good by grace.
Marriages are always to be accounted lawful by Gods will revealed about them.
The greatest instruments of the Churchs good, God ordereth to bring in the common way of man.
The Divine Being orders instruments of salvation to be born in times of affliction.

Exo. 2:2. No policies, or cruelties of man, can hinder God from sending saviours to the Church.

God uses instrumentalities in accomplishing the freedom of the slave, and the welfare of the Church.
God maketh sight serviceable to faith for preserving His own. She saw.
That infant life sometimes contains the prophecy of its future. Faith hides the child it wishes to save

1. As evidence of a holy courage.
2. As using means to secure its end.
3. As manifesting a sacred skill.
4. As embodying the germ of a brilliant hope. Discretion is not cowardice.

Pharaohs laws were against all the laws of nature, or, more properly speaking, against the laws of God; and nature was slowly working against Pharaoh; he had made God his enemy. Against these laws of Pharaoh a mothers heart revolted [F. W. Robertson.]

In many cases in the scriptures you find the enemy seeking by death to interrupt the current of divine action. But, blessed be God, there is something beyond death. The entire sphere of divine action, as connected with redemption, lies beyond the limits of deaths domain. When Satan has exhausted his power, then God begins to show Himself. The grave is the limit of Satans activity; but there it is that divine activity begins. This is a glorious truth. Satan has the power of death; but God is the God of the living; and He gives life beyond the reach and power of deatha life which Satan cannot touch [C.H.M.]

Death is often the edict of man, when life is the promise and ordination of God.

Exo. 2:3. That the loving ingenuity of a mother has its limit; She could no longer hide him.

The divine Providence is the refuge of a good, but perplexed parent.
In times of extreme difficulty it is well to venture upon the providence of God [Henry and Scott].

God teaches the good the best way of saving those by whom He intends to deliver His Church.
Tyrants use the river for a grave; God uses it as a cradle for infant life.
Reed and slime, and pitch and flags, shall preserve Gods darlings at His pleasure.
The mother of Moses laid the ark in the flags by the rivers brink. Ay, but before doing so she laid it on the heart of God! She could not have laid it so courageously upon the Nile, if she had not first devoutly laid it upon the care and love of God. We are often surprised at the outward calmness of men who are called upon to do unpleasant and most trying deeds; but had we seen them in secret we should have known the moral preparation which they underwent before coming out to be seen of men [City Temple].

Exo. 2:4. An entire family moving within the circle of an infants life.

Faith always waits to see the issue of events.
Society needs watchers as well as workers. Had we been passing the spot at which the sister of Moses took up her position of observation we might have condemned her as an idler standing there and doing nothing. We should be careful of our condemnation, seeing how little we know of the reality of the case. In doing nothing, the girl was, in reality, doing everything. Mark the cunning of love. The watcher stood afar off. Had she stood quite close at hand, she would have defeated the very object of her watching. She was to do her work without the slightest appearance of doing it. (City Temple.)

The beautiful ministry of a youthful life

1. Loving.
2. Cautious.
3. Obedient.
4. Reflective.
5. Courteous.
6. Successful.

The mother remained at home, shewing

1. The dignity of her faithshe could wait away from the scene of trial.
2. Her supreme hope in Godthe issue was to be divine.
3. Her happy confidence in her little daughterchildren do their work better when they feel that they are trusted with it entirely.

How many brothers would be kept from moral injury and peril if they were thus guarded by a loving sister.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Exo. 2:1-10 Stronger far than educationgoing on before education can commence, possibly from the very first moments of consciousness, parents begin to impress themselves on their children. Our character, voice, features, qualitiesmodified, no doubt, by entering into a new being, and ruling a different organizationare impressed upon our children. Not the inculcation of opinions, but much rather the formation of principles, and of the tone of character, the derivation of qualities. Physiologists tell us of the derivation of the mental qualities from the father, and of the moral from the mother. But, be this as it may, there is scarcely one here who cannot trace back his present religious character to some impression in early life, from one or other of his parentsa tone, a look, a word, a habit, or even, it may be, a bitter exclamation of remorse [F. W. Robertson].

What if God should place in your hand a diamond, and tell you to inscribe on it a sentence which should be read at the last day, and be shown then as an index of your own thoughts and feelings? What carewhat caution would you exercise in the selection. Now, this is what God has done. He has placed before you the immortal minds of your children, more imperishable than the diamond, on which you are about to inscribe every day and every hours by your instructions, by your spirit, or by your example, something which will remain, and be exhibited for or against you at the judgment day [Dr. Payson].

Even as a plant will sooner take nourishment and thrive better in the soil where it first grew and sprung up than in any other ground, because it liketh its own soil best: so, likewise, children will sooner take instruction and good nurture from their parents, whom they best like, and from whom they had their being, than from any other [Cawdray].

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

THE TEXT OF EXODUS
TRANSLATION

2 And there went a man of the house of Le-vi, and took to wife a daughter of Le-vi. (2) And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. (3) And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch; and she put the child therein, and laid it in the flags by the rivers brink. (4) And his sister stood afar off, to know what would be done to him. (5) And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river-side; and she saw the ark among the flags, and sent her handmaid to fetch it. (6) And she opened it, and saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews children. (7) Then said his sister to Pha-raohs daughter, Shall I go and call thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? (8) And Pha-raohs daughter said to her, Go. And the maiden went and called the childs mother. (9) And Pharaohs daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it. (10) And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pha-raohs daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Mo-ses, and said, Because I drew him out of the water.

(11) And it came to pass in those days, when Mo-ses was grown up, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he saw an E-gyp-tian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren. (12) And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he smote the E-gyp-tian, and hid him in the sand. (13) And he went out the second day, and, behold, two men of the Hebrews were striving together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? (14) And he said, who made thee a prince and a judge over us? thinkest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the E-gyp-tian? And Mo-ses feared, and said, Surely the thing is known. (15) Now when Pha-raoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Mo-ses. But Mo-ses fled from the face of Pha-raoh, and dwelt in the land of Mid-i-an: and sat down by a well.

(16) Now the priest of Mid-i-an had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their fathers flock. (17) And the shepherds came and drove them away; but Mo-ses stood up and helped them, and water their flock. (18) And when they came to Reu-el their father, he said, How is it that yea re come so soon to-day? (19) And they said, An E-gyp-tian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and moreover he drew water for us, and watered the flock. (20) And he said unto his daughters, And where is he? why is it that ye have left the man? call him, that he may eat bread. (21) And Mo-ses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Mo-ses Zip-po-rah his daughter. (22) And she bare a son, and he called his name Ger-shom; for he said, I have seen a sojourner in a foreign land.
And it came to pass in the course of those many days, that the king of E-gypt died: and the children of Is-ra-el sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. (24) And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with I-saac, and with Jacob. (25) And God saw the children of Is-ra-el, and God took knowledge of them.

EXPLORING EXODUS: CHAPTER TWO
QUESTIONS ANSWERABLE FROM THE BIBLE

1.

Of what tribe were Moses parents? (Exo. 2:1)

2.

What were the names of Moses father and mother? (Exo. 6:20)

3.

Did Moses mother hide her baby only because he was a goodly child? (Exo. 2:2. Compare Heb. 11:23; Act. 7:20)

4.

How long was Moses hidden at home? (Exo. 2:2)

5.

Where was the baby Moses placed? (Exo. 2:3)

6.

How was the ark made watertight? (Exo. 2:3)

7.

Who watched over the babe in the basket? (Exo. 2:4; Num. 26:59)

8.

Who saw the ark among the flags? (Exo. 2:5)

9.

Who actually fetched the ark? (Exo. 2:5)

10.

What did the baby do when the ark was opened? (Exo. 2:6)

11.

What was the reaction of Pharaohs daughter when she saw the child? (Exo. 2:6)

12.

What did the babys sister offer to get for Pharaohs daughter? (Exo. 2:7)

13.

How could Exo. 2:7-8 illustrate Rom. 8:28?

14.

Where did Moses mother bring the boy after she raised him past infancy? (Exo. 2:10)

15.

Who called his name Moses? (Exo. 2:10)

16.

Why was his name called Moses? What does that name mean? (Exo. 2:10)

17.

How old was Moses when he went unto his brethren? (Exo. 2:11; Act. 7:23)

18.

What did Moses look upon when he went out unto his brethren: (Exo. 2:11)

19.

What did Moses see that grieved him? (Exo. 2:11)

20.

Was slaying the Egyptian necessary? (Exo. 2:12)

21.

What did Moses suppose that his Hebrew brethren would understand when he killed the Egyptian? (Act. 7:24-25)

22.

What was done with the Egyptians body? (Exo. 2:12)

23.

When two Hebrews fought, was just one at fault, or were both at fault? (Exo. 2:13)

24.

How quickly had the Egyptians death become known? By what means had it become known? (Exo. 2:14)

25.

How did Pharaoh react to the news of the Egyptians death? (Exo. 2:15)

26.

To what land did Moses flee? Where is this land? (Exo. 2:15)

27.

Where did Moses sit down in this land? (Exo. 2:15)

28.

How many daughters did the priest of Midian have? (Exo. 2:16)

29.

What was the name of the priest of Midian? (Exo. 2:18; Exo. 3:1)

30.

What was the labor of the priests daughters? (Exo. 2:17)

31.

How did Moses help the priests daughters? (Exo. 2:17)

32.

What surprised the priest of Midian about his daughters return? (Exo. 2:18)

33.

Why did the daughters refer to Moses as an Egyptian? (Exo. 2:19)

34.

Who drew the water from the well? (Exo. 2:16; Exo. 2:19)

35.

What invitation was extended to Moses? (Exo. 2:20)

36.

What was Moses content to do? (Exo. 2:21)

37.

What change in Moses manner of life took place when he settled in Midian? (Compare Exo. 3:1 and Act. 7:22)

38.

Who became Moses wife? (Exo. 2:21)

39.

What was the name of Moses son? (Exo. 2:22)

40.

What does the name of the son of Moses mean? (Exo. 2:22)

41.

Who was Moses second son? What does his name mean? (Exo. 18:2-4)

42.

Was it a long time or a short time before the king who sought Moses life died? (Exo. 2:23)

43.

Did the death of the king of Egypt ease Israels bondage? (Exo. 2:23)

44.

What sound effects came from the children of Israel in Egypt? Why? (Exo. 2:23-24)

45.

Did Israels crying have any effect? (Exo. 2:23-24)

46.

What did God remember? (Exo. 2:24)

47.

What connection is there between Israels groaning and Gods covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? (Exo. 2:24; Compare Gen. 15:13-14)

48.

Tell four things God did when Israel cried and groaned. (Exo. 2:24-25).

Exodus 2 : THE MAKING OF GODS MAN

Things needed in the making of Gods man:

1.

God-fearing parents; Exo. 2:1-2

2.

Divine direction and providence; Exo. 2:3-9

3.

Training; Act. 7:22

4.

Personal decision; Exo. 2:11; Heb. 11:24

5.

Courage to Act. 2:11-13; Act. 2:17

6.

Gods chastening; Exo. 2:14-15; Exo. 2:21-22

7.

Patient endurance; Heb. 11:27; Exo. 18:4

Exodus 2 : MOSES DECISION IN EGYPT

I.

He refused . . .

1.

To be called the son of Pharaohs daughter (Heb. 11:24).

2.

To enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season (Heb. 11:25).

3.

To cherish the treasures of Egypt (Heb. 11:26).

II.

He decided . . .

1.

To stand with Israel, the people of God (Heb. 11:25).

2.

To deliver his people (Act. 7:24).

3.

To suffer ill treatment.

4.

To share the reproach of the Messiah (Christ) (Heb. 11:26).

EXPLORING EXODUS: Notes on Chapter Two

1.

Who were Moses parents?

His father was Amram, a man of the house (or tribe) of Levi. He was a grandson or later descendant of Levi. The genealogy in Exo. 6:16-20 almost certainly has some names omitted. (See notes on Exo. 6:16-20.) It appears from Exo. 2:1 that Amram himself went out and took a wife of his own choosing, a somewhat unusual act in a time when fathers usually arranged marriages for children.

Moses mother was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi (possibly a first generation descendant of Levi, and maybe his only daughter). She was born to Levi in Egypt (Num. 26:59). She would have been Amrams aunt, but was not necessarily older than he.

2.

Was Moses the firstborn son in his family?

No. He had a brother, Aaron, three years older than he (Exo. 7:7). Also he had a sister, Miriam (= Mary), several years older yet. Some interpreters have proposed that since Miriam is called the sister of Aaron in Exo. 15:20, that perhaps she and Aaron were children of Amram by another wife. But Num. 26:59 says plainly that Jochebed bore all three children.

3.

What was noticeable in the appearance of the infant Moses?

He was incredibly beautiful. The Hebrew Bible says he was a good (tov) or goodly child. Act. 7:20 says he was exceeding fair (literally fair to God, or fair like God). The very beauty of the child seemed to be a particular token of divine approval, and a sign that God had some special design concerning him.[92]

[92] C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, Vol. I (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), p. 427.

This statement about his beauty does not really suggest that the parents would have been less willing to save his life if he had been an ordinary baby.

4.

Why was the baby Moses hidden?

Because of the kings commandment to slay all baby boys. But his parents (both of them!) were not afraid of the kings commandment, and hid him for three months (Heb. 10:23).

5.

Why could not the parents continue to hide the baby?

Any parents of a normal strong-lunged, three-months-old baby know why such a one would be hard to hide. (The clothesline would betray you!)
The Jewish Midrash (Interpretation) of Exodus says that the Egyptians would go from house to house where they suspected a Hebrew child might have been born. This is possibly true.

Later Jewish tradition preserved or invented many traditions about Moses infancy and youth. We read them in Josephus, the Midrash, and other Jewish sources. They are often very interesting. In the same way in later centuries Roman Catholic traditions about the infant Jesus and his mother Mary were brought forth in addition to the simple brief Biblical stories about Jesus childhood.

6.

How was Moses hidden by faith? (Heb. 11:23).

Since faith cometh by hearing, maybe God had given some revelation to the parents about the future of the child and what they should do. Josephus, the Jewish historian, says that Amram foretold how Moses would deliver Israel, while his wife was still expecting.[93]

[93] Antiquities, II, 9, 3.

Such traditions are unverifiable. The faith of Moses parents may have simply been based only on their knowledge of Gods promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their seed (descendants). This knowledge could have been learned from their parents or grandparents. They had faith in what had been told to them, and dared to risk their safety because of this faith.

7.

How important was the child Moses?

NO WORDS CAN TELL HOW IMPORTANT HE WAS. THROUGH THIS CHILD GOD WAS PREPARING THE EMANCIPATION OF ISRAEL AT THE VERY TIME WHEN PHARAOH WAS PLANNING THEIR EXTERMINATION! THIS MOSES WOULD BECOME THE GREATEST PERSONAGE OF HISTORY PRIOR TO JESUS.

How important the birth of any child may be! No one could have foreseen Moses influence. What if Moses or some other child destined for greatness had been murderously aborted by his mother?

8.

What preparations were made for placing Moses upon the water? (Exo. 2:3-4)

His mother took an ark of bulrushes, a basket or chest made of papyrus.[94] (The scripture does not say that she made it.) The Hebrew word translated ark (tebah) is used in the scripture only in reference to Moses basket and Noahs ark. Perhaps that is significant, since both were means of deliverance, and possibly symbols of our deliverance.

[94] Papyrus was the plant whose stems could be made into paper. It grew in water or swamps and attained a height of 1015 feet. Boats were sometimes made of it (Isa. 18:2).

Moses mother coated the ark with slime (bitumen, or asphalt) and pitch (tar), making it watertight. She put the child in the basket, and placed it among the flags, or reeds,[95] by the Nile river (probably one of the arms of the eastern Nile delta).

[95] The word for reeds in Exo. 2:3 is suph, the same term used to describe the Reed Sea, or Red Sea, in Exo. 13:18. This, however, does not prove that there were reeds growing in the Red Sea. The term suph also refers to seaweeds. Note its use in Jon. 2:5.

All of these acts seem deliberately and calmly done. Surely Moses mother knew what time and place that Pharaohs daughter came to bathe at the river. Placing the sister (Miriam) at a distance from the basket to observe suggests that they expected someone to come. We imagine that a spot used for royal bathing would be off limits to the general public.

9.

Where did Moses mother stay while her babe was in the river?

Apparently she went home, leaving her child in the care of Miriam and of God (Exo. 2:4; Exo. 2:8). Her confidence in both was beautiful.

10.

Who was the daughter of Pharaoh who found Moses?

We really do not know. The princess who later became queen Hatshepsut was probably then a young woman; but this does not prove that she was the daughter of Pharaoh referred to in the Bible. We favor the idea that she was the one, but we do not know. R. K. Harrison suggests that the woman was only one of the daughters in one of the numerous royal harems scattered about Egypt.[96]

[96] Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969), p. 575.

11.

Why should the daughter of Pharaoh go to the river to bathe?

Probably this was a religious ceremonial washing of some kind. The Nile river was the lifestream of Egypt. The ancient Egyptians regarded the river as worthy of divine honors. They wrote hymns to it.[97] They felt that its waters imparted fruitfulness and long life. Note that Pharaoh made frequent trips out to the water (Exo. 7:17; Exo. 8:20).

[97] Hymn to the Nile, translated by John A. Wilson, in Ancient Near Eastern Texts (hereafter referred to as ANET), edited by James B. Pritchard (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton U. Press, 1955), pp. 372, 373.

12.

Why did Pharaohs daughter have compassion on the babe? (Exo. 2:6)

Three reasons may be suggested: (1) natural female tenderness (which is a beautiful, needed gift from God!); (2) religious teaching among the Egyptians which required tenderness toward the suckling infant;[98] (3) the providential control of God.

[98] F. C. Cook, ed., The Bible Commentary, Exodus-Ruth, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1964), p. 9.

13.

What care was given to the infant Moses by his mother after she got him back?

Every possible care. He received physical care. The term nurse in Exo. 2:7; Exo. 2:9 means to suckle. Both Josephus[99] and the Jewish Midrash[100] say that the infant Moses rejected the breasts of Egyptian women before being turned back to his mother, This seems like a superstitious yarn.

[99] Antiquities, II, ix, 5.

[100] Amos W. Miller, Understanding the Midrash (New York; Jonathan David, 1965), pp. 5657.

But we can be completely sure that the child Moses grew up with spiritual care also, hearing songs and words about God and his people Israel. As far as we know the only training Moses could have received about God was that which he received at home as a very young child. But the earliest impressions upon a child often stick with him all his life. This certainly proved true in the case of Moses.

A wise teacher was asked, When should a childs education begin? He replied, In the life of his great-grandmother. Observe the effects of Eunice and Lois upon Timothy (2Ti. 1:5).

Observe how the faith of Moses mother was rewarded. Previously she cared for Moses at great peril; now under the protection of Pharaohs daughter. Previously she cared for him at her own expense; now she gets royal wages for doing it.
Observe also how important the women were in the life of Moses. His mother, his sister, Pharaohs daughterall played vital roles in his career. All honor to the wonderful women of all ages who fear the Lord! Moses wise mother knew what some emancipated women of our times do not know, namely that service at home to her family will have more powerful influence on the world than competing with men for authority. Who had a more lasting powerful influence on the world, the Egyptian queen Hatshepsut or Moses mother?

14.

What was Moses youth in Egypt like?

At an unspecified age (35?) Moses mother turned him over to Pharaohs daughter, who nourished him for her own son (Act. 7:21). He was trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians (Act. 7:22). This would include languages, such as Egyptian hieroglyphic, Babylonian cuneiform,[101] and possibly the early Semitic alphabetic writing, such as was then in use down in the Sinaitic peninsula at Serabit El Khadim.[102] The Egyptians were also skillful in architecture, astronomy, and medicine.

[101] The so-called Amarna letters, written from petty kings in Canaan and Syria to Egyptian kings Amenhotep III (14131377) and Amenhotep IV (13771358), were written in Babylonian cuneiform writing. Apparently it was the international language of government and business at that time. See Amarna Letters, in Biblical World, Chas. Pfeiffer, ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1966), p. 36.

[102] Serabit el Khadim was a site in western Sinai where there were turquoise mines and a temple and a shrine to the Egyptian goddess Hathor. On these ruins, dated about 1500 B.C., are inscriptions in a very ancient alphabetic writing related to Hebrew. See Sir Charles Marston, The Bible is True (London: Eyre and Spottiswoods, 1937), p. 191; Serabit el Khadim in Biblical World, Chas. Pfeiffer, ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1966), p. 191.

Moses became mighty in word and deed as a young man (Act. 7:22). Josephus[103] tells of Moses leading a victorious war against the Ethiopians, and consummating marriage with an Ethiopian princess. Could she have been the Cushite woman of Num. 12:1? We can neither accept nor reject this information with complete certainty.

[103] Antiquities, II, x, 12.

15.

Who gave Moses his name? Why? (Exo. 2:10)

Pharaohs daughter gave him his name. In Egyptian his name means son of (the water). The -mose in Moses is found in Egyptian names such as Ahmose, Thutmose, etc.[104]

[104] Gleason L. Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago: Moody, 1964), p. 211.

In Hebrew, Moses name is Moshe, derived from the verb masha, meaning to draw out. It is remarkable that Moses name would have meanings that related to his life in both the Egyptian and Hebrew languages.

16.

What great decision did Moses make in Egypt? (Exo. 2:11)

Moses chose to stand with his people, the Hebrews. Heb. 11:24 says that by faith he REFUSED to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter. The very fact that he refused implies that some offer was made to him.[105] Moses decision involved a complete severance from Egypt.

[105] Arthur W. Pink, Gleanings in Exodus (Chicago: Moody, n.d.), p. 19.

He made the decision when he was grown, at age forty (Act. 7:22). The decision may never have been publicly declared in the palace in Egypt, but Moses deeds soon made clear whose side he was on.

Heb. 11:26 says that Moses chose to share the reproach of Christ (the Messiah). This reveals to us that Moses had some knowledge of the Messianic hope in Israel, a fact that we would not have learned from the book of Exodus alone.

17.

How did Moses demonstrate his decision?

He went out unto his brethren (Exo. 2:11) and looked upon their burdens, supposing that his brothers (the Hebrews) would understand that God was by his hand giving them deliverance (Act. 7:25).

Observe that Moses went out to his brethren. He had not up till then lived among his fellow countrymen, and had not shared their hard lot.
Moses had to learn that God would give Israel deliverance by HIS own hand, rather than by Moses hand. This lesson required forty years of sheep-herding in humiliation.
We must not, however, find fault with Moses impulsiveness. At least he tried to do something. Simon Peter was also impulsive, and in an act of questionable violence he cut off the ear of the high priests servant (Mar. 14:47). God used both Peter and Moses to do great things. Their decisiveness showed their potential for leadership, once they were properly disciplined. God does not get much service from those who know all the right things to do, but do not do anything.

18.

Was Moses fearful when he broke with Egypt?

No. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king (Heb. 11:27). This refers to Moses leaving Pharaohs house, not to his flight to Midian, for then he feared (Exo. 2:14).[106]

[106] Keil and Delitzsch, op cit., 432.

The king from whom Moses fled was probably the great Thutmose III (15021448 B.C.), who made seventeen military campaigns into Palestine and Syria, including a famous frontal attack on the city of Megiddo through a narrow mountain pass.[107] Thutmose III was just at this time (about 1486 B.C.) coming to full power, having been a rival to Hatshepsut for many years. (Hatshepsut was both his mother-in-law and step-mother!)

[107] ANET, 234237.

19.

Why did Moses kill the Egyptian? (Exo. 2:12)

The Egyptian (probably one of the taskmasters) was smiting (beating) one of the Hebrews. The verb smite (nakah) in Exo. 2:11 is the same verb used in Exo. 2:12 to tell how Moses slew (smote, struck down) the Egyptian. This hints that the Egyptian was beating, or nearly beating, the Hebrew to death.

It is easy to question Moses act. Why did he do it only when he saw no one was looking? Could he not have ordered the Egyptian to leave the Hebrew alone, since Moses was a prince? But such questions can never diminish the greatness of Moses.

20.

When two Hebrews fought, were both at fault? (Exo. 2:13)

No. One of them was bullying the other, then probably using the resistance of his victim as an excuse to fight him more. How true this is to human psychology! It is not always true that it takes two to make a fight. One who is oppressed by others may be equally oppressive himself if given an opportunity. Only the death of Christ and his love dwelling in us can reconcile men to God and to one another (Col. 1:21).

21.

How had Moses deed become known?

The slaying of the Egyptian could only have been made known by the Israelite whom Moses had saved the day before. Imagine how fast and far the gossip grape-vine carried this news!

22.

Did Moses seek to become a prince and a judge over the Hebrews? (Exo. 2:14)

Not really. He made no threatening gestures toward the Israelites striving together. He merely asked the one man, Why are you striking your companion? The wrongdoers reply to Moses resembles the words used by the Sodomites against Lot (Gen. 19:9).

23.

What does Moses FEAR suggest to us? (Exo. 2:14)

It suggests the very human quality in an extraordinary man. Moses is not so different from us that we cannot identify with him.
It also suggests the truthfulness of the story in Exodus. A fictionalized narrative glorifying Moses might omit such a fact.

24.

Where was the land of Midian to which Moses fled? (Exo. 2:15)

Moses fled to an area in the southeast part of the Sinai peninsula, west of the Gulf of Akabah. The Midianites mainly lived east of the Gulf of Akabah; but some lived on the west side. It was there where Moses fled, going perhaps 250 miles from Egypt.

Two facts confirm the view that the land of Midian where Moses fled was west of the Gulf of Akabah: (1) In that area Moses later rejoined his Midianite father-in-law Jethro (Exo. 18:1; Exo. 18:5); (2) also Moses was herding sheep for Jethro near Mt. Horeb (Sinai), which is certainly west of the Gulf of Akabah. Sheep could hardly have been driven from the area east of the Gulf all the way to Sinai. The distance is too great and the terrain is too rugged and barren.

25.

Who were the Midianites?

The Midianites were descendants of Abraham through his wife Keturah (Gen. 25:2; Gen. 25:4). They were thus remotely related to the Israelites.

R. Alan Cole comments that since later Israelites were bitter foes of the Midianites (Num. 25:17-18; Judges 6), it is unthinkable that the story of the Midianite sojourn of Moses would have been invented by a later Israelite author.[108] This is true; and it is a significant statement, since many Bible critics hold that Exodus was written by several authors living in the tenth or fifth centuries before Christ (long after Moses).

[108] Cole, op. cit., p. 60.

26.

What were the three main periods in Moses life?

THREE 40-YEAR PERIODS IN MOSES LIFE

1.

In Egypt, as a prince.

2.

In Midian, as a shepherd.

3.

In the wilderness (desert), as leader of Israel.

27.

Why did Moses sit down at a well? (Exo. 2:15)

Literally, He sat down by the well, probably the only one in the vicinity. Perhaps he sat down there because he was weary or thirsty, or because he hoped to meet someone. Wells were common meeting places in any area. Jacob met Rachel at a well (Gen. 29:10; Compare Gen. 24:11); and Christ met the Samaritan woman at Jacobs well (John 4).

28.

What is indicated about the Midianites religion?

The Midianites knew God by the name El (Pl. elohim), a name which means mighty one. This is indicated by the name Reuel (Exo. 2:18), which means friend of God, or perhaps shepherd of God.

The Midianites had a priest (Exo. 2:16). However, the extent of his knowledge of God seems very limited (Exo. 18:8-11). He did offer burnt-offerings and sacrifices (Exo. 18:12), although the exact way these sacrifices were made is not known.

The conduct of the shepherds toward Jethros daughters (Exo. 2:17) may indicate that his person and office were lightly regarded by the idolatrous and irreligious citizens of his immediate neighborhood.

29.

Describe Reuels (Jethros) family.

He had a large family with seven daughters (some of marriageable age), and apparently a son, Hobab (Num. 10:29). A large Godly family is good. Jethros daughters were industrious. No mention is made of Reuels wife.

Part of Reuels family is later referred to as the Kenites (Jdg. 4:11; Jdg. 1:16). The name Kenite in Aramaic means smith, or metal worker.[109] It is a known fact that copper mines existed in the Sinai peninsula (near Ezion-Geber at the north end of the Gulf of Akabah) and turquoise mines near Serabit el-Khadim. Just possibly some members of the family were involved in mining, as well as shepherding.

[109] G. Ernest Wright, Biblical Archaeology (Philadelphia: Westminister, 1962), p. 65. Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. II, p. 834.

30.

What were Reuels other names?

(1) Raguel This form of his name is given in the King James version of Num. 10:29, although the Hebrew form of the name there is identical to that which is spelled Reuel in Exo. 2:18.

(2) Jethro. (Heb. Yithro). This alternate name for Reuel is given in Exo. 3:1; Exo. 18:1. Jethro may mean his excellence, Exo. 4:18 gives a variant form of the name Jethro, Jether (Heb. Yether). We do not know why Reuel was also called Jethro. Several Biblical people had two names. Examples are Gideon-Jerubbaal (Jdg. 6:27; Jdg. 6:32), Bartholemew-Nathanael, Solomon-Jedidiah (2Sa. 12:25), Simon-Peter (Joh. 1:42), Jehoiachin-Jeconiah (2Ki. 24:15; Jer. 24:1). Reuels having an alternate name need not therefore surprise us.

31.

What is shown about Moses by his driving the shepherds away? (Exo. 2:17)

It shows that he was undaunted by his failures in Egypt to reconcile the fighting Hebrews and to deliver his people. He still had spunk to stand up against wrongdoing. His impulses led to immediate action.
It shows he was kind and courteous. The sisters were surprised that he drew water for them. Usually this was exclusively a womans job.
The behavior of the shepherds was rotten and rank. They had apparently been imposing on the daughters for a long time, because when the girls were not delayed by the shepherds taking over the water they had drawn, they got home so much sooner than usual that their father was surprised. It is interesting to ponder whether Jethro knew of this regular water-well larceny, and if so why he had not stopped it.

32.

Why call Moses an Egyptian? (Exo. 2:19)

Culturally he was an Egyptianin dress, in speech, and every outward aspect. But inwardly he was NOT an Egyptian; and it is from the heart that the expressions of life come forth.

33.

What is shown about Jethro by his having his daughters call in Moses?

Hospitality, gratitude, recognition of good personal qualities.
Jethro rather scolds the daughters for leaving Moses at the well. Why have you left the man? Is it because you have not been taught better? Is it because you are selfish? Is it because you did not understand or believe the man? (Preachers Homiletic Commentary). Parents should teach their children hospitality, especially when kindnesses have been extended to them.

34.

What significance is there to Moses eating bread with Jethro? (Exo. 2:20)

Eating bread in those lands means more than casual hospitality. It involves a personal pledge of friendship and protection.

35.

Was Moses happy to remain with Jethro?

The expression content in Exo. 2:21 has no idea of satisfaction or of concession about it. Moses simply agreed to dwell with the man. Perhaps he felt he had nowhere else to go. The fact that he could stay forty years with Jethro suggests that Jethro must have been congenial. Exo. 18:14 ff suggests that Jethro was wise.

36.

What do we know about Zipporah? (Exo. 2:21)

Very little. Her name meant Bird (perhaps warbler twitterer).[110] She wasnt loyal enough to the Abrahamic convenant to see to it that her son was circumcised (Exo. 4:25). Moses sent her back to her fathers house when he went back to Egypt to lead Israel out. She rejoined Moses at Rephidim near Sinai (Exo. 18:1-2). Unless she is the Cushite woman of Num. 12:1, we hear nothing more about her. The feeling strikes us that Zipporah was never really very sympathetic to Moses.

[110] Cole, op. cit., p. 61.

37.

What do the names of Moses sons suggest? (Exo. 2:22)

Gershom means a stranger there (from Hebrew ger, stranger). Though Moses had safety and a wife and children, the name Gershom suggests that he felt a feeling of banishment in Midian.

A second son named Eliezer was born. See Exo. 18:4. His name means My God is a help. This name suggests that as time passed Moses came to be more content, and to rely more fully on God. He did not lose his faith.

38.

What possible results came to Moses through his sojourn in Midian?

(1) He learned to trust less in his own abilities. See Exo. 3:11. Such a lesson is good if it does not completely destroy our self-confidence, and if it causes us to depend the more on God.

(2) He learned patience, at least more patience than he had before.
(3) He learned many details about the land, its trails, oases, etc. He was later to lead the Israelites through part of the very territory wherein he labored as a shepherd.

(4) Possibly Jethro, as priest, may have had written documents that came into Moses possession. The book of Job was probably written in patriarchal times (time of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob) in Arabia, which lay next to Midian. If this came to Moses attention or he acquired it, this would help account for its presence in the group of books accepted as scripture (the canon).[111]

[111] The tract Baba Bathra from the Jewish Talmud (probably second century after Christ) says, Who wrote the Scriptures?Moses wrote his own book and the portion of Balaam (Numbers 23-24) and Job. Baba Bathra 14b-15a.

(5) One result sometimes credited to Moses sojourn in Midian can be seriously questioned. This is the idea that Moses got the name of YAHWEH (Jehovah) from the Midianites (or Kenites), and some of his ideas about Gods nature and laws. This is called the Kenite theory.

Acording to the so-called Kenite hypothesis, Yahweh was originally the tribal god of the clan of Kenites headed by Moses father-in-law Jethro. From them Moses allegedly first learned of the name and worship of Yahweh.[112]

[112] James King West, Introduction to the Old Testament (New York: Macmillan, 1971), p. 125. Compare H. H. Rowley, From Joseph to Joshua (London: Oxford U. Press, 1951), pp. 149160.

The Scriptures do not indicate that the Midianites knew the name Jehovah. Moses was reminded of it by God at the burning bush (Exo. 3:13-16). Jehovah declared that he was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. How could the Israelites have been induced to leave Egypt under the guidance of a God with whom they had had no previous association, and about whom they knew absolutely nothing?

Moses learned about God at the burning bush, and in the later experiences of leading Israel out of Egypt, and at Mt. Sinai. This knowledge was relayed to Jethro and accepted by him only after it was validated by the events of the exodus (Exo. 18:11). Jethro learned of Jehovah from Moses and not Moses from Jethro.

39.

What king of Egypt is referred to in Exo. 2:23?

Probably the one who died was Thutmose III (15021448 B.C.). He was succeeded by his son Amenhotep II (14481422), who was probably the pharaoh at the time of the exodus. Amenhotep II continued the earlier oppression of the Israelites.

40.

What sound effects came from oppressed Israel? (Exo. 2:23-24)

(1) Sighing, which is often an expression of grief. Psa. 12:5.

(2) Cry. Compare Exo. 3:9 and Jas. 5:4.

(3) Groaning. Compare Exo. 6:5.

The fact that the Israelites cried unto God shows that they retained some faith in the God of their fathers. When the old oppressing king died, they prayed in hope. But the bondage continued for a time.

41.

How important was Gods covenant? (Exo. 2:24)

A covenant has always been the cornerstone of Gods dealings with mankind. A covenant is variously defined as a commitment, bargain, agreement, arrangement, or will. God made covenants with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and others. God is unfailing in remembering his covenants.

Regarding Gods covenant with Abraham, see Genesis 15. This covenant involved promises of Israels increase in population, its enslavement in a foreign country, its deliverance, and the possession of the land of Canaan.

42.

What four actions are ascribed to God in Exo. 2:24-25?

God heard . . . remembered . . . saw . . . knew. Exo. 2:25, when translated very literally, says, And God looked upon the sons of Israel, and God knew. How beautiful! What more could anyone ask than that God would see us and know? To know means to know meaningfully, by experience. It often has the idea of intimacy, of approval, and acceptance.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

II.
THE BIRTH, EDUCATION, AND EARLY LIFE OF MOSES.

(1) There went.Comp. Gen. 35:22; Hos. 1:3. The expression is idiomatic, and has no special force.

A man of the house of Levi.Note the extreme simplicity of this announcement; and compare it with the elaborate legends wherewith Oriental religions commonly surrounded the birth of those who were considered their founders, as Thoth, Zoroaster, Orpheus. Even the name of the man is here omitted as unimportant. It is difficult to conceive any one but Moses making such an omission.

A daughter of Levii.e., a woman of the same tribe as himself, a descendant of Levinot a daughter in the literal sense, which the chronology makes impossible.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

BIRTH AND EDUCATION OF MOSES, Exo 2:1-10.

1. A man of the house of Levi Amram, a descendant of Levi through Kohath. And took to wife a daughter (descendant) of Levi Jochebed. Exo 6:20, where see note . See Introductory, (1 . )

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The Birth of Moses ( Exo 2:1-10 ).

It is noteworthy that out of this dreadful period God produced his man for that hour. For in the midst of the bloodbath and the despair a child was born, who would be the deliverer of his people.

a A man of Levi marries a daughter of Levi (Exo 2:1).

b The woman bares a son and hides him for three months (Exo 2:2).

c She puts him in a waterproofed basket of bulrushes and puts it in the reeds at the Nile’s edge (Exo 2:3).

d The baby’s sister stands by to see what will happen to him (Exo 2:4).

e The daughter of Pharaoh, watched over by her maids, comes to bathe in the river (Exo 2:5 a).

f She sees the basket and sends a handmaid to fetch it (Exo 2:5 b).

f She opens it and sees the child weeping (Exo 2:6 a).

e She has compassion on him and declares him to be one of the ill-fated Hebrew children, a child of the river (Exo 2:6 b).

d Moses’ sister asks if she should seek a Hebrew wet nurse for him (Exo 2:7).

c Pharaoh’s daughter sends Moses’ sister and she brings the child’s mother, she who put the child in the basket, and Pharaoh’s daughter pays her wages to wean the child (Exo 2:8-9).

b The child grows and she adopts it as her son (Exo 2:10 a)

a He is called Moses because he was drawn out of the water (Exo 2:10).

The parallels here are striking. In ‘a’ the child comes from the chosen tribe of Israel, and in the parallel comes forth from the river. In ‘b’ the woman bears her son and in the parallel the daughter of Pharaoh adopts him as her son. In ‘c’ the woman commits her son to God and in the parallel is called on to bring him up. In ‘d’ the sister waits to see what will happen and in the parallel is there to find a wet nurse for the baby. In ‘e’ Pharaoh’s daughter comes to the river, and in the parallel she sees Yahweh’s chosen one, a child of the river, and has compassion on him. The great enemy’s household will protect the child of God’s deliverance. In ‘f’ she sends for the basket and in the parallel opens it

Exo 2:1-2

‘And there went a man of the house of Levi and took to wife a daughter of Levi, and the woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw him that he was a healthy child she hid him three months.’

“A man from the household of Levi.” Notice that the full blown tribal title ‘Levite’ is not yet in use (contrast Exo 4:14). These titles are gradually developing. We note also that no names are given here for Moses’ father and mother. This may suggest that Amram and Yochebed were in fact ancestors of Moses and not his actual father and mother (compare Exo 6:20, which see). What is important is that Moses came from the chosen tribe (Deu 18:5).

So here from the beginning of Exodus there is an emphasis on the special obedience of the tribe of Levi. This will come out again later, both with regard to the worship of the molten calf (Exo 32:26-28), and with regard to the slaughter of the idolatrous Simeonite chief and his adulterous, idol-worshipping lover (Num 25:7). It was this special zeal for God that would make them suitable to be His chosen servants.

“Daughter of Levi.” Not necessarily directly so, but a woman descendant as with ‘son of’ (but see Num 26:59). The question again is whether Num 26:59 is to be taken literally without any generations missed out. If so Yochebed cannot be the direct mother of Moses if they were in Egypt for four hundred years. But it was quite common in genealogies to miss out names and only include important ones.

The mother hid her baby for three months to prevent any ill-wisher from throwing him into the Nile. Possibly she stayed hidden in the house and did not announce the birth, or possibly she made out to everyone that he was a girl and kept him in secrecy, although it may be that that would be frowned on by worshippers of God (Deu 22:5). Note that Hebrew stresses that this was an act of faith (Heb 11:23). His parents were expecting God to do something.

“For three months.” That is, for a goodly time, until it was no longer possible.

“Was a healthy child.” The word can been translated, ‘goodly’, ‘handsome’, ‘beautiful’. It is the word used in Genesis 1 of the world being ‘good’. The point is rather that there was something about him that made his mother see him as good in God’s eyes, as ‘promising’ and ‘whole’.

The suggestion that ‘conceived and bore a son’ indicates only a firstborn, as has been suggested, cannot be maintained as is evident from Gen 38:4.

Exo 2:3

‘And when she could no longer hide him she took for him a papyrus basket and daubed it with slime and pitch, and she put the child in it and laid it in the reeds by the brink of the Nile. And his sister stood some distance away to see what would be done to him.’

Once the baby was too old to continue hiding she knew that she had to formulate another plan. She made (or had by her) a basket of papyrus (‘an ark of papyrus’). It would be made of papyrus strips bound or woven together. She then made it watertight by covering it with bitumen and pitch. Such chests often served as housing for the images of gods dedicated to temples. Perhaps she hoped that some Egyptian would see it as an offering to the Nile and would be disposed to keep it, not knowing it was a Hebrew child, although if he was circumcised on the eighth day that would be a give-away (when Egyptians circumcised they did so at around thirteen).

It will be noted that by her action she was technically following the law. To an Egyptian she would be seen as offering him to the Nile god, and by that she could cover herself. But in her heart she was offering him to God. She believed that somehow Yahweh would intervene to save him. It may well be that she had in mind the ‘ark’ through which Noah had been delivered. Certainly the writer, in using the same word for ‘ark’, would have that in mind. Once again then we have a parallel with Genesis.

The circumstances fit the times. It may be that Moses’ mother was influenced by stories she had heard of similar things happening to others. That of Sargon of Agade is often quoted. In the case of Sargon, his own mother exposed him to drowning by putting him in a basket-shaped boat and setting him afloat, because he was an illegitimate child. But the record about Sargon is Babylonian, and the motive is different and even the term for the ark is different – Sargon’s was a basket- shaped boat, kuppu, which was intended to go to sea, and to float away. Here it was no boat, and the desperate plan was not to set him afloat on the Nile to drift away so that she would be rid of him, but with the express purpose of saving her baby’s life. There is no hint of Babylonian influence in the story here. It is purely Egyptian.

“In the reeds.” Probably actually in the water among the reeds, as she had waterproofed it. It may well have been a recognised place for ritual ablutions among wealthy and distinguished Egyptians, and she may even have known that Pharaoh’s daughter went there to worship regularly.

“His sister stood some distance away”. The mother was committing her child into God’s hands but her faith in God is demonstrated by the fact that she wanted if possible to know what happened to him, and so the daughter of the house kept watch in order to see what might happen. She had not just deserted her baby in despair.

Exo 2:5

‘And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, and her maidens walked along by the river side, and she saw the basket among the reeds and sent her handmaid to fetch it.’

And so it happened that one of Pharaoh’s daughters came down to bathe in the Nile. This may well have been for the purposes of a ritual act as the Nile was worshipped in the form of the god Ha‘pi, the spirit of the Nile flood. It would be a private place and her maids would patrol the banks to keep prying eyes away while she bathed. It was the princess herself who spotted the basket, for she was the one who entered the water among the reeds in order to bathe herself in the Nile, and she sent her personal servant to obtain it for her. It is probable that she thought it would contain an image of the gods and wondered why it was there.

“The daughter of Pharaoh.” This may not mean simply any daughter of the Pharaoh, but be a literal reproduction of the Egyptian Saat Nesu, “daughter of the king”, being the official title of a princess of royal blood, just as Sa Nesu, “son of the king”, was the official title of royal princes.

But Pharaoh had many daughters, born to both royal wives and concubines, living in harems throughout Egypt which would be regular hives of activity. An inscription on the temple at Abydos in Egypt gives the names of fifty nine daughters of Rameses II. Their children would be educated by ‘the overseer of the harem’ (the ‘teacher of the children of the king’), and later be given a tutor who would be a high official at court or a military official close to the king.]

Note the contrast in the analysis. On the one hand is Pharaoh’s daughter, descended from the great Pharaoh himself, the self-avowed enemy of the people of God, on the other is the baby, one of His people, chosen by God and under His protection. And He constrains Pharaoh’s daughter to care for the babe.

Exo 2:6

‘And she opened it and saw the child, and behold, the baby cried. And she had compassion on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” ’

When she opened it to her surprise she saw a baby. And just then the baby woke and cried. This moved her heart and she clearly determined that she would keep it. Her quick mind immediately recognised that it was a Habiru child (see article, ” “). That is how she would think of it) and she knew what their fate was to be. But she felt sorry for it and was ready to show it mercy. So she determined to adopt it as her own. Perhaps she herself had proved infertile. It may indeed have been that it was about that that she had prayed as she bathed. And she no doubt felt that she was above the wrath of Pharaoh, and anyway, she knew that she could depict it as a gift from the god Ha‘pi. And it may well be that that was how she saw it.

Exo 2:7

‘Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women that she may nurse the child for you?” ’

We are not told the detail of the princess’s decision, except by implication, nor of what was said, but the quick-witted sister of Moses recognised the position, and managing to approach her, offered to find a nursemaid for her among the Habiru. A nursemaid would be needed who could breast-feed the child, for neither the princess or her maids were in that position, nor would they want the task of nursing the child and dealing with his ablutions, and that was what would be required of a nurse. What was needed was a woman who still had milk in her breasts. In those days women who had such milk available because their own child had died, often hired themselves out for the purpose of suckling a child.

Exo 2:8-9

‘And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” And the maid went and called the child’s mother. And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” And the woman took the child and nursed it.’

Moses’ mother was brought and was passed as suitable. Then she was sent away to look after the child, but hardly back to her home. Rather it would probably be to some sumptuous nursery with everything needed on hand. There she would have responsibility for the child and would be paid for her service. The princess would no doubt look in whenever she felt like it to find out ‘her child’ was progressing.

Exo 2:10

‘And the child grew and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses, and said “Because I drew him out of the water.”

When the child had been weaned at about three of four years old his mother brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter who then officially adopted him.

“He became her son.” It would appear that this is the time at which she named him. It is probable that his mother has already been calling him ‘Moses’ (mosheh – ‘one who draws forth’) as the one who had been ‘drawn out’ (mashah) of the water and had ‘drawn out’ compassion from the princess, and that she had explained this to the princess. (Moses’ mother would certainly speak some Egyptian). This would explain the princess’s amused comment and how she introduced a Hebrew verb (mashah) into her Egyptian speech. She may have Egyptianised the name to ‘ms’ (‘child’ or ‘one born’) or even mu-sheh (‘child of the lake’ signifying the Nile), or initially she may have attached the name of a god to ms (‘child of –’). But we must be careful here. The ‘s’ in ms is different from the ‘sh’ in Moses and is not the usual transposition (which counts against the princess originally choosing the name ms for then it would be transposed correctly and not as Mosheh. The Egyptian for Ra‘amses, for example, does not take on ‘sh’ in Hebrew. But if the name was already settled on the basis of the Hebrew a transposition to the Egyptian language need not have been quite so particular). But her naming of the child is mentioned because it was very important in political terms. It marked him as being of the royal house, and as being a gift from the Nile god.

The name is in deliberate contrast to the fate of other Hebrew males. They were thrown into the water, but Moses was drawn out of the water. We can compare here 2Sa 22:17; Psa 18:16 which may well have had this incident in mind, and certainly illustrate it, ‘He sent from above, He took me, He drew me from many waters, He delivered me from my powerful enemy and from those who hated me for they were too strong for me’. God turned the tables on Pharaoh, and Moses was constantly there as a witness to the fact.

It is probable that Pharaoh’s vindictive command did not last for too long a period. Perhaps he found that his own people were unwilling to carry out their invidious task enthusiastically, especially after the first waves of deaths. It was hardly a policy that most people would put much effort into on a continual basis once their blood lust and anger had been assuaged. Perhaps the Egyptians began to recognise that they would lose a good source of slave labour. And perhaps he was made to recognise that it was after all only a long term solution. It would be twenty or more years before it even began to work effectively. And the animosity which would arise among the large numbers of ‘Hebrews’ would meanwhile be difficult to contain. The fact is that it was not a workable long term policy even for a tyrant.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Israel’s Justification ( Exo 1:1 to Exo 15:21 ) The emphasis of Exo 1:1 to Exo 18:27 is Israel’s justification before God through the sacrificial atonement of the Mosaic Law. The Passover was the time when God cut a covenant with the children of Israel, and the Exodus testifies to His response of delivering His people as a part of His covenant promise of redemption. Israel’s justification was fulfilled in their deliverance from the bondages of Egypt. Heb 11:23-29 highlights these events in order to demonstrate the faith of Moses in fulfilling his divine commission. These events serve as an allegory of the Church’s covenant through the blood of Jesus Christ and our subsequent deliverance from the bondages and sins of this world.

The Exodus Out of Egypt Exo 1:1 to Exo 18:27 describes God’s judgment upon Egypt and Israel’s exodus from bondage. In comparing the two Pharaoh’s discussed in this section of the book it is important to note that the pharaoh who blessed the people of Israel during Joseph’s life was himself blessed along with his nation. In stark contrast, the Pharaoh who cursed God’s people was himself cursed with the death of his own first born, as well as his entire nation. God watches over His people and blesses those who bless them and He curses those who curse them (Gen 12:3).

Gen 12:3, “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Birth of Moses Exo 1:8 to Exo 2:10 records the birth of Moses.

Exo 1:8  Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.

Exo 1:8 Scripture References – Note as similar passage in Act 7:18, “Till another king arose, which knew not Joseph.”

Exo 1:9  And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we:

Exo 1:10  Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.

Exo 1:11  Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.

Exo 1:12  But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel.

Exo 1:12 Comments – The purpose of afflicting the children of Israel was to keep the men weakened.

The affliction of the Israelites is like afflicting Christians; the more persecution, the more they spread and grow (see Act 8:3-4).

Act 8:3, “As for Saul, he made havock of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison. Therefore they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word.”

Exo 1:13  And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour:

Exo 1:14  And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.

Exo 1:15  And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah:

Exo 1:15 Comments Jimmy Swaggart notes how the Lord honours and immortalizes these two women by forever recording their names in Scripture while leaving the most powerful monarch on earth dishonoured by omitting his named so that to this day scholars are now sure which king of Egypt gave this order. [15]

[15] Jimmy Swaggart, “The Preaching of the Cross,” Sonshine Radio, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, radio program, 22 February 2011.

Exo 1:16  And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.

Exo 1:17  But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive.

Exo 1:18  And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive?

Exo 1:19  And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.

Exo 1:20  Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty.

Exo 1:21  And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that he made them houses.

Exo 1:21 “that he made them houses” Comments – English translations read this phrase in one of two interpretations. Either that God provided for them their own physical houses to dwell in, or God gave them their own families, with husbands and children, to bless them.

Exo 1:22  And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.

Exo 2:1  And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.

Exo 2:1 Comments – The Scriptures tell us the names of the parents of Moses. His father was called Amram and his mother was Jochebed (Exo 6:20, Num 26:59 , 1Ch 6:3; 1Ch 23:13).

Exo 6:20, “And Amram took him Jochebed his father’s sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses: and the years of the life of Amram were an hundred and thirty and seven years.”

Num 26:59, “And the name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom her mother bare to Levi in Egypt: and she bare unto Amram Aaron and Moses, and Miriam their sister.”

1Ch 6:3, “And the children of Amram; Aaron, and Moses, and Miriam. The sons also of Aaron; Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.”

1Ch 23:13, “The sons of Amram; Aaron and Moses: and Aaron was separated, that he should sanctify the most holy things, he and his sons for ever, to burn incense before the LORD, to minister unto him, and to bless in his name for ever.”

Exo 2:2  And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.

Exo 2:2 Comments – According to Heb 11:23, the fact that Moses’ mother hid her child was an act of faith towards God. Therefore, God honoured her faith.

Heb 11:23, “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment.”

Exo 2:3  And when she could not 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.

Exo 2:3 “And when she could not longer hide him” Comments – Act 7:20 tells us that this was a period of three month (see also Heb 11:23).

Act 7:20, “In which time Moses was born, and was exceeding fair, and nourished up in his father’s house three months :”

Heb 11:23, “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment.”

Exo 2:4  And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.

Exo 2:4 Comments – I have two beautiful daughters, ages ten and eight, and a younger son, age three. These two daughters love their little brother more than anything else in this world. They would have stood by the river and watched out for their little brother as well, with their little hearts pounding with fear and anticipation about the outcome of this terrible dilemma. They, too, would have been brave enough to approach Pharaoh’s daughter, boldly risking their own lives to protect their beloved brother (2009).

Exo 2:10 Word Study on “Moses”- The name “Moses” name means, “drawn out”. Note this explanation of Moses’ name from Clement of Alexandria, one of the early Church fathers. He says that the name was of Egyptian origin.

“Thereupon the queen gave the babe the name of Moses, with etymological propriety, from his being drawn out of ‘the water,’–for the Egyptians call water ‘mou,’–in which he had been exposed to die. For they call Moses one who ‘who breathed [on being taken] from the water.’ It is clear that previously the parents gave a name to the child on his circumcision; and he was called Joachim. And he had a third name in heaven, after his ascension, as the mystics say–Melchi.” (Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, or Miscellanies, 1.23) [16]

[16] Clement of Alexander, The Stromata, or Miscellanies, 1.23, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2, eds. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Buffalo, New York: The Christian Literature Publishing Company, 1885), 335.

Comments – It is interesting to note that Moses was drawn out of the same river in which the other Hebrew babies were being cast into and drowned (Exo 1:22). In later years, Moses and those baptised with him will be delivered, or “drawn out”, from the Red Sea, and Pharaoh’s army “of men” will be drowned by water. The very people that tried to drown God’s children will themselves be drowned.

Exo 1:22, “And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.”

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The birth of Moses

v. 1. And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. Amram, a grandson of Levi, married his aunt Jochebed, the daughter of Levi; in spite of the troublous times he had dared to enter into the state of marriage, and the marriage, as the later history shows, had been blessed with a daughter and a son. The special reference is here to the time when the cruel mandate of Pharaoh went into effect.

v. 2. And the woman conceived, and bare a son; and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, a handsome, well-proportioned baby, that also gave promise of fine development, she hid him three months, in the hope of saving his life somehow, Act 7:20; Heb 11:23.

v. 3. And when she could not 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. When it became increasingly difficult to hide the boy from the eyes and ears of prying Egyptians, the mother constructed for him a small chest, or ark, out of the papyrus reeds that grew on the banks of the Nile, making it water-tight by means of asphalt and pitch, and placed this in the rushes on the brink of the river.

v. 4. And his sister stood afar off to wit what would be done with him. Miriam had thus reached an age at which she could volunteer to watch over the baby, to find out what would happen to him. The place chosen by the anxious mother was one frequented by the daughter of Pharaoh for bathing, and this fact entered into her plans. She trusted in the Lord that He would take care of her son, for faith will dare many things for the sake of a thing which has the approval of God.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION.

Exo 2:1-10.

THE BIRTH, ESCAPE, AND EDUCATION OF MOSES. Some years before the Pharaoh issued his edict for the general destruction of the Hebrew male children, Amram of the tribe of Levi, had married Jochebed, his kinswoman (Exo 6:20). They had already had two children Miriam, a daughter, born probably soon after the marriage, and Aaron, a son, born some twelve years later. Soon after the issue of the edict, Jochebed gave birth to her third child, a son, who therefore came under its terms. Knowing as she did what fate was in store for him, if his existence became known to the Egyptians, she “hid him three months.” Then, despairing of being able to keep him concealed much longer, she devised the plan related in Exo 2:3-4, which proved successful.

Exo 2:1

There went a man. The Hebrew language is deficient in tenses, and cannot mark pluperfect time. The meaning is, that “a man of the house of Levi had gone, some time before, and taken to wife a daughter of Levi.” Miriam must have been fourteen or fifteen at the time of the exposure of Moses. By a daughter of Levi, we must not understand an actual daughter, which is irreconcilable with the chronology, but one of Levi’s descendants “a wife of the daughters of Levi,” as the LXX. translates.

Exo 2:2

And the woman conceived. Not for the first time, as appears from Exo 2:4, nor even for the second, as we learn from Exo 7:7; but for the third. Aaron was three years old when Moses was born. As no difficulty has occurred with respect to him, we must regard the edict as issued between his birth and that of Moses. When she saw that he was a goodly child. Perhaps Jochebed would have done the same had Moses been ill-favoured, for mothers have often loved best their weakest and sickliest; but still it nard-rally seemed to her the harder that she was called upon to lose a strong and beautiful baby; and this is what the writer means to express the clauses are not “simply co-ordinate.” She hid him i.e, kept him within the house perhaps even in the female apartments. Egyptians were mixed up with the Israelites in Goshen not perhaps in any great numbers, but still so that no Hebrew felt himself safe from observation.

Exo 2:3

She took for him an ark of bulrushes. The words translated “ark” and “bulrushes” are both of Egyptian origin, the former corresponding to the ordinary word for “chest,” which is feb, teba, or tebat, and the latter corresponding to the Egyptian kam, which is the same in Coptic, and designates the papyrus plant. This is a strong-growing rush, with a triangular stem, which attains the height of from 10 to 15 feet. The Egyptian paper was made from its pith. The rush itself was used for various purposes among others for boat-building (Plin. ‘H. N.’ 6:22; 7:16; Theophrast, 4:9; Pint. ‘De Isid. et Osir.’ 18, etc.), as appears from the monuments. It would be a very good material for the sort of purpose to which Jochebed applied it. She daubed it with slime and with pitch. The word translated “slime” is the same as that used in Gen 11:3, which is generally thought to mean “mineral pitch” or “bitumen.” According to Strabo and Dioderus, that material was largely used by the Egyptians for the embalming of corpses, and was imported into Egypt from Palestine. Boats are sometimes covered with it externally at the present day; but Jochebed seems to have used vegetable pitch- the ordinary pitch of commerce for the purpose. Here again the Hebrew word is taken from the Egyptian. She laid it in the flags. “Suph,” the word translated “flags,” is a modification of the Egyptian tuff, which has that meaning. Water-plants of all kinds abound in the backwaters of the Nile. and the marshy tracts communicating with it. The object of placing the ark in a thicket of reeds probably was, that it might not float away out of sight. The river’s brink. Literally, the lip of the river an Egyptian idiom.

Exo 2:4

His sister. There can be no reasonable doubt that this is the “Miriam” of the later narrative (Exo 15:20-21; Num 20:1), who seems to have been Moses’ only sister (Num 26:59). She was probably set to watch by her mother.

Exo 2:5

The daughter of Pharaoh. Probably a daughter of Seti I. and a sister of Rameses the Great. Josephus calls her Thermuthis; Syncellus, Pharia; Artapanus, Merrhis, and some of the Jewish commentators, Bithia the diversity showing that there was no genuine tradition on the subject. There is nothing improbable in an Egyptian princess bathing in the Nile, at a place reserved for women. The Nile was regarded as sacred, and its water as health-giving and fructifying. Her maidens. Egyptian ladies of high rank are represented on the monuments as attended to the bath by a number of handmaidens. As many as four are seen in one representation (Wilkinson, 1.s.c.). Her maid is her special personal attendant, the others being merely women attached to her household.

Exo 2:6

The princess herself opened the “ark,” which was a sort of covered basket. Perhaps she suspected what she would find inside; but would it be a living or a dead child? This she could not know. She opened, and looked. It was a living babe, and it wept. At once her woman’s heart, heathen as she was, went out to the child its tears reached the common humanity that lies below all differences of race and creed and she pitied it. “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” This is one of the Hebrews’ children. Hebrew characteristics were perhaps stamped even upon the infant visage. Or she formed her conclusion merely from the circumstances. No Egyptian woman had any need to expose her child, or would be likely to do so; but it was just what a Hebrew mother, under the cruel circumstances of the time, might have felt herself forced to do. So she drew her conclusion, rapidly and decidedly, as is the way of woman.

Exo 2:7-9.

Then said his sister. Miriam had watched to some purpose. She had seen everything she had drawn near as she beheld the “maid” go down to the water’s edge, and take the ark out. She had heard the words of the princess; and thereupon she promptly spoke “Shall I go and call thee a nurse of the Hebrew women?” No doubt, all had been prepared beforehand by the mother, who had selected the place and time of the exposure from a knowledge of the habits and character of the princess, had set her daughter to watch, and so far as was possible instructed her what she was to say. But Miriant at least carried out the instructions given her with excellent judgment and tact. She did not speak too soon, nor too late. She did not say a word too much, nor too little. “Surely,” exclaimed the princess, “this is one of the Hebrews, children.” “Shall I fetch thee then a Hebrew mother to nurse him? is the rejoinder. Egyptians, it is implied, cannot properly nurse Hebrews cannot know how they ought to be treated; an Egyptian nurse would mismanage the boy shall I fetch one of his own nation? And the princess, feeling all the force of the reasoning, answers in one short pregnant word “Go.” “Yes,” she means, “do so; that will be best.” And then the result follows “The maid (Miriam) went and called the child’s mother.” So the scheming of the loving mother, and the skilful performance of the part assigned her by the clever sister, were crowned with success Moses’ life was saved, and yet he was not separated from his natural guardian, nor given over to the tender mercies of strangers: the child went back to his own home, to his own apartment, to his own cradle; continued to be nourished by his own mother’s milk; and received those first impressions, which are so indelibly impressed upon the mind, in a Hebrew family. Pharaoh’s daughter said, “Take this child away, and nurse it for me.” “Take him with you take him to your own home for a while and there nurse him for me, as long as he needs nursing.” And to mark that he is mine, and not yours to silence inquiry to stop the mouths of informers “I will give thee thy wages.” Jochebed was more than content, and “took the child and nursed it.”

Exo 2:10.

The child grew. Compare Gen 21:8, where the full phrase is used “The child grew, and was weaned.” Jocbebed had saved her son’s life by a transfer of her mother’s right in him to Pharaoh’s daughter. She had received him back, merely as a hired nurse, to suckle him. When the time came, probably at the end of the second year, for him to be weaned, she was bound, whatever the sufferings of her heart may have been, to give him up to restore him to her from whom she had received him, as a child put out to nurse. And we see that she made no attempt to escape her obligations. No sooner was the boy weaned, than “she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter” as it would seem, of her own accord. And he became her son. There is no evidence that formal “adoption” was a custom of the Egyptians; and probably no more is here meant than that the princess took the child into her family, and brought him up as if he had been her son, giving him all the privileges of a son, together with such an education as a princess’s son usually received. We obtain the best general idea of what such an education was from the words of St. Stephen (Act 7:21) “Now Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” This “wisdom,” though not perhaps very deep, was multiform and manifold. It included orthography, grammar, history, theology, medicine, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and engineering. Education began, as in most countries, with orthography and grammar. The hieroglyphical system was probably not taught, and the knowledge of it remained a special privilege of the priest-class: but the cursive character, known as the hieratic, was generally studied, and all tolerably educated persons could read it and write it. Style was cultivated, and though no great progress was made in the graces of finished composition, the power of expressing thought and relating facts in a simple and perspicuous prose was acquired by the greater number. Much attention was paid to letter- writing; and models of business and other letters were set before the pupil as patterns which he was to follow. By the more advanced, poetry was read, and poetic composition occasionally practised. Arithmetic and geometry, up to a certain point, were studied by all; and a plain morality was inculcated. But history, theology, astronomy, medicine, and engineering, were viewed as special studies, to be pursued by those intended for certain professions, rather than as included within the curriculum of an ordinary education; and it may well be doubted whether Moses’ attention was much directed to any of them. He may indeed have been initiated into the mysteries, and in that case would have come to understand the esoteric meaning of the Egyptian myths, and of all that most revolts moderns in the Egyptian religion. But, on the whole, it is most probable that he was rather trained for active than for speculative life, and received the education which fitted men for the service of the State, not that which made them dreamers and theorists. His great praise is, that “he was mighty in words and deeds “(Act 1:1-26.s.c.); and he was certainly anything rather than a recluse student. We should do wrong to regard him as either a scientific man or a philosopher. His genius was practical; and his education was of a practical kind such as fitted him to become the leader of his people in a great emergency, to deal on equal terms with a powerful monarch, and to guide to a happy conclusion the hazardous enterprise of a great national migration. And she called his name Moses. The Egyptian form of the name was probably Mesu, which signifies “born, brought forth, child,” and is derived from a root meaning “to produce,” “draw forth.” Egyptian has many roots common to it with Hebrew, whereof this is one. The princess’s play upon words thus admitted of being literally rendered in the Hebrew “he called his name Mosheh (drawn forth); because, she said, I drew him forth (meshithi-hu) from the water.” Mesu is found in the monuments as an Egyptian name under the nineteenth dynasty

HOMILETICS.

Exo 2:1-2

1. The birth of Moses.

In the providence of God, great men are raised up from time to time, for the express object of working out his purposes. A great task is before them, but there is often nothing peculiar, nothing striking, in their birth or parentage. They come into the world with as little commotion, as little eclat, as other children. True history admits this. Legendary history conceals it, denies it, makes up a series of extraordinary events anterior to the birth, which shadow forth the coming greatness of the mighty one, and warn the world what to expect of him. The legends attaching to Cyrus, to Romulus, to Pericles (Herod. 6:131) are cases in point. Contrast with such legends the extreme simplicity of Exo 2:1-2; “There went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi; and the woman conceived and bare a son.” Here is the founder of the Jewish nation, the originator of its independence, its lawgiver, historian, prophet, for the first time introduced to our notice; and not one word is said to exalt him, to challenge to him special attention, to show that he is the foremost man of his age, greater than Pentaour the poet, or Seti, or Rameses. His father and mother not even named “a man” “a daughter of Levi” no rank assigned them, no epithet used nothing recorded but the bare facts: a marriage, a birth, the child a male child, a son.” Here at length a note is struck, which wakes a responsive echo in the heart of the reader, The last verse of ch. 1. had told him of the barbarous edict issued by the cruel despot who wielded the sceptre of Egypt, and his interest is awakened for the poor babe born under such circumstances. Will he perish at once, or will he escape? Can it be possible to elude or defy the express order of an absolute monarch? And if so, how? The sequel shows, relating as it does his escape from death through the faithful, bold, and loving action of his mother.

Exo 2:2.

2. The beauty of Moses.

Moses was “a goodly child” beautiful to took upon “fair to God,” or “exceeding fair,” as St. Stephen expresses it (Act 7:20). Though beauty be but “skin-deep,” and if unaccompanied by loveliness of character is apt to be a snare and a curse, yet, in its degree, and rightly employed, it must be regarded as a blessing. The beauty of Old-Testament saints is often mentioned. Moses was “goodly.” David “ruddy and of a beautiful countenance” (1Sa 16:12), Darnel fair and well-favoured (Dan 1:4; Dan 1:15), Esther fair and beautiful (Est 2:7), Solomon was comely and “the chiefest among ten thousand” (Son 5:10); One greater than Solomon was “fairer than the children of men” (Psa 45:2). It is an affectation to ignore beauty, and the influence which it gives. Those who possess it should be taught that they are answerable for it, as for other gifts, and are bound to use it to God’s glory. Esther’s example may help them in the details of conduct.

Exo 2:3-9

3. The escape of Moses.

The escape of Moses teaches three things especially

1. God’s over-ruling providence, and his power to make wicked men work out his will;
2. The blessing that rests upon a mother’s faithful love and care; and
3. The fact that natural virtue is acceptable in God’s sight.

I. GOD’S OVER-RULING PROVIDENCE turned the cruel king’s edict to the advantage of the child whom he designed for great things. Had it not been for the edict, Moses would never have been exposed, and Pharaoh’s daughter would probably never have seen him. Had she not come down to the river when she did had any little circumstance occurred to prevent her, as might easily have happened, the child might have died of hunger or exposure before she saw it, or might have been found by an unfriendly Egyptian and thrown from the ark into the water. Moreover, had the child not happened to be in tears when she opened the ark, it might not have moved her compassion, or at any rate not have so stirred it as to make her take the boy for her son. In any of these contingencies, Moses, even if saved by some further device of his mother’s, would not have had the education which alone fitted him to be the nation’s leader and guide, nor the familiarity with court life which enabled him. to stand up boldly before the Pharaoh of his time and contend with him as an equal. Thus Pharaoh’s pet weapon, the edict, was turned against himself, and brought about that Exodus of the Israelites which he was so anxious to hinder (Exo 1:10). It was an aggravation of his punishment that the hand by which his designs were frustrated was that of his own daughter, who unwittingly preserved the child which, of all others, he was most concerned to destroy.

II. GOD’S BLESSING ON A MOTHER’S FAITHFUL LOVE AND CARE. “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents” (Heb 11:23). Disobedience to the edict of the king would in Egypt, if detected, have been punished either by death or mutilation. Amram and Jochebed, but especially Jochebed, who must have been the main agent in the concealment, braved these penalties did not allow their fear of them to influence their conduct had faith in God that he would, somehow or other, give success to their endeavours to preserve their child, and either save them from .punishment or reward them in another world. And it was done to them according as they believed. The concealment of the birth was undetected for the long space of three months the ark was placed, no one perceiving, among the flags at the edge of the river the daughter of Pharaoh made her appearance at the time expected “had compassion” on the babe accepted without hesitation Miriam’s suggestion that she should fetch a nurse accepted without demur or suspicion the mother as the nurse-gave him back to her care for a space of nearly two years and finally assigned the child the highest position possible, almost that of a prince of the blood royal allowed him to be called and considered her son and had him educated accordingly. Jochebed’s utmost hope had probably been to save her child’s life. God’s blessing brought it to pass that she not only obtained that result, but procured him the highest social rank and the best possible cultivation of all his powers, whether of mind or body. Mothers should lay this lesson to heart, and whatever danger threatens their children hope for the best, plan for the best, work for the best; they may not always, like Jochebed, find all their plans crowned with success; but they may trust God to .bless their endeavours in his own way and in his own good time, if only they be made in faith, and with due submission of their own wills to his.

III. NATURAL VIRTUE ACCEPTABLE IN GOD’S SIGHT. There runs through both the Old and the New Testament a continual protest against the view that God is “a respecter of persons” in the sense of confining his favour to those who have been brought by the appointed mode into actual covenant with him. The lesson is taught with frequent iteration, that “in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him” (Act 10:35). Here it is an Egyptian Pharaoh’s daughter that is evidently regarded favourably. Elsewhere it is Rahab of Jericho, or Ruth the Moabitess, or Arannah the Jebusite, or Darius the Mede, or Cyrus the Persian, or Artaxerxes, or the Syro-Phcenician woman, or Cornelius the centurion all of whom are examples of the same universal law, which is, that God locks graciously upon all his creatures, and accepts every sincere effort towards good that is made by any of them. In his house are “many mansions” in his future kingdom are many gradations. No one is shut out of his kingdom by the circumstances of his birth or profession. Let a man but seek honestly to do his will according to his lights, and persevere to the end, he will obtain acceptance, whatever the belief in which he has been brought up, and whatever his professed religion. His profession will not save him; but his love of goodness, his efforts to do what is right, his earnest cleaving to truth, and right, and virtue, will be accepted, through the merits of Christ, and counted to him for righteousness. Man may be very far gone from his original perfectness; but he was made in God’s image he has an instinctive sense of right and wrong. When he refuses the evil and chooses the good whether he be in covenant with God or out of covenant his conduct is pleasing and acceptable for Christ’s sake, who has enlightened him and sustained him, and enabled him to do his good works, and presents them to the Father and obtains for them acceptance through his merits. Pharaoh’s daughter stands to us here as a type of the heathen world a world lying in wickedness, but still salvable, still on the verge of salvation she has the approval of the writer, and of the Holy Spirit, who inspired him she had only to continue to act compassionately, kindly according to her lights, rightly and she was secure of final acceptance by him who “judges the folk righteously, and governs all the nations upon earth” (Psa 67:4). We hear much in these days of God’s supposed exclusiveness and favouritism. Scripture does not sanction any such. views. He is there presented to us as “no respecter of persons,” but “a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Heb 11:6).

Exo 2:10

4. The education of Moses.

Education is to fit us for the battle of life. The first and most important point is that a child be “virtuously brought up to lead a godly life” In Egypt morality was highly regarded; and some have gone so far as to say that “the laws of the Egyptian religion ” in respect of morality at any rate “fell short in nothing of the teachings of Christianity”. This is, no doubt, an over-statement; but it is the fact, that correct and elevated ideas on the subject of morality were entertained by the Egyptian sages, and inculcated on the young by Egyptian teachers. To “give bread to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, set the wanderer in his path, resist the oppressor, and put a stop to violence,” were regarded as the first elements of duty, the very alphabet of morality, which the most ignorant was expected to know and practise. To the more advanced such counsels as the following were given: “If thou art become great after thou hast been humble, and if thou hast amassed fiches after poverty, and art come to be the first man of thy city; if thou art known for thy wealth, and hast become a great lord: let not thy heart grow proud because of thy riches; for it is God who has given them to thee.” “Despise not another who is as thou wast; be towards him as towards thine equal.” “Happiness makes one content with any abode; but a small disgrace darkens the life of a great man” “Good words shine more than the emerald which the hand of the slave finds among a heap of pebbles.” “The wise man is satisfied with what he knows; content dwells in his heart, and his lips speak words that are good.” “The son who accepts the words of his father will grow old in consequence; for obedience is of God, disobedience is hateful to God.” “Let thy heart wash away the impurity of thy mouth: fulfil the word of thy master.” Moses in the household of a virtuous Egyptian princess, the wife probably of a respected official, would be guarded from corrupting sights and sounds, would hear none but “good words,” would learn courtesy, good manners, politeness, affability, gentlemanly ease; while at the same time he would have inculcated upon him the duties of activity, diligence, truthfulness, benevolence, consideration for others, temperance, purity, courage. The peculiar circumstances of his position, as a foreigner, a foundling, a mere adopted child, would lay him open to many a reproach and innuendo on the part of those who were jealous of his good-fortune. In this way his path would be beset with difficulties, which would furnish the necessary discipline that might otherwise have been lacking to one brought up by a tender and indulgent mistress who assumed towards him the attitude of a mother. He would learn the virtues of reticence and self-control. As he grew to manhood, active duties would no doubt be assigned to him he would have to exercise a certain amount of authority in the household, to undertake the management of this or that department, and thus acquire experience in the direction and government of men. Altogether, it is easy to see that the position wherein by God’s providence he was placed would furnish an excellent training for the part which he was to be called upon to play, would naturally tend to make him at once outwardly gentle and inwardly firm and self-reliant; at once bold to rebuke kings and patient to govern a stiff-necked and refractory people.

To the moral training thus furnished was added a mental training, on which we have already enlarged, Book-learning is of little use towards the management of men. But when it is superadded to a good practical education, which has already given active habits and facility in dealing with all the various circumstances of life, it adds a grace and dignity to its possessor which are far from contemptible. Moses, without his Egyptian “learning,” might have led his people out of Egypt and conducted them safely to Palestine; but he would have lost his most glorious titles and offices; he would scarcely have been the great legislator that he was; he could certainly not have been the great historian, or the great poet. Moses, to obtain the knowledge and the powers that he shows in his writings, must have been during his youth a most diligent student. In this respect he is a pattern to all the young, and most especially to those high-placed youths who are too apt to think that their wealth and rank put them above the necessity of hard work and diligent application. The truth is, that such a position lays its holder under a special obligation to diligence. “Noblesse oblige.” Those who are highly placed, and will have many eyes on them, should endeavour to make their acquirements such as will bear close scrutiny and observation. “A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid” (Mat 5:14).

HOMILIES BY J. ORR

Exo 2:1-11

A child of providence.

This section recounts the birth, deliverance, and upbringing at the court of Pharaoh, of the future Deliverer of Israel. In which we have to notice

I. AN ACT OF FAITH ON THE PART OF MOSES‘ PARENTS.

The faith of Moses’ parents is signalised in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb 11:23). Observe

1. The occasion of its trial. The king’s edict threatened the child’s life. The ease of Moses was peculiar, yet not entirely so. No infancy or childhood but lays a certain strain upon the faith of parents. The bark of a child’s existence is so frail, and it sets out amidst so many perils! And we are reminded that this strain is usually more felt by the mother than the father, her affection for her Offspring being in comparison deeper and more tender (cf. Is. 49:15). It is the mother of Moses who does all and dares all for the salvation of her babe.

2. Its nature. Both in Old and New Testaments it is connected with something remarkable in the babe’s appearance (Act 7:20; Heb 11:23). Essentially, however, it must have been the same faith as upholds believers in their trials still simple, strong faith in God, that he would be their Help in trouble, and would protect and deliver the child whom with tears and prayers they cast upon his care. This was sufficient to nerve Jochebed for what she did.

3. Its working. Faith wrought with works, and by works was faith made Perfect (Jam 2:22).

(1) It nerved them to disobey the tyrant’s edict, and hide the child for three months. Terrible as was ,this Period of suspense, they took their measures with prudence, calmness, and success. Religious faith is the secret of self-collectedness.
(2) It enabled them, when concealment was no longer practicable, to make the venture of the ark of bulrushes. The step was bold, and still bolder if, as seems probable, Jochebed put the ark where she did, knowing that the princess and her maidens used that spot as a bathing-place. Under God’s secret guidance, she ventured all on the hope that the babe’s beauty and helplessness would attract the lady’s pity. She would put Pharaoh’s daughter as a shield between her child and Pharaoh’s mandate. Learn
1. Faith is not inconsistent with the use of means. 2. Faith exhausts all means before abandoning effort. 3. Faith, when all means are exhausted, waits patiently on God. 4. Pious parents are warranted in faith to cast their children on God’s care.
It was a sore trial to Jochebed to trust her child out of her own arms, especially with that terrible decree hanging over him. But faith enabled her to do it. She believed that God would keep him would make him his charge would provide for him, and in that faith she put the ark among the rushes. Scarcely less faith are parents sometimes called upon to exercise in taking steps of importance for their children’s future. Missionaries in India, e.g., parting with their children, sons leaving home, etc. Sorest trial of all, when parents on their deathbeds have to part with little ones, leaving them to care of strangers. Hard, very hard, to flesh and blood; but God lives, God cares, God will provide, will watch the ark of the little one thus pushed out on the waters of the wide, wide world.

II. AN ACT OF PROVIDENCE ON THE PART OF MOSES‘ GOD. The faith of Moses’ parents met with its reward. Almost “whiles” they were yet “praying” (Dan 9:20), their prayers were answered, and deliverance was vouchsafed. In regard to which observe 1. How various are the instrumentalities employed by Providence in working out its purposes. A king’s edict, a mother’s love, a babe’s tears, a girl’s shrewdness, the pity of a princess, Egyptian customs, etc.

2. How Providence co-operates with human freedom in bringing about desired results. The will of God was infallibly accomplished, yet no violence was done to the will of the agents. In the most natural way possible, Moses was rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter, restored to his mother to nurse, adopted by the princess as her son, and afterwards educated by her in a way suitable to his position. Thus was secured for Moses
(1) Protection. (2) A liberal education. (3) Experience of court-life in Egypt.

3. How easily the plans of the wicked can be turned against themselves. Pharaoh’s plans were foiled by his own daughter. His edict was made the means of introducing to his own court the future deliverer of the race he meant to destroy. God takes the wicked in their own net (Psa 9:15-16).

4. How good, in God’s providence, is frequently brought out of evil. The People might well count the issuing of this edict as the darkest hour of their night the point of lowest ebb in their fortunes. Yet see what God brought out of it! The deliverance of a Moses the first turning of the tide in the direction of help. What poor judges we are of what is really for or against us!

5. How greatly God often exceeds our expectations in the deliverances he sends. He does for us above what we ask or think. The utmost Moses’ parents dared to pray for was doubtless that his life might be preserved. That he should be that very day restored to his mother, and nursed at her bosom; that he should become the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; that he should grow to be great, wise, rich, and powerful this was felicity they had not dared to dream of. But this is God’s way. He exceeds our expectations. He gives to faith more than it looks for. So in Redemption, we are not only saved from perishing, but receive “everlasting life” (Joh 3:16) honour, glory, reward. J.O.

HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG

Exo 2:1-9

The infancy of Moses.

I. WE HAVE, IN THIS EXPERIENCE OF THE INFANT AND HIS MOTHER, A MOST AFFECTING ILLUSTRATION OF THE MISERABLE STATE TO WHICH ISRAEL HAD BEEN REDUCED. We come down from the general statement of the first chapter to the particular instance of the second. Moses was born, in all likelihood, just at the very height of Pharaoh’s exasperation, and when the command of Exo 1:22 was in process of being carried out. His servants, ever becoming more savage and brutal in disposition, as the very consequence of the harshness and severity they had daily to exercise, would be going about, watching the midwives and hanging round the abodes of the Israelites .to listen for the first faint cry of the newborn child. In such circumstances, the work of the midwives most likely fell into abeyance; for the midwife became the unwilling herald of the murderer. Thus mothers in the crisis of their greatest need might be left without any ministry or sympathy whatever; their greatest safety in solitude, their greatest comfort to know that the newborn infant’s existence was utterly unknown to any Egyptian. No hour could well be darker, no circumstances more provocative of despair. We may depend upon it that God meant much to be suggested to Israel in after generations, by the birth of Moses just at this time. “In which time Moses was born” (Act 7:20). May we not well imagine that when in later years Moses stole away from time to time, out of the splendours and luxuries of his royal home, to spend an hour or two with his own mother, she would tell him that, for all his relation to Pharaoh’s daughter and all his privileges about the court, he had been once, with many another helpless babe, the object of Pharaoh’s bitterest animosity. Things were in a very bad state when Moses was born. Bad for Israel in point of present suffering; bad for Egypt itself, seeing what a merciless and unscrupulous man sat upon the throne; bad for the prospects of Moses and all the coming generation. And so we cannot but feel that the whole world was in a very bad state when Jesus was born. He was exposed to the risk of a Herod; and Herod was but one of many like-minded oppressors. And worse than any cruelty and oppression from without was the state of the people in their hearts. Jew and Gentile were alike utterly departed from God. Romans, ch. 1., does as much as human language can do to give us the measure of the universal corruption and degradation. We shall do well to mark in the New Testament the many things that show what unregenerate, vile, and apostate hearts were those with whom Christ and his apostles came in contact. Then, when we have the dark, repulsive picture of the times well before us, we may imitate Stephen, and say “in which time Christ was born.”

II. WE HAVE A MOST AFFECTING INSTANCE OF THE PECULIAR CARES AND SORROWS WHICH BELONG TO THE MATERNAL RELATION. “When she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.” This can hardly mean that if he had been a puny dwarfling, she would have cast him aside as not worth anxiety. We know that it is precisely the weakest, the least attractive to a stranger’s eye, who most draws forth the mother’s love; thus furnishing a sweet suggestion of that Divine affection which yearns, with the greatest tenderness, over those who may seem to others hopelessly lost. But as Moses Was a goodly child, she was bound by this fact to give all available chances for the promise that was in him. Who can tell what anxieties and alarms filled her thoughts during these terrible three months, and how often she skirted the extreme edge of disaster, always feeling that with each succeeding week her task became more difficult? How keen must have been the struggle before she brought her mind to face the dread necessity of exposure! We can imagine her being driven to decisive action at last, by seeing the agonies of some neighbouring mother, as the servants of Pharaoh discover her child and ruthlessly extinguish its delicate life. Here, in the sufferings of the mother of Moses, and of all the rest whom she but represents, we have something like the full significance set before us of that curse which first rested upon Eve. There may have been a measure of truth in what the midwives said concerning the case with which the mothers in Israel had been delivered; but not so were they going to escape the curse. Their trouble only began when the man-child was born into the world. Not to them at least was the birth to be an occasion of joy, but the beginning of unspeakable solicitude (Mat 2:16-18; Mat 24:19; Joh 16:21). This poor woman exposed her tender infant, not because she was callous of heart, unnatural, and lacking in love; but because of the very intensity of her love. So wretched had the state of Israel become that its infants found no place so dangerous as the place that should have been safest the warm bosom of the mother.

III. WE HAVE A MOST IMPRESSIVE ILLUSTRATION OF WOMANLY SYMPATHY. The Scriptures, true to their character as being the fullest revelation not less of human nature than of the Divine nature, abound in illustrations of the demonstrativeness of womanly sympathy. To go no further afield, we have such an illustration in the previous chapter (the conduct of the midwives). But here there is an instance which is peculiarly impressive. It was the daughter of Pharaoh who showed the much-needed sympathy. She knew well how the babe came to be forsaken, and how, though it was forsaken, this waterproof ark had been so carefully provided for it. Somewhere in Israel she could see a mother anxiously speculating on the fate of this child; and she knew that all the strange discovery she had made came out of the stern, unrelenting policy of her own father. Some women indeed in her circumstances would have said, “Sad it may be that an infant should thus perish, but my father knows best. Leave it there.” But compassion rose to flood-tide in her heart, and choked all thoughts of selfish policy, if they even so much as entered into her mind. Jesus says to his disciples, concerning one of the difficulties and pains of discipleship, that a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. And the principle seems to hold good in the carrying out of worldly plans. If a man wants to be downright selfish, he also may find foes in his own household, not to be conquered, bribed, or persuaded. Pharaoh thinks he is closing-up the energies of Israel in a most effective fashion; but his own daughter opens a little window only large enough for an infant three months old to get through it, and by this in the course of time all the cunning and cruelty of her father are made utterly void.

IV. We have, in all these events connected with the infancy of Moses, A CRITICAL ILLUSTRATION OF THE REALITY OF SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. Notice that there is not a word about God in the narrative; indeed, he is not mentioned as having anything directly to do with Moses, until the interview, long after, at Horeb. There is plenty of mention of human beings, in the play of their affections, their desires, and their ingenuity. The mother, the child, the sister, the nurse, the mother by adoption, all come before us, but there is no mention of God. Yet who does not feel that the Lord of Israel, unmentioned though he be, is yet the central, commanding, and controlling figure in all that takes place! It was he who caused Moses to be born at that particular time. It was he who sheltered the infant during these three months, when perhaps others were being snatched away in close proximity on the right hand and the left. It was he who put into the heart of the mother to dispose of her child in this particular way, and taught her to make such a cradle as surely never was made before. It was he who gave the sister wisdom to act as she did a wisdom possibly beyond her years. It was he who turned the feet of Pharaoh’s daughter (of her and no one else) in that particular direction, and not in some other. All his excellent working in this matter is hidden from those who do not wish to see it; but how manifest it is, how wonderful and beautiful, to those whose eyes he himself has opened! How different is his working here from the working of the Deus ex machina in the tanglements and complications of classical fable. There, when things get to all appearance, hopelessly.. disordered, a deity comes in visible form and puts them right. But m thin real deliverance of Moses, the God who is the only true God works in a far different way. He works through natural means, and so silently, so unobtrusively, that if men wise in their own conceits are determined to ignore his presence, there is nothing to force it upon them.

V. This narrative, along with that of the midwives, has A VERY SPECIAL BEARING ON THE CAPABILITIES AND DUTIES OF WOMEN. We have here in the compass of some five-and-twenty verses a most encouraging instance of what women are able to do. So far, in this book of the Exodus, God is seen exalting the woman and abasing the man. Man, so far as he appears, is set before us a weak, thwarted creature; cruel enough in disposition, but unable to give his cruelty effect. Even a king with all his resources is baffled. But weak women set themselves to work, to shelter a helpless infant, and they succeed. Here as on other occasions the hand of God is manifest, taking the weak thing? of the world to confound the strong. What a lesson, what an appeal and warning to women! We are all only too readily inclined to say, “What can I do?” women perhaps more than others, because of their inability to share in the bustle and strain of public life. Think then of what God enabled these women to do, simply following out the dictates of natural affection and pity. They did far more than they were conscious of. Might not women ask very earnestly if they are doing anything like what they ought to do, and have the opportunity to do, in bringing up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? Christian women, those who are themselves new creatures in Christ Jesus, able to have all the love and wisdom and every spiritual grace that belongs to the new creature, might do a work for the world, compared with which the work of these women whom we have been considering would look a small matter indeed. Y.

HOMILIES BY G.A. GOODHART

Exo 2:1-10

By works was faith made perfect.

Bad times; harsh decrees against the Israelites; doubts and misgivings which must have occurred to one in Amram’s position; a hard experience and a dark prospect. Still the man believed in God, remembered the promises, and knew that God also must remember them; did not see how they were to be fulfilled, but was content to do his own duty and leave all else to God. See

I. How HIS FAITH WAS MANIFESTED BY HIS WORKS. We have

1. His marriage. Under all the circumstances he might well have been excused if he had decided to remain unmarried. Such advice as that of St. Paul to the Corinthians (1Co 7:25-28) would seem to apply to such a time. The matter, however, was not to be so easily settled. Faith will not permit marriage without prudence and due forethought, but neither will Faith permit abstinence from marriage merely because marriage will bring “trouble in the flesh.” Improvidence and a too-calculating abstinence both prompted by selfishness. Faith looks forward and looks around, but she looks up also, and is guided by the result of that upward look. Theories of political economists, etc., are not to be despised, none the less Faith will act her actions regulated to some extent, but not fettered, by calculation. Paul’s teaching is to be qualified by Amram’s example; Amram knew the times, foresaw the rocks ahead, yet he “took to wife a daughter of Levi.”

2. His choice of a wife. Clear from narrative that the woman was the man’s true helpmeet. Of the same family, they must have been well acquainted, and her conduct shows that her faith equalled his. Faith not only prompted marriage, but also directed choice. Amram and his wife did not marry merely for the sake of marrying, but “for the mutual society, help, and comfort which the one ought to have of the other both in prosperity and adversity.”
3. Conduct in the face of trial. The two, man and wife, now as one: though the woman comes to the fore, no doubt her faith represents that of both. Aaron and Miriam, reared before the trial reached its height; then “a goodly child,” just at the season of greatest danger. Note the action prompted by faith; how different from that which might have been suggested by fatalism. Fatalism would have said, “Let things be; if he must be killed he must.” Cf. Eastern proverb, “On two days it skills not to avoid death, the appointed and the unappointed day.” Faith, on the other hand, is ready and courageous, holding that God helps those who help themselves, or rather that he helps them through self-help. But notice

II. HOW THIS LIVING FAITH WAS APPROVED AND JUSTIFIED.

1. The conduct of the wife justified her husband’s choice. She was the helpmeet he hoped she would be. God gave her wisdom to comfort and strengthen him; His blessing added the third strand to that threefold cord which is not quickly broken.
2. Their united efforts for the preservation of their children were crowned by God with complete success. [Illustrate from the history all happening, all ordained to happen, just as they hoped.] They had prepared, by carrying out the plan which faith prompted, a channel through which God’s gracious and ready help might reach them; and God used the channel which they had prepared. The whole narrative shows how faith, when it is living, proves its life by works, and how in response to a living faith God shows that he is a living God. If Amram had walked by sight and not by faith, Moses might never have been bern, Jochebed never have been married; as it was he walked by faith and not by sight, doing his duty and trusting God, and through him came redemption unto Israel the child “taken out of” the water became the leader who should “take” his people “out of” bondage. G.

HOMILIES BY J. URQUHART

Exo 2:1-10

A picture of true faith.

I. WHAT TRUE FAITH IS.

1. There was obedience to a Divine impulse: her heart was appealed to, she saw he was a goodly child, and she hid him three months. She read in the child’s appearance an intimation of future greatness, and that God did not mean him to die in accordance with the king’s commandment. The work of faith begins in obeying the Spirit’s prompting in the heart.
2. She was not daunted by difficulties. She might have asked what could this temporary concealment do but only prolong her misery. Faith is content if it has light but for one step.
3. Faith is fertile in expedients. The safety which is no longer to be had in the home may be found on the waters.
4. When it has done all, it waits, as with girded loins, for the dawning light. Miriam stood afar off.

II. HOW GOD JUSTIFIES OUR TRUST. When we have done all, and, knowing it is nothing, look unto him, then God appears for us.

1. The child’s life was saved.
2. He was given back into his mother’s arms.
3. The very might which before was raised to slay was now used to guard him.
4. He was freed from the unhappy lot of his countrymen, and set among the princes of the land. Our trust prepares a place where God may manifest himself. He “is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.” U.

HOMILIES BY H.T. ROBJOHNS

Exo 2:1-10

The child of the water.

“And she called his name Moses… water.” Exo 2:10. Save Jesus, Moses is the greatest name in history. Compare with it Mahomet, or even that of Paul. As the founder of the Jewish religion under God his influence is felt to-day, not only by 6,000,000 Jews, but throughout the Christian Church. Here is the beginning of his career. This mighty stream of influence we can trace to its source; not like the Nile, whose origin is still in debate, a mystery. The text gives the name and its reason. The derivation is either Hebrew, and then= “Drawing out,” so designating the act of the princess; or Egyptian, and then= ”Saved from the water.” The name a memorial of salvation. Happy, when children bearing distinguished names, shame them not in the after-years. We treat the subject in the order of the story: so its suggestiveness for heart and life will appear.

I. THE FAMILY OF THE CHILD. Amram and Jochebed, the father and mother; Miriam, much older, and Aaron, three years older, than Moses. Note: Moses owed

1. Little to his family. Look at Exo 2:1. But the pre-eminence of Levi was not yet. The tribe did not make Moses; rather Moses (with Miriam and Aaron) the tribe. “Blue blood?’ Yes! and No! There is a sense in which we may be proud of ancestry, a sense in which not. What to me that I descend from a Norman baron? Everything to me that I come from able, gifted, saintly parentage. See Cowper on “My Mother’s Picture,” lines 108-112.

2. Little to his home. Only a slave but; the scene of toil, poverty, suffering, fear. Out of it brought one thing sympathy with suffering.

3. Little to his parents. Biographers usually give us the attributes and history of ancestors, and show how they account for the career of the child. Nothing of that here. Even the names of the parents do not appear. Note omission in Exo 2:1. “A man,” etc. “A daughter,” etc. No doubt here a mental and moral heritage; but little training, because little opportunity. Generally, there is, under this head, a lesson of encouragement for those who have, or fancy they have, hard beginnings in life. Some of earth’s noblest have risen out of disadvantage.

II. THE APPEARANCE OF THE CHILD. For traditions of predictions of his birth see Jos. Antiq. 2:9. 2-4. Moses was

1. No common child. Scepticism objects that Miriam and Aaron are not mentioned in Exo 2:1-2 by name. But the motive and impulse of inspiration are to be taken into account. The object was to give the event which led to the Exodus, and to the constitution of the Jewish Church. From this point of view interest concentrates on Moses. Hence we infer the extraordinary greatness of his character and career.

2. Born at a critical moment. See Act 7:20. So the Jewish proverb: “When the tale of bricks is doubled, then comes Moses.” Note:

(1) At the moment of deepest darkness God sends deliverance. (2) When he wants instruments he creates them.

3. Of no common beauty. Not only in his mother’s eyes, which would be natural enough, but absolutely. See Act 7:20, as well as Exo 2:2; and for interesting illustration, Jos. Antiq. 2:9.6. All this the promise of a higher beauty of character that opened out with the years.

III. THE DANGER OF THE CHILD.

The child born to great issues, and therefore must run the gauntlet of peril. Compare Jesus under the edict of Herod with Moses under that of Pharaoh. No sooner born than a battle for life. The two only infants, but full of possibilities. Pharaoh! the babe you may crush; hereafter the man shall ruin you. A seeming law in the ease, to which witness the legends of many nations, e.g. Romulus and Remus, Cyrus, King Arthur.

IV. LOVE FENCING FOR THE CHILD.

1. Of the mother.

(1) Concealing. Heb 11:23. How by faith? Went right on in the discharge of common duty to the child, not turning aside to observe the king’s commandment. Then the love went to the other extreme:

(2) Exposing. Here narrate the facts, for which see the text and commentary above; e.g. impossibility of longer concealing a growing child, form and material of the ark, laid in a place of comparative safety, “in the flags” at “the lip of the river,” the elements of danger starvation, discovery not crocodiles on the Tanitic branch of the river. But observe the feeling behind the facts. A mother’s despair becoming hope, and then faith; but a faith provident and workful, for, living in the neighbourhood, she could not fail to know where the childless (so says tradition) princess was wont to bathe. Just there she placed the child.

2. Of the sister. Imagine her anxiety! The mother-heart in every girl. She was

(1) Watchful: over the ark, against an enemy, for the princess; (2) Active; (3) Clever, full of resource; (4) Successful; (5) Became eminent; a prophetess, Exo 15:20.

One of the three deliverers, Mic 6:4. The adored of the people,

Num 12:10-15. In childhood are laid the foundations of character.

3. Of God. Before all, over all, and behind all! Love to the child, sister, parents, to Israel, and to the world to be blest through him.

V. THE DELIVERANCE OF THE CHILD. This of God, but note the part played by each of the following instruments:

1. The princess. Note the independent status of an Egyptian princess, the custom then of bathing in the open river, the probable locality, Zoan (Psa 78:43), that compassion was inculcated by the Egyptian religion, and the probable application to her of Act 10:35.

2. The sister.
3. The mother.
4. The princess again; and possible lifelong parting from the mother.
Finally, observe
1. The deliverances of God are wonderful. Only one person in all the land of Egypt that could save Moses, and she came to the river.

2. The object of God’s deliverances does not centre and rest on the delivered. It passes beyond: Moses for Israel, Israel for the Messiah, Messiah for the world. So Abraham, Gen 12:2. So with elect spirits and elect nations in all ages. None for himself.

3. So is it with the great salvation. Wonderful! The benediction thereof unresting, passing on from the first recipients.
4. But the retributions of God are just as marvellous. Moses was to be the ruin of the house of Pharaoh, and deservedly so. But in the providence of God the tyrant is made to pass by and even protect the instrument of his future punishment. R.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Exo 2:1. And there went From the passages referred to in the margin of our Bibles, it appears, that the name of the father of Moses was Amram, and his mother’s Jochebed; a daughter of Levi, we render it; which means a descendant, one of the house and family of Levi (Levitidem, as Houbigant has it). As it is plain that they had children before Moses, viz. Aaron, who was three years older than Moses, Exo 7:7 and a sister, most probably Miriam, (for we read of no other sister that he had,) Exo 2:4. Num 26:59 the verse should rather be rendered, now a man of the house of Levi HAD GONE, and taken a wife of the house of Levi; or married a descendant of Levi.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

B.The birth and miraculous preservation of Moses. his elevation and fidelity to the israelites. His typical act of deliverance and apparently final disappearance. Gods continued purpose to release Israel

Exo 2:1-25

1And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a [the] daughter of Levi.1 2And the woman conceived and bare a son; and when she [and sheM] saw him, that he was a goodly child [was goodly, and] she hid him three months. 3And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime [bitumen] and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags [sedge] by the rivers brink. 4And his sister stood afar off, to wit [in order to learn] what would be done to him. 5And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself [bathe] at the river; and her maidens walked along by the rivers side; and when she [and she] saw the ark among the flags [sedge, and] she sent her maid to fetch it [maid, and she fetched it]. 6And when she had opened it she [And she opened it, and] saw the child, and behold, the babe [a boy] wept [weeping]. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews children. 7Then said his sister [And his sister said] to Pharaohs daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? 8And Pharaohs daughter said unto her, Go. And the maid went and called the childs mother. 9And Pharaohs daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child and nursed it. 10And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaohs daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water. 11And it came to pass in those days when Moses was grown [that Moses grew up], that [and] he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens; and he spied [saw] an Egyptian smiting an [a] Hebrew, one of his brethren. 12And he looked [turned] this way and that way, and when he [and he] saw that there was no man [man, and] he slew the Egyptian and hid [buried] him in the sand. 13And when he [And he] went out the second day [day, and] behold, two men of the Hebrews [two Hebrew men] strove together [were quarreling]; and he said to him that did the wrong [to the guilty one], Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? 14And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? Intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And 15Moses feared, and said, Surely this [the] thing is known. Now when [And] Pharaoh heard this thing, [thing, and] he sought to slay Moses. But [And] Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian; and he sat down 16[dwelt2] by a [the] well. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters; and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their fathers flock. 17And the shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock. 18And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How is it that ye are [Wherefore have ye] come so soon to-day? 19And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough3 for [drew water for] us, and watered the flock. 20And he said unto his daughters, And where is ?Hebrews 4 why is it that ye have [why then have ye] left the man? call him, that he may eat bread. 21And Moses was content [consented5] to dwell with the man; and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter. 22And she bare him a [bare a] sod, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, I have been a stranger [A sojourner have I been] in a strange land. 23And it came to pass in process of time [lit. in those many days], that the king of Egypt died; and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage [service], and they cried; and their cry6 came up to God by reason of the bondage [service]. 24And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them [lit. knew them7].

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

[Exo 2:1. , disregarded by the most of the commentators, is noticed by Glaire, who remarks that it may imply that this daughter, named Jochebed (Exo 6:20) was the only one of the family of Levi still living, or the only one of that house who was then marriageable. According to Exo 6:20, and Num 26:59, Jochebed was Levis own daughter; she may have been an only daughter. Sill it is possible that , though almost always used only before a definite object, is here used as in Exo 21:28. If an ox gore a man () or woman (). Comp. Ewalds Kritische Grammatik, 318, Note (9).Tr.].

[Exo 2:15. Whether the second means and ho sat down, or and he dwelt, is not easily determined. It seems unnatural that the word should have two meanings in the two consecutive sentences, although undoubtedly it is elsewhere freely used in both senses. If, moreover, the writer meant to say that Moses, while dwelling in Midian, once happened to be sitting by the well, and so became acquainted with Reuels daughters, he would probably not have used the Future with the Vav consecutive, but rather the Perfect, or the Participle. Comp. Ewald, Autfhrt. Gr., 341 a.Tr.].

[Exo 2:19. . Lange translates: Auch hat er anhaltend geschpft, Also he kept drawing, as if the Inf. Abs. followed, instead of preceding . There is no reason for assigning to the Inf. Abs. here any other than its common use, viz., to emphasize the meaning of the finite verb. Nor does the rendering of the A.V., drew water enough, quite reproduce its force. The daughters of Reuel evidently thought it would have been a remarkable occurrence if Moses had only defended them from the shepherds. But more than this: he even drew for us.Tr.].

[Exo 2:20. . Kalisch renders, Where then is he? Correctly enough, so far as the sense is concerned; but unnecessarily deviating from the more literal rendering in the A. V., which exactly expresses the force of the original.Tr.].

[Exo 2:21. . Glaire insists that in all the passages where occurs, even where it has the meaning to be foolish, the radical meaning is to venture. Most lexicograhpers assume a separate root for the signification, which it has in Niph., to be foolish. Meier (Wurzelwrterbuch), however, reduces all the significations to that of opening or being open, from the root = . But better, with Frst, to assumo two roots, and make the radical signification of this one to be to resolve, determine. This covers all cases. e.g. Gen 18:27, I have resolved. i.e., undertaken. Jdg 1:27, The Canaanites determined to dwell. In cases like the one before us, and 2Ki 5:23; Jdg 19:6, the resolution, being the result of persuasion, is a consent.Tr.].

[Exo 2:23. . cry for helpa different root from that of the verb .Tr.].

[Exo 2:25. Lange translates: Und Gott sah an die Kinder Israels, und als der Gottheit wars ihm bewusst (er durchschaute, sie und ihre Situation). And God looked on the children of Israel, and it was known by Him as the Godhead (e saw through them and their situation). This translation seems to be suggested by the emphatic repetition of . But better to find the emphatic word in God knew (them), i.e., had a tender regard for thema frequent use of Comp. Psa 144:3. Or, simply, God knew, leaving the object indefinite, as in the Hebrew.Tr.].

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Exo 2:1. And there went., according to Keil, serves to give a pictorial description. Inasmuch as the woman had already borne Miriam and Aaron, it would mislead us to take the word in this sense. The expression properly means that he had gone; he had, in these dangerous times which, to be sure, at Aarons birth had not yet reached the climax (he was three years older than Moses) taken the step of entering the married state.The descent of these parents from the tribe of Levi is remarked. Energetic boldness had distinguished it even in the ancestor (Gen 49:5; Exo 32:26; Deu 33:8). Although originally not without fanaticism, this boldness yet indicated the qualities needed for the future priesthood.

Exo 2:2. She recognized it as a good omen, that the child was so fair ( LXX.; vid., Heb 11:23), Josephus traces this intuition of faith, which harmonized with the maternal feeling of complacency and desire to preserve his life, to a special revelation. But this was here not needed.

Exo 2:3. The means of preservation chosen by the parents is especially attributed to the daughter of Levi. It is all the more daring, since in the use of it she had, or seemed to have, from the outset, the daughter of the child-murderer in mind. The phrase designates the box as a miniature ark, a ship of deliverance. On the paper-reed, vid. Winer, Real-wrterbuch, II., p. 411. The box, cemented and made water-tight by means of asphalt and pitch, was made fast by the same reed out of which it had been constructed. This extraordinarily useful kind of reed seems by excessive use to have become extirpated.

Exo 2:4. And his sister.Miriam (Exo 15:20). The sagacious child, certainly older than Aaron, early showed that she was qualified to become a prophetess (Exo 15:20) of such distinction that she could afterwards be puffed up by it.

Exo 2:5. The daughter of Pharaoh is called (Josephus et al.) or . The bathing of the kings daughter in the open stream is contrary indeed to the custom of the modern Mohammedan Orient, where this is done only by women of low rank in retired places (Lane, Manners and Customs, p. 336, 5th ed.), but accords with the customs of ancient Egypt (comp. the copy of a bathing-scene of a noble Egyptian woman, with four female attendants, in Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, Vol. III., Plate 417), and besides is perhaps connected with the notion held by the ancient Egyptians concerning the sacredness of the Nile, to which even divine honors were paid (vid. Hengstenberg, Egypt and the Books of Moses, p. 113), and with the fructifying, life-preserving power of its waters. (Keil).

Exo 2:6. The compassion of Pharaohs daughter towards the beautiful child led her to adopt him; and when she did so, making him, therefore, prospectively an Egyptian, she did not need, we may suppose, to educate him behind the kings back [as Keil thinks.Tr.]. We might rather assume that this event more or less neutralized the cruel edict of the king.

Exo 2:9. Nor is it to be assumed that the daughter of Pharaoh had no suspicion of the Hebrew nationality of the mother. How often, in cases of such national hostilities, the feelings of individual women are those of general humanity in contradistinction to those of the great mass of fanatical women.

Exo 2:10. She brought him unto Pharaohs daughter.The boy in the meantime had drunk in not only his mothers milk, but also the Hebrew spirit, and had been intrusted with the secret of his descent and deliverance. Legally and formally he became her son, whilst he inwardly had become the son of another mother; and though she gave him the Egyptian name, Mousheh, i.e., saved from the water (Josephus II., 9, 6), yet it was at once changed in the mind of Divine Providence into the name Mosheh; the one taken out became the one taking out. (Kurtz). For other explanations of the name, vid. Gesenius, Knobel, Keil. Thus the Egyptian princess herself had to bring up the deliverer and avenger of Israel, and, by instructing him in all the wisdom of Egypt, prepare him both negatively and positively for his vocation.

Exo 2:11. When Moses was grown.Had become a man. According to Act 7:23, and therefore according to Jewish tradition, he was then forty years old. He had remained true to his destination (Heb 11:24), but had also learned, like William of Orange, the Silent, to restrain himself, until finally a special occasion caused the flame hidden in him to burst forth. An Egyptian smote one of his brethren.This phrase suggests the ebullient emotion with which he now decided upon his future career.

Exo 2:12. That Moses looked this way and that way before committing the deed, marks, on the one hand, the mature man who knew how to control his heated feeling, but, on the other hand, the man not yet mature in faith; since by this act, which was neither simple murder nor simple self-defence, and which was not sustained by a pure peace of conscience, he anticipated Divine Providence. It cannot be attributed to a carnal thirst for achievement [Kurtz]; but as little can it be called a pure act of faith; although the illegal deed, in which he was even strengthened by the consciousness of being an Egyptian prince (as David in his sin and fall might have been misled by feeling himself to be an oriental despot) was a display of his faith, in view of which Stephen (Acts 7) could justly rebuke the unbelief of the Jews. Vid. more in Keil, p. 431.

Exo 2:14. The Jew who thus spoke wag a representative of the unbelieving spirit of which Stephen speaks in Acts 7.

Exo 2:15. The Midianites had made a settlement not only beyond the Elanitic Gulf near Moab, but also, a nomadic branch of them, on the peninsula of Sinai. These seem to have remained more faithful to Shemitic traditions than the trading Midianites on the other side, who joined in the voluptuous worship of Baal. Reuel means: Friend of God. He does not seem, by virtue of his priesthood, to have had princely authority.

Exo 2:16. By the well.A case similar to that in which Jacob helped Rachel at the well, Genesis 29.

Exo 2:18. On the relation of the three names, Reuel, Jethro (Exo 3:1) and Hobab (Num 10:29) vid. the commentaries and Winer. The assumption that , used of Hobab, means brother-in-law, but used of Jethro (preference, like Reuels name of dignity friend of God) means father-in-law, seems to be the most plausible. Jethro in years and experience is above Moses; but Hobab becomes a guide of the Hebrew caravan through the wilderness, and his descendants remain among the Israelites. Vid. also Jdg 4:11 and the commentary on it.

Exo 2:22. Gershom.Always a sojourner. So he lived at the court of Pharaoh, so with the priest in Midian. Zipporah hardly understood him (vid. iv. 24). As sojourner he passed through the wilderness, and stood almost among his own people. Yet the view of Canaan from Nebo became a pledge to him of entrance to a higher fatherland.

Exo 2:23. Also the successor of the child-murdering king continued the oppression. But God heard the cry of the children of Israel. He remembered his covenant, and looked into it, and saw through the case as God.

Footnotes:

[1][Exo 2:1. , disregarded by the most of the commentators, is noticed by Glaire, who remarks that it may imply that this daughter, named Jochebed (Exo 6:20) was the only one of the family of Levi still living, or the only one of that house who was then marriageable. According to Exo 6:20, and Num 26:59, Jochebed was Levis own daughter; she may have been an only daughter. Sill it is possible that , though almost always used only before a definite object, is here used as in Exo 21:28. If an ox gore a man () or woman (). Comp. Ewalds Kritische Grammatik, 318, Note (9).Tr.].

[2][Exo 2:15. Whether the second means and ho sat down, or and he dwelt, is not easily determined. It seems unnatural that the word should have two meanings in the two consecutive sentences, although undoubtedly it is elsewhere freely used in both senses. If, moreover, the writer meant to say that Moses, while dwelling in Midian, once happened to be sitting by the well, and so became acquainted with Reuels daughters, he would probably not have used the Future with the Vav consecutive, but rather the Perfect, or the Participle. Comp. Ewald, Autfhrt. Gr., 341 a.Tr.].

[3][Exo 2:19. . Lange translates: Auch hat er anhaltend geschpft, Also he kept drawing, as if the Inf. Abs. followed, instead of preceding . There is no reason for assigning to the Inf. Abs. here any other than its common use, viz., to emphasize the meaning of the finite verb. Nor does the rendering of the A.V., drew water enough, quite reproduce its force. The daughters of Reuel evidently thought it would have been a remarkable occurrence if Moses had only defended them from the shepherds. But more than this: he even drew for us.Tr.].

[4][Exo 2:20. . Kalisch renders, Where then is he? Correctly enough, so far as the sense is concerned; but unnecessarily deviating from the more literal rendering in the A. V., which exactly expresses the force of the original.Tr.].

[5][Exo 2:21. . Glaire insists that in all the passages where occurs, even where it has the meaning to be foolish, the radical meaning is to venture. Most lexicograhpers assume a separate root for the signification, which it has in Niph., to be foolish. Meier (Wurzelwrterbuch), however, reduces all the significations to that of opening or being open, from the root = . But better, with Frst, to assumo two roots, and make the radical signification of this one to be to resolve, determine. This covers all cases. e.g. Gen 18:27, I have resolved. i.e., undertaken. Jdg 1:27, The Canaanites determined to dwell. In cases like the one before us, and 2Ki 5:23; Jdg 19:6, the resolution, being the result of persuasion, is a consent.Tr.].

[6]Exo 2:23. . cry for helpa different root from that of the verb .Tr.].

[7][Exo 2:25. Lange translates: Und Gott sah an die Kinder Israels, und als der Gottheit wars ihm bewusst (er durchschaute, sie und ihre Situation). And God looked on the children of Israel, and it was known by Him as the Godhead (e saw through them and their situation). This translation seems to be suggested by the emphatic repetition of . But better to find the emphatic word in God knew (them), i.e., had a tender regard for thema frequent use of Comp. Psa 144:3. Or, simply, God knew, leaving the object indefinite, as in the Hebrew.Tr.].

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

This Chapter is rendered remarkable in that it is the beginning of the history of Moses, the writer of the Book of Exodus, and one of the most illustrious types of the Lord Jesus, as the great deliverer and lawgiver of his people; and as a mediator. The Contents of this Chapter are, the birth of Moses: his immediate danger at his birth, in being exposed to perish for want of sustenance, or from the ravages of destruction on the banks of the Nile: his preservation by Pharaoh’s daughter :her adoption of him: his education under her: and his leaving the court of Egypt for his attachment to his brethren of the Hebrews: his flight to Midian: his marriage: and the event of it in the birth of a son. The close of the Chapter gives a further account of the oppressions exercised on the Israelites: their groans by reason of them, and God’s merciful notice thereof.

Exo 2:1

Was not Moses herein a type of the Lord Jesus, concerning the priesthood? Heb 7:5

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Exo 2:4

Moses never had a stronger prediction about him, no not when all his Israelites were pitched about his tent in the wilderness, than now when he lay sprawling alone upon the waves; no water, no Egyptian can hurt him. Neither friend nor brother dare own him, and now God challenges his custody. When we seem most neglected and forlorn in ourselves, then is God most present, most vigilant.

Bishop Hall.

Exo 2:6

See here the merciful daughter of a cruel father. It is an uncharitable and injurious ground to judge of the child’s disposition by the parents. How well doth pity beseem great personages!

Bishop Hall

It is true that, amidst the clash of arms, the noblest forms of character may be reared, and the highest acts of duty done; that these great and precious results may be due to war as their cause; and that one high form of sentiment in particular, the love of country, receives a powerful and general stimulus from the bloody strife. But this is as if the furious cruelty of Pharaoh made place for the benign virtue of his daughter.

Morley’s Life of Gladstone, vol. III. p. 547.

References. II. 6. Christian World Pulpit, vol. lix., p. 198. II. 9. C. Bickersteth, The Shunamite, p. 12. J. Darlington, A Sunday School Anniversary Sermon, 1895. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year, p. 18. H. J. Van Dyke, Outlines of Sermons on the Old Testament, p. 24. F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliv. 1893, p. 1. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. ii. p. 274. C. Jerdan, Pastures of Tender Grass, p. 1. II. 10. C. H. Parkhurst, A Little Lower than the Angels, p. 230.

Exo 2:11-12

We are only human in so far as we are sensitive, and our honour is precisely in proportion to our passion.

Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies.

I don’t want to decry a just indignation; on the contrary, I should like it to be more thorough and general. A wise man, more than two thousand years ago, when he was asked what would most tend to lessen injustice in the world, said, ‘That every bystander should feel as indignant at a wrong as if he himself were the sufferer’. Let us cherish such indignation. But the long-growing evils of a great nation are a tangled business, asking for a good deal more than indignation in order to be got rid of. Indignation is a fine war-horse, but the war-horse must be ridden by a man; it must be ridden by rationality, skill, and courage, armed with the right weapon, and taking definite aim.

George Eliot in Felix Holt’s Address to Working-Men.

When another’s face is buffeted, perhaps a little of the lion will become us best. That we are to suffer others to be injured, and stand by, is not conceivable and surely not desirable. Revenge, says Bacon, is a kind of wild justice; its judgments at least are delivered by an insane judge; and in our own quarrel we can see nothing truly and do nothing wisely. But in the quarrel of our neighbour, let us be more bold.

R. L. Stevenson in A Christmas Sermon.

Reference. II. 11. C. Brown, The Birth of a Nation, p. 95.

Unobserved Sins

Exo 2:12

I. To think oneself unobserved often makes way for sin. Moses was unwatched and unobserved; and it was the thought of being unobserved that tempted Moses to his homicide.

There is a somewhat similar scene in the New Testament in the story of the denial of Simon Peter. What made it so easy for Peter to fall that night was the thought that there was nobody to see. There are some natures which are intensely sensitive to the reproaching or upbraiding look of human eyes. There are multitudes to whom the smile of heaven means little, but who would not forfeit for worlds the smile of men. There are many whom the fear of God cannot restrain who are yet restrained by the fear of human censure. And sin, taking occasion by that law, whispers to men that they are unobserved, and so makes it easier to transgress.

1. We see it, for instance, in men who go abroad, whether to travel or to settle down. It is a matter of common notoriety how often men are different when abroad. That is not the highest type of character. In the highest character there is always a fine permanence. The man who is rooted in the life of God will show himself the same in every land.

2. I think we are face to face with this peril in the seclusion and secrecy of home. There are men with whose conduct the world can find no fault, but whose behaviour at home is quite contemptible. The peril of home for a certain type of character is just the peril of being unobserved.

8. In our modern civilization this is one of the dangers of our cities. It is because men and women think themselves unseen there that the way of degradation is so easy.

II. Unobserved sins may have far-reaching consequences. Moses saw no man his sin was unobserved yet his sin profoundly modified his future.

Our hidden sins tell upon what we are, and what we are is the secret of our influence. It is the. life that is lived beyond the gaze of men that determines a man’s value at the last. There are eyes that go to and fro throughout the earth. In the loneliness of the crowd is One who sees, and our glad assurance is, He sees to save.

G. H. Morrison, The Wings of the Morning, p. 288.

Reference. II. 12. C. Jerdan, Pastures of Tender Grass, p. 213.

Exo 2:13

If there had been but any dram of good nature in these Hebrews, they had relented: now it is strange to see that, being so universally vexed with their common adversary, they should yet vex one another. One would have thought that a common opposition should have united them more; yet now private grudges do thus dangerously divide them. Blows enow were not dealt by the Egyptians, their own must add to the violence.

Bishop Hall.

We see Moses when he saw the Israelite and the Egyptian fight; he did not say, Why strive ye? but drew his sword and slew the Egyptian: but when he saw the two Israelites fight, he said, You are brethren, why strive you? If the point of doctrine be an Egyptian one, it must be slain by the sword of the spirit, and not reconciled; but if it be an Israelite, though in the wrong, then, why strive ye? We see of the fundamental points, our Saviour formeth the league thus, He that is not with us is against us; but of points not fundamental, He that is not against us is for us. … So as it is a thing of great use well to define what, and of what latitude, those points are which do make men merely aliens and discorporate from the Church of God.

Bacon, Advancement of Learning, pt. 2. xxv. 9.

Exo 2:14

Compare the somewhat bitter application of this incident by Cromwell, during the Little Parliament of 1653 (letter clxxxix. in Carlyle’s edition): ‘Truly I never more needed all helps from my Christian Friends than now! Fain would I have my service accepted of the Saints, if the Lord will; but it is not so. Being of different judgments, and those of each sort seeking most to propagate their aim, that spirit of kindness that is [in me] to them all is hardly accepted of any. I hope I can say it. My life has been a willing sacrifice and I hope for them all. Yet it much falls out as when the two Hebrews were rebuked; you know upon whom they turned their displeasure! But the Lord is wise; and will, I trust, make manifest that I am no enemy.’

‘Thou killedst the Egyptian.’

What if he did? What if unjustly? What was this to the Hebrew? Another man’s sin is no excuse for ours.

Bishop Hall.

Reference. II. 15. T. G. Selby, The God of the Patriarchs, p. 163.

Exo 2:17

In Egypt he delivers the oppressed Israelite; in Midian the wronged daughter of Jethro. A good man will be doing good, wheresoever he is; his trade is a compound of charity and justice… no adversity can make a good man neglect good duties.

Bishop Hall.

Given a noble man, I think your Lordship may expect by and by a polite man.

Carlyle, Latter-day Pamphlets (v.).

In his essay on Mazzini, F. W. H. Myers observes that ‘in men who have risen to wide-reaching power we generally observe an early preponderance of one of two instincts the instinct of rule and order, or the instinct of sympathy’. The latter he illustrates from the great Italian’s life, as follows: ‘Mazzini as a child was very delicate. When he was about six years old he was taken for his first walk. For the first time he saw a beggar, a venerable old man. He stood transfixed, then broke from his mother, threw his arms round the beggar’s neck, and kissed him, crying, “Give him something, mother, give him something”. “Love him well, lady,” said the aged man: “he is one who will love the people.”‘

Exo 2:21

If his espousals remind us for the moment of the wooing of Isaac and Jacob, what we may call the romantic element disappears like a bubble, and we hurry on to that narrative of the origin and growth of the Law which throws everything personal into the shade…. The wife, the children of the hero, fade into the background; it is ‘this people’ which forms the exclusive object of every yearning in his heart.

Exo 2:23

‘These poor persecuted Scottish Covenanters,’ said I to my inquiring Frenchman, in such stinted French as stood at command, ‘ils s’en appelaient ‘ ‘ la Postrit ,’ interrupted he, helping me out. ‘ Ah, Monsieur, non, mille fois non! They appealed to the Eternal God; not to posterity at all! C’tait diffrent .’

Carlyle in Past and Present

References. II. 23-25. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlv. No. 2631. III. 1. E. E. Cleal, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxviii. 1905, p. 44. III. 1-14. C. Stanford, Symbols of Christ, p. 61. W. A. Gray, The Shadow of the Hand, p. 153.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

Moses on the Nile

Exo 1:22

A very easy plan, was it not? Whom you fear, destroy; that is a brief and easy creed, surely? This was turning the river to good account. It was a ready-made grave. Pharaoh did not charge the people to cut the sod, and lay the murdered children in the ground; the sight would have been unpleasant, the reminders would have been too numerous; he said, Throw the intruders into the river: there will be but a splash, a few bubbles on the surface, and the whole thing will be over! The river will carry no marks; will tell no stories; will sustain no tomb-stones; it will roll on as if its waters had never been divided by the hand of the murderer. All bad kings have feared the rise of manhood. If Pharaoh has been afraid of children, there must be something in children worthy of the attention of those who seek to turn life into good directions. The boy who is the terror of a king may become valiant for the truth. Never neglect young life: it is the seed of the future; it is the hope of the world. Nothing better than murder occurred to the mind of this short-sighted king. He never thought of culture, of kindness, of social and political development; his one idea of power was the shallow and vulgar idea of oppression.

“And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives” ( Exo 1:15 ).

So the king could not carry out his own command. A king can give an order, but he requires the help of other people to carry it into effect Think of the proud Pharaoh having to take two humble midwives into his confidence! The plan of murder is not so easy a plan after all. There are persons to be consulted who may turn round upon us, and on some ground deny our authority. From the king we had a right to expect protection, security, and encouragement; yet the water of the fountain was poisoned, and the worm of destruction was gnawing the very roots of power. What if the midwives set themselves against Pharaoh? Two humble women may be more than a match for the great king of Egypt. No influence, how obscure soever, is to be treated with contempt. A child may baffle a king. A kitten has been known to alarm a bear. A fly once choked a pope. What if a midwife should turn to confusion the sanguinary counsels of a cowardly king?

“But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men-children alive” ( Exo 1:17 ).

They who fear God are superior to all other fear. When our notion of authority terminates upon the visible and temporary, we become the victims of fickle circumstances; when that notion rises to the unseen and eternal, we enjoy rest amid the tumult of all that is merely outward and therefore perishing. Take history through and through, and it will be found that the men and women who have most devoutly and honestly feared God, have done most to defend and save the countries in which they lived. They have made little noise; they have got up no open-air demonstrations; they have done little or nothing in the way of banners and trumpets, and have had no skill in getting up torchlight meetings; but their influence has silently penetrated the national life, and secured for the land the loving and mighty care of God. Where the spiritual life is profound and real, the social and political influence is correspondingly vital and beneficent. All the great workers in society are not at the front. A hidden work is continually going on; the people in the shade are strengthening the social foundation. There is another history beside that which is written in the columns of the daily newspaper. Every country has heroes and heroines uncanonised. Let this be spoken for the encouragement of many whose names are not known far beyond the threshold of their own homes.

“Therefore God dealt well with the midwives…. And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that he made them houses” ( Exo 1:20-21 ).

They who serve God serve a good Master. Was God indifferent to the character and claims of the midwives who bore practical testimony for him in the time of a nation’s trial? His eye was upon them for good, and his hand was stretched out day and night for their defence. They learned still more deeply that there was another King beside Pharaoh; and in the realisation of his presence Pharaoh dwindled into a secondary power, whose breath was in his nostrils, and whose commands were the ebullitions of moral insanity. No honest man or woman can do a work for God without receiving a great reward. God made houses for the midwives! He will make houses for all who live in his fear. There are but few who have courage to set themselves against a king’s commandment; but verily those who assert the authority of God as supreme shall be delivered from the cruelty of those who have no pity. There are times when nations are called upon to say, No, even to their sovereigns. Such times are not to be sought for with a pertinacious self-assertion, whose object is to make itself very conspicuous and important; but when they do occur, conscience is to assert itself with a dignity too calm to be impatient, and too righteous to be deceived.

How will these commands and purposes be received in practical life? This inquiry will be answered as we proceed to the second chapter.

“And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi” ( Exo 2:1 ).

There is nothing extraordinary in this statement. From the beginning men and women have married and have been given in marriage. It is therefore but an ordinary event which is described in this verse. Yet we know that the man of Levi and the daughter of Levi were the father and mother of one whose name was to become associated with that of the Lamb! May not Renown have Obscurity for a pedestal? Do not the pyramids themselves rest on sand? What are the great rocks but consolidated mud? We talk of our ancestry, and are proud of those who have gone before us. There is a sense in which this is perfectly justifiable, and not only so, but most laudable; let us remember, however, that if we go back far enough, we land, ii not in a common obscurity, yet in a common moral dishonour. Parents may be nameless, yet their children may rise to imperishable renown. The world is a great deal indebted to its obscure families. Many a giant has been reared in a humble habitation. Many who have served God, and been a terror to the Wicked One, have come forth from unknown hiding-places. I would dart this beam of light into the hearts of some who imagine that they are making little or no contribution to the progress of society. Be honest in your sphere, be faithful to your children, and even out of your life there may go forth an indirect influence without which the most sounding reputation is empty and worthless.

“And when she could not longer hide him, [that is, the child that was born to her,] 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” ( Exo 2:3 ).

The first going from home of any child always marks a period of special interest in the family. What a going was this! When some of you went from home, how you were cared for! How your family gathered round you to speak a kind farewell! What a box-filling, and portmanteau-strapping, what a fluttering of careful, anxious love there was! What has become of you? Were you suffocated with kindness? were you slain by the hand of a too anxious love? Truly, some men who have had the roughest and coldest beginning have, under the blessing of God, turned out to be the bravest, the strongest, the noblest of men! I believe in rough beginnings: we have less to fear from hardship than from luxury. Some children are confectioned to death. What with coddling, bandaging, nursing, and petting, the very sap of their life is drained away. There is indeed another side to this question of beginnings. I have known some children who have hardly ever been allowed to go out lest they should wet their feet, who have been spared all drudgery, who have had every wish and whim gratified, whose parents have suddenly come to social ruin, and yet these very children have, under their altered circumstances, developed a force of character, an enduring patience, and a lofty self-control never to have been expected from their dainty training. But a man is not necessarily a great man because he has had a rough beginning. Many may have been laid on the river Nile, whose names would have done no honour to history. Accept your rough beginning in a proper spirit; be not overcome by the force of merely external circumstances; wait, hope, work, pray, and you will yet see the path which leads into light, and honour, and peace. The mother of Moses laid the ark in the flags by the river’s brink. Ay, but before doing so she laid it on the heart of God! She could not have laid it so courageously upon the Nile, if she had not first devoutly laid it upon the care and love of God. We are often surprised at the outward calmness of men who are called upon to do unpleasant and most trying deeds; but could we have seen them in secret we should have known the moral preparation which they underwent before coming out to be seen of men. Be right in the sanctuary, if you would be right in the marketplace. Be steadfast in prayer, if you would be calm in affliction. Start your race from the throne of God itself, if you would run well, and win the prize.

“And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him” ( Exo 2:4 ).

Society needs watchers as well as workers. Had we been passing the spot at which the sister of Moses took up her position of observation, we might have condemned her as an idler standing there and doing nothing! We should be careful of our condemnation, seeing how little we know of the reality of any case. In doing nothing, the girl was in reality doing everything. If she had done more, she would have done less. There is a silent ministry as well as a ministry of thunder. Mark the cunning of love! The watcher stood afar off. Had she stood quite close at hand, she would have defeated the very object of her watching. She was to do her work without the slightest appearance of doing it. Truly there is a great art in love, and in all good ministry. There are wise master-builders, and also builders who are very foolish. Sometimes we must look without staring; we must speak without making a noise; we must be artful without dissimulation, and hide under the calmest exterior the most urgent and tumultuous emotion.

“And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river’s side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. 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 Hebrews’ children” ( Exo 2:5-6 ).

“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” When the child cried, the heart of the daughter of Pharaoh was moved, as simple and beautiful a piece of human nature as is to be found anywhere. How poor would the world be without its helpless ones! Little children by their very weakness make strong men stronger. By the wickedness of the wicked, the righteousness of the righteous is called forth in some of its most impressive and winsome forms. Looking at the daughter of Pharaoh from a distance, she appears to be haughty, self-involved, and self-satisfied; but, stooping near that little ark, she becomes a woman, having in her the instinct of motherliness itself! We should all be fathers and mothers to the orphan, the lost, and the desolate. The government of humanity is so ordered that even the most distressing circumstances are made to contribute to the happy development of our best impulses and energies. No man can be permanently unhappy who looks into the cradles of the poor and lonely, as Pharaoh’s daughter looked into this ark of bulrushes. Go by the river’s side, where the poor lost child is, and be a father and a mother to him if you would have happiness in the very core of your heart! Even a king’s daughter is the richer and gladder for this stoop of love. Some have been trying to reach too high for their enjoyments; the blooming fruit has been beyond their stature; they have therefore turned away with pining and discontent, not knowing that if they had bent themselves to the ground they would have found the happiness in the dust, which they attempted in vain to pluck from inaccessible heights.

“Then said his sister to Pharaoh’s daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?” ( Exo 2:7 ).

The watcher came without making a noise. Who ever heard the light come over the hills? Who ever heard the violet growing? The watcher, too, spoke to the king’s daughter without introduction or ceremony! Are there not times in life when we are superior to all formalities? Are there not sorrows which enable us to overcome the petty difficulties of etiquette? Earnestness will always find ways for its own expression. The child might well have pleaded timidity; fear of the greatness of Pharaoh’s daughter, or shamefacedness in the presence of the great and noble; under ordinary circumstances she would undoubtedly have done so; but the life of her brother was at risk, the command of her mother was in her heart, and her own pity yearned over the lonely one: under the compulsion of such considerations as these, the watcher urged her way to the side of Pharaoh’s daughter, and made this proposition of love. False excuses are only possible where there is lack of earnestness. If we really cared for lost children, we should find ways of speaking for them in high quarters. There is a boldness which is consistent with the purest modesty, and there is a timidity which thinly disguises the most abject cowardice.

“And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child’s mother. And Pharaoh’s daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it lor me, and I will give thee thy wages” ( Exo 2:8-9 ).

All done in a moment, as it were! Such are the rapid changes in lives which are intended to express some great meaning and purpose of God. They are cast down, but not destroyed; persecuted, but not forsaken! From the action of Pharaoh’s daughter we learn that first thoughts are, where generous impulses are concerned, the only thoughts worth trusting. Sometimes we reason that second thoughts are best; in a certain class of cases this reasoning may be substantially correct, but, where the heart is moved to do some noble and heroic thing, the first thought should be accepted as an inspiration from God, and carried out without self-consultation or social fear. Those who are accustomed to seek contribution or service for the cause of God, of course know well what it is to encounter the imprudent prudence which says, “I must think about it.” Where the work is good, don’t think about it; do it, and then think. When a person goes to a place of business, and turns an article over and over, and looks at it with hesitation, and finally says, “I will call again,” the master of the establishment says in his heart, “Never!” If Pharaoh’s daughter had considered the subject, the probability is that Moses would have been left on the Nile or under it; but she accepted her motherly love as a Divine guide, and saved the life of the child.

“And the woman took the child, and nursed it” ( Exo 2:9 ).

What her self-control in that hour of maddening excitement cost, no tongue can tell. She took the child as a stranger might have taken it, and yet her heart was bursting with the very passion of delight. Had she given way for one instant, her agitation might have revealed the plot. Everything depended upon her calmness. But love can do anything! The great question underlying all service is a question not so much of the intellect as of the heart. We should spoil fewer things if our love was deeper. We should finish our tasks more completely if we entered upon them under the inspiration of perfect love. The mother consented to become a hireling, to take wages for nursing her own child! Love can thus deny itself, and take up its sweet cross. How little did Pharaoh’s daughter know what she was doing! Does any one really know what work he is doing in all its scope and meaning? The simplest occasion of our lives may be turned to an account which it never entered into our hearts to imagine. Who can tell where the influence of a gentle smile may end? We know not the good that may be done by the echo as well as by the voice. There is a joyful bridegroom throwing his dole into the little crowd of laughing eager boys. One of those boys is specially anxious to secure his full share of all that is thrown: he has snatched a penny, but in a moment it has been dashed out of his hand by a competitor: see how anger flushes his face, and with what determination he strikes the successful boy: he is a savage, he is unfit to have his liberty in the public streets, his temper is uncontrollable, his covetousness is shocking: he wins the poor prize, and hastens away; watch him: with his hard-earned penny he buys a solitary orange, and with quick feet he finds his way up a rickety staircase into a barely-furnished garret; he gives his orange to his poor dying sister, and the juice assuages her burning thirst. When we saw the fight, we called the boy a beast ; but we knew not what we said!

We call the early life of Moses a miracle. There is a sense of course in which that is literally true. But is there not a sense in which every human life has in it the miraculous element? We are too fond of bringing down everything to the level of commonplace, and are becoming almost blind to the presence of elements and forces in life which ought to impress us with a distinct consciousness of a power higher than our own. Why this worship of commonplace? Why this singular delight in ah things that are supposed to be level and square, and wanting in startling emphasis? I would rather speak thus with myself: My life too is a miracle; it was put away upon a river and might have been lost in the troubled water; kind eyes watched the little vessel in which the life was hidden; other persons gathered around it and felt interested in its fortunes; it was drawn away from the stream of danger and for a time hidden within the security of love and comfort and guidance. It has also had to contend with opposition and difficulty, seen and unseen; it has been threatened on every side. Temptations and allurements have been held out to it, and it has been with infinite difficulty that it has been reared through all the atmosphere intended to oppress and to poison it. I could shut out all these considerations if I pleased, and regard my life within its merely animal boundaries, and find in it nothing whatever to excite religious wonder or religious thankfulness; but this is not the right view. To do so would be to inflict injustice upon the Providence which has made my life a daily wonder to myself. I will think of God’s tender care, of the continual mercy which has been round about me, and of the blessed influences which have strengthened and ennobled every good purpose of my heart; and I, too, will stand side by side with Moses when he sings the wonders of the hand Divine. The miracle is not always in the external incident; it may be hidden in the core of things and may slowly disclose itself to the eyes of religious reverence and inquiry. O that men were wise: that they would consider their beginning as well as their latter end, and learn to trace the hand of Heaven even in those comparative trifles which are supposed to lie within the scope and determination of time.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

IV

BIRTH AND PREPARATION OF MOSES

Exo 1:15-2:22

We come now to a resumption of our study of the book of Exodus. The last chapter closed while we were considering that great state problem: What the dominant people of a nation should do with an entirely distinct people in their boundaries is always a critical question to deal with, and it is always best to deal with it in righteousness.

The expedients to which Pharaoh resorted: (1) The enslavement of the people; (2) Two different methods to bring about the destruction of the male children as they were born. Both failed; they continued to multiply.

Now we come to the greatest man (his impress on the world is ineffaceable) the greatest man unless, perhaps, we except Abraham, in Jewish history, Moses, a marvelous man. We ought very carefully to study this man’s life, which is divided into three periods of forty years each, exactly: (1) From his birth up to forty years of age, when he made his great decision that he would not be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, including his birth, early life, education, and his deeds while he was a part of the court of Pharaoh; (2) The period of retirement, forty years in Midian; (3) The forty years extending from God’s call in the burning bush until his death. In that last period comes most of the book of Exodus, all of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, Psa 90 and all the other things that he did. This is the period of his literary activity and his great deeds.

Moses was of the tribe of Levi. Exodus states it thus: “And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.” That was during the time of the law that

every male child should be cast into the river. That injunction rested upon every Egyptian and upon all Jewish parents. This last law came into effect between the birth of Aaron and the birth of Moses. This family had two children before this law went into effect, Miriam the oldest, and Aaron, who was three years older than Moses. When Moses was born three terms were used to describe the child, one in Exo 2 , one in Act 7 , and one in Hebrews II.

Exo 2 says, “When she saw him that he was a goodly child”

Act 7 says, “When she saw that he was exceeding fair.”

Heb 11 says, “When she saw he was a proper child.” These words describe this baby as the mother saw him. From the traditions that confirm the statements here, he was a remarkable specimen of the physical as well as the mental man. Philo and Josephus go into ecstasies. They say that when Moses as a boy walked along the street the women would come out and stand at the doors to look at him. When he grew to be a man he attracted attention, as a man of presence. There are very few men of presence who, as soon as they are seen, impress you. General Sam Houston would impress you 100 yards off. He had more presence than any other man I ever saw. I was a boy when I first saw him, but I recognized him 100 yards off. Sam Houston could not walk down the street without people coming out to look at him.

The next thing that we learn about Moses, as in Heb 11:25 , is: “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months by his parents, because they saw he was a goodly child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment.” Here is a case of simple faith on the part of the parents of the child. They seemed to recognize that in that child was much of the future of their people. Their faith took hold of it, that God meant to do great things through that baby, and that faith was so strong that it cast out fear. The king’s command was his: “Cast this child into the Nile.” They hid him. When they could not hide him longer, and the king said “Cast him into the Nile,” still they were not afraid. They cast him into the Nile, but took precaution to put him where he would not be injured. They constructed a little vessel of bulrushes and put him in that; and their faith did not stop at that, for they stationed their eldest child to watch. They put him right where they knew the king’s daughter came down to bathe. Someone has said, “How could she dare to bathe in the Nile on account of crocodiles?” There were no crocodiles that low down in the Nile. Look at the faith of the parents of that child: that God meant great things for that child and, through him, for his people; that the king’s command was not going to interfere with God’s purpose; their faith taking steps for his preservation, and their steps were to induce a member of the royal family to foster the future deliverer of the nation.

The next thing is to know what opportunity the child’s parents had to make a religious impression on his mind. They arranged it so that the mother of the child should nurse him. She had the boy, until he was weaned, under her exclusive control. You let a mother have faith about a child and have complete charge of him until he is weaned, and she will make a great many religious impressions upon his mind. It is not to be supposed, then, that all connection between her and the child was broken off. We do not know that Moses ever, for one moment, supposed himself to be an Egyptian, and never for one moment was he, in heart, identified with the Egyptians; so that evidently in that early period of his life, deep religious impressions were made upon his mind.

The next step was in regard to his name. Pharaoh’s daughter called him “Moses,” saying, “Because I drew him out of the water.” An examination question will be: Give the derivation of the name of Moses. And you need not bother your mind with critical statements about some other origin of the name. The Bible says that this is the true origin; Josephus says it is; and it can be fairly deduced from the name itself.

The next statement about him is his education. Act 7 comes in here: “And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.” Now, if you have given attention to what the education of a royal child in Egypt signified, you have some conception of the preparation in this man’s life. We think it is awful to have to go to college for four years. This man’s preparation extended over eighty years, for forty years’ work. I repeat to you again, that only prepared men ever do great things. It is simply impossible for unprepared men to do really great things. Shakespeare says that some men have greatness thrust upon them, but he means a very short-lived greatness, one that soon vanishes. Now, this record further states that he was mighty in words and in deeds. Evidently this refers to military matters. In Egypt great men were utilized in the priesthood or in bureaucracies. The king was an autocrat; arid all things were managed by bureaus, such as the bureau of agriculture, government of provinces, etc. Or he could enter the military life. As the royal family were especially devoted to military affairs, it is very probable, as Josephus says, that Moses commanded an expedition against the Ethiopians in a great war, and won a signal triumph.

This brings the boy up to forty years. Let us see what the Scripture says about that. Act 7 : “And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren.” Verse 11 says, “And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown up, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens.” The question now comes up: How did it come into Moses’ heart to make that visit of inspection to his brethren? The only way it could occur to him is by considering this passage in Hebrews II (which it seems to me is the most remarkable statement in the Bible): “By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he looked unto the recompense of reward.”

Now faith rests on some word of God presented: “Faith comes by hearing.” What do you suppose was the word of God to Moses? We infer what it was by a statement in Act 7 , where Stephen says that when he intervened between two of the Hebrews who were quarrelling, he supposed that they would understand that God was to deliver them through him. He understood it, and supposed that they would understand. So that when he was forty years old evidently a communication was made to him from God to this effect: “You are to deliver this people Israel.” Now he had faith. Therefore, he had to make a decision. He came to where the roads forked.

I remember when I first preached a sermon on this text. I was a young preacher. The town of Bryan was just being built. The railroad had just reached there. They invited me to preach, and I preached on this subject: “The Choice of Moses.” I have the sermon now. It was published. I drew a picture of a man forty years old, not a child. I commenced by saying, “It is the custom of infidels to claim that religion is for weak-minded women and for children. Here was not a weak-minded person but a mature, strong man, the best educated man of his age, the brightest man whose power was unquestioned; and this man came to the forks of the road. When he looked down the left-hand road, what could he see? (1) The position of a prince, the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; (2) The pleasure of sin; (3) The treasures of that position, viz.: honor, pleasure, treasure, not his to be had by working for them, but his already, in his possession. Now, what induced him to discount that? First, these pleasures were those of sin, and these treasures were those of evil. He knew how they had been gotten by rapacious wars. So the character of the honor, the pleasure, and the treasure dispounted them. What else discounted them? ‘For a season.’ They are transient. The honor, the pleasure, and the treasure all had written over them: ‘Passing away.’ What other thought? The recompense of the reward, that is, The Outcome. Pleasure is sweet; treasure is desirable; honor is gratifying; but if these are bad in character, transitory in their nature, and the ultimate reward is evil, a wise man ought not to walk in that road.”

Let us see what he saw on the other side. (1) “Choosing afflictions,” (2) reproach, (3) the giving up of that which he had; renunciation, affliction, and reproach. But now what was the character of these? If he renounced this high position, it was because they were not his people; that if he chose this affliction, it was an affliction with the people of God; and if he was to bear this reproach, it was the reproach of Christ, the coming Messiah. So you see his faith, even then, rested clearly on the coming Messiah. Now the last thing is, the recompense of the reward: (1) Not for a season, but for all time; the other was transitory. There a man forty years old, learned, great, stood and looked down both these roads, first at this picture then at that; instituting a comparison that might be a basis of decision. This path commences bright and gets dark. The other commences dark, but becomes brighter. This fire bordered; that satin. But as a thinker and an intelligent man, he must press the question to its outcome. How does it end? The principle by which he made that decision was faith. He believed in God, in the promises made to his people; that he was the appointed deliverer of his people. He believed that in the end he would have higher honor, sweeter pleasure, richer treasure, and more alluring reward, if he took that right-hand road. It would be very interesting to trace the life of Moses out, to see whether he made a good choice or a bad one. His life was very much afflicted all the time he was trying to deliver his people. He had to die alone, with nobody near him; to be buried, nobody knew where. But the outcome is glorious. He is seen in consultation with Jesus Christ upon the Mount of Transfiguration. He wrote one of the hymns of heaven, which not only made him immortal on earth, but immortal throughout eternity. He wrote the Pentateuch, the basis of all good government, recognized by all of the leading nations of the world as the very foundation of jurisprudence. So that in literature the way he decided was well. In personal reward he did well.

I shall never forget the first sermon I ever heard Major Penn preach. He was then holding a protracted meeting, and a big crowd was out. That old First Church down there in Waco was brimful. He got up and said:

“What is the first thing? The first thing is decision. Now if you are incapable of making a decision, the sexton will open the door and let you out. You need not stay here. But if you have stamina enough in you to reach a decision, a conclusion, when a matter is fairly presented to you, I would like for you to come up and take a front seat, and let me tell you what I want you to decide on. I want you, without any singing or any sermon, just simply on the point, that if a matter is presented to you that you will decide one way or the other, to come up and take a front seat. Are you afraid to come? Are you afraid to pledge yourselves to a decision? If you just simply want to hear me talk and not decide, and do nothing, the sexton will let you out and you can go home. But if you will engage to listen fairly to what I have to say, and then, so help you God, you will decide, come up and take a front seat.”

That was a great talk. It made a tremendous impression. I saw men who had never made a move in their lives just get right up and take a front seat. When he got them up there, about fifty or sixty men and women, he just stood down before them, and talked to them, and showed them the things on which they were to make a decision; and he would not let them get up and leave until they had made a decision one way or the other. Some of them were converted the first day; some as soon as they had started on that pledge that they would reach a conclusion. What is it that Shakespeare says of something that “causes all our resolutions to turn awry and lose the name of action”? What is it that Patrick Henry said when he was trying to get the House of Burgesses to come to a decision: “Shall we gain strength by irresolution and inaction?” What does anybody ever gain by such a course?

Take the first period of the life of Moses, and we find it all preparatory. God had made a revelation to him that he was to deliver the people. He believed that through that people Christ would come. He could not have made that decision without faith. Faith was the great principle that caused his parents to defy the authority of the mighty king and not to have fear of him. Faith conquers the world.

Now we come to the mistake of Moses. Bob Ingersoll talks about the mistakes of Moses, but what he calls mistakes are not mistakes. We do come to a mistake, though. It was not a mistake to turn around and say, “I deliberately, voluntarily, and forever step down and out; I refuse any longer to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; I do not belong there. That is not my crowd; I cast my lot with these afflicted people.” No mistake was there. “Now, I am going to take a look at my people. I’m going to visit them and see for myself how these burdens are put on them.” No mistake is there. Where, then, did Moses make a mistake? He made the kind of mistake that Rebekah and Jacob made. There was a promise of God that the elder should serve the younger; and so they concluded that they would hurry up God’s purpose. And Moses sinned by not waiting for God’s providence to open the way by which he was to deliver the people. He ought not to have shaken the hourglass and tried to make the sand run out faster. When he saw that taskmaster inhumanly and unjustly smiting a Hebrew, he killed him. God did not tell him that that was the way it was to be done. God said, “You must deliver my people,” but he did not tell him to do it on his own judgment. He covered the Egyptian up in the sand; possessed with the same idea that when he saw two of his brethren quarrelling he just stepped up with the air of a deliverer and began to settle that case, and they refused to be settled. In other words, he came without credentials and with only his “say-so,” and with no proof from God that he was to deliver the people. So they rejected him and Pharaoh sought to kill him.

Turn again to Heb 11:27 : “By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.” Now, his going out of Egypt is not generally understood. A great many people say he was a coward and was afraid. He fled by faith, under divine promptings. It was not the fear of the king that drove him into banishment, but he seemed to understand that his preparation was not complete) and there was something he had not yet received, and all through that forty years of the second period of his life “he endured as seeing him who is invisible.”

Now, let us look at that forty-years’ period. He concluded to go where he would be out of the power of Pharaoh and he went to the safest place in the Sinaitic Peninsula, partly occupied by the Midianites and partly by the Amalekites; and he comes like Eliezer and Jacob came, and like everybody else in those desert countries comes, to the well. The well was a great place of meeting, just like a windmill in South Texas. There he sees some girls, as they frequently water the cattle in those countries; and some shepherds were driving them away.

Moses was a soldier and he never stopped to count. The chivalry in which he had been reared in the character of a prince, urged him forward, and he put those herdsmen to flight, and helped the girls water the cattle. That is a fair mark of esteem to young ladies, and always will be. Just let a man show that he is a man, and has a respectful and kind feeling for womanhood, the name of mother, wife and sister, and that he will not see brutal men trample on the rights, privileges and courtesies that are due to the woman, and that man is going to be popular with the women, and justly so. His very bearing announced that he was a kingly man, and according to the rapid manner in which such things are consummated, he married.

This Midianitish sheik to whom he came gave him one of his daughters, Zipporah, who was sometimes called the Ethiopian woman. Therefore, some people say that Moses married a Negress. There is not a word of truth in it. There was a “Cush” in Africa, but there was also a “Cush” in Southern Arabia, not like some who made the Midianites the descendants of Esau. If you will read Gen 25 , you will find that Midian was a descendant of Abraham, through Keturah; that the Midianites and Ishmaelites lived together. They were close akin; one, the descendants of Abraham through Keturah; the other the descendants of Abraham through Hagar. After all, that marriage of Moses was not a good marriage. That wife never sympathized with the great work that God had given him to do, and she “cut up” much when he circumcised the first child which Moses weakly allowed her to govern. So the second child was not circumcised; and it almost cost him his life, as we shall soon learn. There is not a line in the Bible which shows that that woman stood up to her husband in any godly thing which he attempted to do. But he stayed there and in that forty years he got an education of incalculable value.

The sublimity of the great mountain scenery, the solitude of those desert plains, the silent communing with God under a brilliant galaxy of stars that shine brighter there than perhaps in any other portion of the world; there he meditated; there he came in touch with the people of the book of Job. There I think he wrote that book of Job, which I think is the first book of the Bible written, suggesting the afflictions of his people unjustly being ground to powder, harmonizing with the thoughts of the book of Job, viz.: afflictions sent upon the righteous through no fault of theirs. Job was a contemporary of Moses. It was the easiest thing in the world for him to get in touch with all the history. There he studies the ways of getting through that wilderness, and a man needs a guide) even now, through that country. He learned all about the water courses, and the proper stopping places; how to endure the desert life for forty years; forty years of the greatest displays of divine power that the world has ever witnessed.

Now, in this chapter we can go no further. That forty years is ended, and we will next take up the beginning of the last forty years of the life of Moses, when God comes to him and says) “I told you at first that you were to deliver this people. The time has come. I will show you how to do it.”

QUESTIONS

1. Derivation of the word “Moses”?

2. Give names of his tribe, parents, brother, and sister.

3. What oppressive Egyptian law was in force at his birth?

4. What three passages of Scripture describe his physical appearance at birth, and what traditions of his presence and beauty of person?

5. How did the faith of his parents in three distinct particulars save the child from the Egyptian law?

6. What opportunities had his parents to preoccupy his mind with the faith of his father, and the evidence of their success?

7. What of the Old Testament material for a life of Moses?

8. Cite the special New Testament Scriptures throwing light on his life.

9. Into what three equal periods was his life divided?

10. How much of his 120 years was devoted to preparation, compare this with the period of preparation in the case of John the Baptist, and of our Lord, and the bearing of these facts on the time, labor and cost we should devote to the preparation for our life’s work?

11. What are the constituent elements of his education in this long preparation-? Ans. His home training fixing character and faith; Egyptian education of a prince; service in official positions in Egypt; forty years of retirement and meditation.

12. In what did “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” consist? (Have you read Tom Moore’s Epicwean? ) Ans. The Egyptian learning was very great in mathematics, mechanics, astronomy, agriculture, architecture, hieroglyphics and symbols, government, economics, sanitation, embalming, war, diplomacy etc. The priestly ritual and theology was extensive, mystical, burdensome, and most of it profitless.

13. How did retirement and meditation in Midian for so long & time prove helpful to his character and work in the active period of his life, and what is the great defect of modern preparation.

14. What New Testament apostle sought retirement, and for how long, in this very region, before commencing active work? What evidences of its helpfulness to him?

15. At what age did he make his great decision?

16. What New Testament passage indicates that a previous revelation from God as to his future work influenced this decision?

17. Cite precisely the New Testament statement of this choice.

18. According to this statement, by what principle or grace was the choice made?

19. Following the lecture, analyze this New Testament passage as if for a sermon outline (see also the author’s sermon on “Choice of Moses”).

20. What the literary productions of Moses and their importance, and show that, so far as literary fame is concerned, the “recompense of the reward” to which he looked was greater and more enduring than could have come from resting in the “learning of the Egyptians.” Answer: (1) The Pentateuch; (2) Psa 90 ; and probably the book of Job. From this psalm is a song which is, and will be sung in heaven.

21. Wherein did Moses make a mistake in his first effort to be a deliverer? Answer: (1) As to time; the predicted time of deliverance had not come; (2) as to method deliverance was not to be by the sword; (3) as to readiness on hia own part, Israel’s part and Pharaoh’s part.

22. Cite New Testament passage showing that a motive mightier than fear of Pharaoh, as set forth in Exo 2:14-15 , influenced his voluntary exile.

23. What were the ties of kindred between Israelites, Ishmaelites and Midianites?

24. Locate Midian and show its touch with the land of Job.

25. What are the arguments tending to prove that Moses in Midian wrote the book of Job as the first Bible book written? Answers: (1) As Midian, where Moses lived forty years, touched Job’s country, as there was much intercommunication, as both were occupied by Semite population, Moses had exceptional opportunity to learn of Job. (2) All the internal evidence shows that Job lived in patriarchal times, anywhere between Abraham and Moses, and all the idioms of speech in the book show that the author lived near the times of the scenes described. No late author could have so projected his style so far back. (3) The correspondences between the Pentateuch and the book of Job are abundant and marvelous. (4) The man who wrote the song of deliverance at the Red Sea and the matchless poems at the close of Deuteronomy 32-33 is just the man to write the poetic drama of Job. (5) The problem of the book of Job, the undeserved afflictions of the righteous, was the very problem of the people of Moses. (6) The profound discussions in the book call for just such learning, wisdom, philosophy, and Oriental fire as Moses alone of his age possessed. (7) The existence and malevolence of a superhuman evil spirit (Job 1-2) alone could account for these afflictions, a being of whom Job himself might be ignorant, but well known to Moses in the power behind the magicians and idolatries of Egypt. (8) The purpose of the book to show, first, the necessity of a written revelation (Job 31:35 ) and, second, the necessity of a Daysman, Mediator, Redeemer (Job 9:33 ) to stand between God and sinful man, both point to a period when there was no written revelation and no clear understanding of the office of the Daysman in the plan of salvation, and the necessity of a manifestation of God, visible, audible, palpable and approachable (Job 3:3-9 ) all indicate a period when there was no Bible, but a desire for one, revealing the Daysman and forecasting his incarnation, and make the presumption strong that Job was the first book of the Bible to be written and such a book could find no author but Moses. (9) The book must have been written by a Jew to obtain a place in the canon of the Scriptures. All the conditions meet in Moses and in him alone of all men.

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Exo 2:1 And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took [to wife] a daughter of Levi.

Ver. 1. And took to wife. ] His own aunt. Exo 6:20 Num 26:59 The law against incest Lev 18:12 was not yet given, nor the state of Israel settled. But what excuse can there be for that abominable incest of the house of Austria by Papal dispensation? King Philip of Spain was uncle to himself, first cousin to his father, husband to his sister, and father to his wife! a And what shall we say of our modern sectaries, whose practising of incest is now avowed publicly in print? They shame not to affirm that those marriages are most lawful that are between persons nearest in blood, brother and sister, father and daughter, mother and son, uncle and niece. The prohibition of degrees in Leviticus is to be understood, say they, of fornication, not of marriage b Tamar did not doubt to be her brother Amnon’s wife, but detested the act of fornication, &c. Lo, here, what noonday devils do now, in this unhappy time, walk with open face among us! c

a Spec. Europ.

b See Mr Bayly’s Dissuasion, part 2, and Mr Edwards’s Gangr., part 3.

c Little Nonsuch, pp. 5-7.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Exodus

THE ARK AMONG THE FLAGS

Exo 2:1 – – Exo 2:10 .

I. It is remarkable that all the persons in this narrative are anonymous. We know that the names of ‘the man of the house of Levi’ and his wife were Amram and Jochebed. Miriam was probably the anxious sister who watched what became of the little coffer. The daughter of Pharaoh has two names in Jewish tradition, one of which corresponds to that which Brugsch has found to have been borne by one of Rameses’ very numerous daughters. One likes to think that the name of the gentle-hearted woman has come down to us; but, whether she was called ‘Meri’ or not, she and the others have no name here. The reason can scarcely have been ignorance. But they are, as it were, kept in shadow, because the historian saw, and wished us to see, that a higher Hand was at work, and that over all the events recorded in these verses there brooded the informing, guiding Spirit of God Himself, the sole actor.

‘Each only as God wills Can work-God’s puppets, best and worst, Are we: there is no last nor first.’

II. The mother’s motive in braving the danger to herself involved in keeping the child is remarkably put. ‘When she saw that he was a goodly child, she hid him.’ It was not only a mother’s love that emboldened her, as it does all weak creatures, to shelter her offspring at her own peril, but something in the look of the infant, as it lay on her bosom, touched her with a dim hope. According to the Septuagint translation, both parents shared in this. And so the Epistle to the Hebrews unites them in that which is here attributed to the mother only. Stephen, too, speaks of Moses as ‘fair in God’s sight.’ As if the prescient eyes of the parents were not blinded by love, but rather cleared to see some token of divine benediction resting on him. The writer of the Hebrews lifts the deed out of the category of instinctive maternal affection up to the higher level of faith. So we may believe that the aspect of her child woke some prophetic vision in the mother’s soul, and that she and her husband were of those who cherished the hopes naturally born from the promise to Abraham, nurtured by Jacob’s and Joseph’s dying wish to be buried in Canaan, and matured by the tyranny of Pharaoh. Their faith, at all events, grasped the unseen God as their helper, and made Jochebed bold to break the terrible law, as a hen will fly in the face of a mastiff to shield her brood. Their faith perhaps also grasped the future deliverance, and linked it in some way with their child. We may learn how transfiguring and ennobling to the gentlest and weakest is faith in God, especially when it is allied with unselfish human love. These two are the strongest powers. If they are at war, the struggle is terrible: if they are united, ‘the weakest is as David, and David as an angel of God.’ Let us seek ever to blend their united strength in our own lives.

Will it be thought too fanciful if we suggest that we are taught another lesson,-namely, that the faith which surrenders its earthly treasures to God, in confidence of His care, is generally rewarded and vindicated by receiving them back again, glorified and sanctified by the altar on which they have been laid? Jochebed clasped her recovered darling to her bosom with a deeper gladness, and held him by a surer title, when Miriam brought him back as the princess’s charge, than ever before. We never feel the preciousness of dear ones so much, nor are so calm in the joy of possession, as when we have laid them in God’s hands, and have learned how wise and wonderful His care is.

III. How much of the world’s history that tiny coffer among the reeds held! How different that history would have been if, as might easily have happened, it had floated away, or if the feeble life within it had wailed itself dead unheard! The solemn possibilities folded and slumbering in an infant are always awful to a thoughtful mind. But, except the manger at Bethlehem, did ever cradle hold the seed of so much as did that papyrus chest? The set of opinion at present minimises the importance of the individual, and exalts the spirit of the period, as a factor in history. Standing beside Miriam, we may learn a truer view, and see that great epochs require great men, and that, without such for leaders, no solid advance in the world’s progress is achieved. Think of the strange cradle floating on the Nile; then think of the strange grave among the mountains of Moab, and of all between, and ponder the same lesson as is taught in yet higher fashion by Bethlehem and Calvary, that God’s way of blessing the world is to fill men with His message, and let others draw from them. Whether it be ‘law,’ or ‘grace and truth,’ a man is needed through whom it may fructify to all.

IV. The sweet picture of womanly compassion in Pharaoh’s daughter is full of suggestions. We have already noticed that her name is handed down by one tradition as ‘Merris,’ and that ‘Meri’ has been found as the appellation of a princess of the period. A rabbinical authority calls her ‘Bithiah,’ that is, ‘Daughter of Jehovah’; by which was, no doubt, intended to imply that she became in some sense a proselyte. This may have been only an inference from her protection of Moses. There is a singular and very obscure passage in 1Ch 4:17 – 1Ch 4:18 , relating the genealogy of a certain Mered, who seems to have had two wives, one ‘the Jewess,’ the other ‘Bithiah, the daughter of Pharaoh.’ We know no more about him or her, but Keil thinks that Mered probably ‘lived before the exodus’; but it can scarcely be that the ‘daughter of Pharaoh,’ his wife, is our princess, and that she actually became a ‘daughter of Jehovah,’ and, like her adopted child, refused royal dignity and preferred reproach. In any case, the legend of her name is a tender and beautiful way of putting the belief that in her ‘there was some good thing towards the God of Israel.’

But, passing from that, how the true woman’s heart changes languid curiosity into tenderness, and how compassion conquers pride of race and station, as well as regard for her father’s edict, as soon as the infant’s cry, which touches every good woman’s feelings, falls on her ear! ‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.’ All the centuries are as nothing; the strange garb and the stranger mental and spiritual dress fade, and we have here a mere woman, affected, as every true sister of hers to-day would be, by the helpless wailing. God has put that instinct there. Alas that it ever should be choked by frivolity or pride, and frozen by indifference and self-indulgence! Gentle souls spring up in unfavourable soil. Rameses was a strange father for such a daughter. How came this dove in the vulture’s cage? Her sweet pity beside his cold craft and cruelty is like the lamb couching by the lion. Note, too, that gentlest pity makes the gentlest brave. She sees the child is a Hebrew. Her quick wit understands why it has been exposed, and she takes its part, and the part of the poor weeping parents, whom she can fancy, against the savage law. No doubt, as Egyptologists tell us, the princesses of the royal house had separate households and abundant liberty of action. Still, it was bold to override the strict commands of such a monarch. But it was not a self-willed sense of power, but the beautiful daring of a compassionate woman, to which God committed the execution of His purposes.

And that is a force which has much like work trusted to it in modern society too. Our great cities swarm with children exposed to a worse fate than the baby among the flags. Legislation and official charity have far too rough hands and too clumsy ways to lift the little life out of the coffer, and to dry the tears. We must look to Christian women to take a leaf out of ‘Bithiah’ s’ book. First, they should use their eyes to see the facts, and not be so busy about their own luxury and comfort that they pass the poor pitch-covered box unnoticed. Then they should let the pitiful call touch their heart, and not steel themselves in indifference or ease. Then they should conquer prejudices of race, pride of station, fear of lowering themselves, loathing, or contempt. And then they should yield to the impulses of their compassion, and never mind what difficulties or opponents may stand in the way of their saving the children. If Christian women knew their obligations and their power, and lived up to them as bravely as this Egyptian princess, there would be fewer little ones flung out to be eaten by crocodiles, and many a poor child, who is now abandoned from infancy to the Devil, would be rescued to grow up a servant of God. She, there by the Nile waters, in her gracious pity and prompt wisdom, is the type of what Christian womanhood, and, indeed, the whole Christian community, should be in relation to child life.

V. The great lesson of this incident, as of so much before, is the presence of God’s wonderful providence, working out its designs by all the play of human motives. In accordance with a law, often seen in His dealings, it was needful that the deliverer should come from the heart of the system from which he was to set his brethren free. The same principle which sent Saul of Tarsus to be trained at the feet of Gamaliel, and made Luther a monk in the Augustinian convent at Erfurt, planted Moses in Pharaoh’s palace and taught him the wisdom of Egypt, against which he was to contend. It was a strange irony of Providence that put him so close to the throne which he was to shake. For his future work he needed to be lifted above his people, and to be familiar with the Egyptian court as well as with Egyptian learning. If he was to hate and to war against idolatry, and to rescue an unwilling people from it, he must know the rottenness of the system, and must have lived close enough to it to know what went on behind the scenes, and how foully it smelled when near. He would gain influence over his countrymen by his connection with Pharaoh, whilst his very separation from them would at once prevent his spirit from being broken by oppression, and would give him a keener sympathy with his people than if he had himself been crushed by slavery. His culture, heathen as it was, supplied the material on which the divine Spirit worked. God fashioned the vessel, and then filled it. Education is not the antagonist of inspiration. For the most part, the men whom God has used for His highest service have been trained in all the wisdom of their age. When it has been piled up into an altar, then ‘the fire of the Lord’ falls.

Our story teaches us that God’s chosen instruments are immortal till their work is done. No matter how forlorn may seem their outlook, how small the probabilities in their favour, how divergent from the goal may seem the road He leads them, He watches them. Around that frail ark, half lost among the reeds, is cast the impregnable shield of His purpose. All things serve that Will. The current in the full river, the lie of the flags that stop it from being borne down, the hour of the princess’s bath, the direction of her idle glance, the cry of the child at the right moment, the impulse welling up in her heart, the swift resolve, the innocent diplomacy of the sister, the shelter of the happy mother’s breast, the safety of the palace,-all these and a hundred more trivial and unrelated things are spun into the strong cable wherewith God draws slowly but surely His secret purpose into act. So ever His children are secure as long as He has work for them, and His mighty plan strides on to its accomplishment over all the barriers that men can raise.

How deeply this story had impressed on devout minds the truth of the divine protection for all who serve Him, is shown by the fact that the word employed in the last verse of our lesson, and there translated ‘drawn,’ of which the name ‘Moses’ is a form, is used on the only occasion of its occurrence in the Old Testament namely Psa 18:16 , and in the duplicate in 2Sa 22:17 with plain reference to our narrative. The Psalmist describes his own deliverance, in answer to his cry, by a grand manifestation of God’s majesty; and this is the climax and the purpose of the earthquake and the lightning, the darkness and the storm: ‘He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters.’ So that scene by the margin of the Nile, so many years ago, is but one transient instance of the working of the power which secures deliverance from encompassing perils, and for strenuous, though it may be undistinguished, service to all who call upon Him. God, who put the compassion into the heart of Pharaoh’s dusky daughter, is not less tender of heart than she, and when He hears us, though our cry be but as of an infant, ‘with no language but a cry,’ He will come in His majesty and draw us from encompassing dangers and impending death. We cannot all be lawgivers and deliverers; but we may all appeal to His great pity, and partake of deliverance like that of Moses and of David.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

a man. Hebrew. ‘ish, App-14. = Amram, Exo 6:16-20.

house = lineage. Figure of speech Metonymy (of Subject), App-6.

Levi. For Genealogy see App-29.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 2

There went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him for three months ( Exo 2:1-2 ).

The word “goodly” is “beautiful”, so this woman had a beautiful little boy, and she just couldn’t bring herself to throwing him in the river. Now that was the order of the Pharaoh. But he was such a beautiful little boy, and of course what mother could really just throw her son into the river? So she hid him for three months.

And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, [with tar] and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s bank ( Exo 2:3 ).

So in other words, she was fulfilling, cast the child in the river. But she just fixed a little basket, and waterproofed it so that she put him in the river, but in the basket.

And his sister stood afar off, to find out what would be done to him. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river’s side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she opened it, and saw the child: and, behold, the baby cried. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews’ children ( Exo 2:4-6 ).

So we see the beautiful story of God’s preservation. The child was placed in this little waterproof basket there in the river. The sister stayed back in sort of the bushes, to watch the basket to see what happens. Here the daughter’s Pharaoh came down to take her bath, and they saw the basket and she sent one of her maidens out to get the thing and find out, you know, curiosity. She opened it up and just at that time, little Moses started crying, and her heart was touched. “Ah, it’s one of the Hebrew’s children.”

So Moses’ sister came up, [Miriam who we will learn more about later.] and she said to Pharaoh’s daughter, Do you want me to get a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for you ( Exo 2:7 )?

Now that was a very common thing in those days. Wet nursing. So you get a woman to just wet nurse your child for you. So that’s what Miriam is offering to do, get a woman to nurse the child.

And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, Go. And so the maid went and called the child’s mother. [Moses’ mother.] And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give you wages. And so the woman took the child and nursed it. And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: [Which means, “to be taken out of the water”.] because I drew him out of the water ( Exo 2:8-10 ).

So interesting way that God has of working, Moses was able to grow up at home during the early years where he received the strong inculcating of the Hebrew traditions, endued with a sense of a nation of destiny. Certainly, it’s a tremendous example of what the proverb declares, “If you train up a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not depart from it.” Because in those early formation years, Moses had received such a strong foundation that it was strong enough that he was able to withstand all of the pressures of the many years of the education within the Egyptian schools. Don’t underestimate the value of those early years. It is said that the Jewish mothers from the time the baby was first cradled in their arms, would begin to whisper in their ears, “Jehovah is God”. I think for some of you mothers, one of the greatest things you can do is just whisper in your children’s ears, “Jesus loves you”. Paul wrote to Timothy, and spoke of how at youth he was taught in the scriptures by his godly mother and grandmother. What a heritage.

I thank God that I had a similar kind of a heritage. From my youth, taught in the scriptures by my mother. I didn’t have the normal, “Goldilocks and the three Pigs”, bedtime stories. I wasn’t frightened by those horror tales. Imagine the wolf eating up your grandmother, you know. The woodsman coming and chopping the wolf. “So go to sleep now, honey.” I can’t quite understand our mentality in some of the stories that we call bedtime stories. Even the, “Rock-a-bye baby on the treetop, when the wind blows the cradle will rock, and when the bough breaks, the cradle will fall”, poor child. How are we marking our children? My parents were wiser than to fill me with that garbage.

So I grew up knowing how God would always take care of His children. How God delivered the giant into the hands of David. I knew all about Moses and the bulrushes, and God’s delivering power. I knew about God’s deliverance from the lion’s den. I knew that no matter what would happen, God would be with me, and protect me, and shelter me. My mother used to follow me around the yard when I was playing ball, or swinging, or whatever, just giving me scriptures, making me repeat them, helping me to memorize them, filling me with the knowledge of the Word of God. Those early years are important years.

Even before you think your child can understand, begin his education and training. In the very first few months, it is so important that their brain be stimulated because all of those little neuron connections are being made back there. They’re being made according to the stimulus that the child receives. So that’s why they say have mobiles in the crib, and colors that will move and all kinds of action to stimulate the development of the connections there during that crucial time. Because their future mental capacities will be directly proportionate to the number of connections that are made in those early months.

So Moses’ mother did an excellent job. God even saw she got paid for it. I like the way the Lord operates. So rather than losing a son she gained a son, and also had wages as she nursed him. Then she brought him into the Pharaoh’s court and presented him, and then he was schooled in Egypt.

Now Hebrews tells us it was by faith that she put that little ark in the river. By faith she refused to obey the Pharaoh’s order, but built a little ark and placed the child in it. By faith Moses when he came to age, refused to be called the son of the Pharaoh’s daughter, or to identify himself with the Egyptians, but he identified himself with the people of God. He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, in order that he might enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, for he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. That shows you that there was such a strong background in Moses.

Now not only a strong background, but a sense of destiny and God’s purpose for these people was instilled into Moses. So that Moses when he went out in the field, which we’ll be studying in just a moment, and found an Egyptian mistreating an Israelite, killed the Egyptian. The next day when he saw two Israelites striving together and he went to break them up, when they said, “Who made you a judge over us? Are you going to kill us like you did that Egyptian yesterday?” We are told in Stephen’s oration in the Acts of the Apostles, that Moses thought that they understood that God had destined him to be the leader to lead them out of their bondage. Moses thought they’d understand that. He had such a sense of destiny in those early years.

Let’s move on.

And it came to pass [Verse eleven, chapter two] in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brothers, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brothers ( Exo 2:11 ).

So he had this identity with the Hebrew people rather than with the Egyptians, and it had to come in those early years.

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 ( Exo 2:12 ).

Now some say the mistake was “he looked this way and that way”, but he didn’t look up. We make that mistake so often. We look this way and that way, and then we act, not realizing that God sees us. He tried to hide his deed by burying the Egyptian in the sand.

Now as I said, Moses had a sense of destiny. Somehow he felt, and perhaps because of the position, somehow he felt that he was destined to lead these people out of their bondage. He seemed to have this awareness and consciousness. He was surprised that they didn’t recognize it. The problem with Moses was that he just got ahead of God. He tried to do what God wanted done in the ability and in the power of his own flesh. Knowing what God wanted, aware of the purposes of God, his big mistake was getting ahead of God.

Now this is a mistake that we often make. We know what God wants to do, we don’t wait for God or His empowering to do it, we get out and we try to do in the energy of our own flesh, what we realize God desires to be done. But I want you to notice how unsuccessful he was in trying in the ability of his own flesh to do what God wanted done. He was not even successful in burying one Egyptian. Now when God was gonna do it, He wanted to bury the whole army, which He did later in the Red Sea.

We must be careful about this zeal that we oftentimes feel for the work of God, where we start off without the anointing and the direction of the Holy Spirit. In the ability and the energies of our flesh accomplish the purposes and the work and the purposes of God, we, like Moses will end up in failure. The work of the Spirit can never be accomplished in the ability of our flesh. To do the work of the Spirit, I must be anointed, empowered, and directed by the Spirit of God. So many of my problems have arisen from this same mistake that Moses made. Having a consciousness of what God wants to do, having an awareness of the purposes of God, I try to fulfill the purposes of God without the leading and the direction, and the help of the Holy Spirit. I get ahead of God and every time I do, I botch things up just as Moses did. “He tried to hide the Egyptian.”

Now when he went out the next day, two men who were Hebrews were fighting together: and he said to them that did the wrong, Why did you smite this fellow? And he said, Who made you a prince and a judge over us? you intend to kill me, like you killed the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known. Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the face of the Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well ( Exo 2:13-15 ).

So when the Pharaoh discovered that Moses had taken the side of a Hebrew over an Egyptian, he had determined to kill Moses. But Moses fled and went out to the area of Sinai, the Sinai Peninsula.

Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came to draw water, and they filled the troughs to water their father’s flocks. And the mean shepherds came and drove them away ( Exo 2:16-17 ):

They’d stand back and watch the girls draw all the water out, and then they’d come and chase the girls off and water their own flocks. Moses saw what was going on.

so Moses stood up and he helped them, and he watered their flock. And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How come you’re home so early? And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of their shepherds, and he also drew water for us, and he watered the flocks. And he said to his daughters, Where is he? why did you leave the man? call him, that he may eat bread. [Typical kind of Bedouin-kind of hospitality.] And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter. And she bare him a son, and called his name Gershom: [Which means “stranger”.] for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land. And it came to pass in the process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of their bondage, and they cried, and their cry came unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, and with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them ( Exo 2:16-25 ).

Now between verses twenty-two and twenty-three, a period of about forty years. So it doesn’t really show it in the text, but it is there. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Here begins the story of Moses. When Pharaoh was beginning to take active steps to oppress the people, God brought to birth the man who was to break Egypt’s power. A mother’s love is seen scheming for the life of her child. The New Testament tells us that what she did, she did by faith. Was anything more unimportant, judged by all human standards, than the startled cry of a baby? Yet that cry opened the gate of a woman’s heart and admitted to the center of Egyptian life the coming deliverer.

Between verses ten and eleven about forty years elapsed. During this period Moses had become learned in all the learning of the Egyptians. At man’s estate the forces and fires of his own people flamed in him and the passion to deliver them was born in his heart. This passion was right, but the action was premature. Disappointed, he cut his connection with the court and fled to the wilderness in a mixture of fear and faith. The fear was incidental and transient. The faith was fundamental and abiding.

Again forty years passed. The hour of crisis arrived. The king of Egypt died. In time, despots always do. The children of Israel sighed and cried. Their cry went up into the ears of God. Note the phrases, “And God heard . .

. and God remembered . . . and God saw . . . and God took knowledge.” These statements do not reveal any awakening or change in the attitude of God. They simply declare what had been perpetually true. Children of faith in every hour of darkness may comfort themselves by knowing that God is not unmindful and that He never forgets His covenant.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

Moses Preserved by Pharaohs Daughter

Exo 2:1-10

When matters had reached their worst in respect to Israels condition, God was preparing a deliverer. The child was more than ordinarily beautiful, Act 7:20. His parents hid him by faith, Heb 11:23. Perhaps they had received a special revelation of his great future, on the strength of which they became strong to resist the royal command. They launched the ark, not on the Nile only, but on Gods Providence. He would be captain, steersman, and convoy of the tiny bark. Miriam stood to watch. There was no fear of fatal consequences, only the quiet expectancy that God would do something worthy of Himself. They reckoned on Gods faithfulness, and they were amply rewarded, when the daughter of their greatest foe became the babes patroness. See Psa 76:10.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Exo 2:9

I. To none is God’s commendation vouchsafed more fully than to those who love children for Christ’s sake. The presence of childhood represents and brings back our own. It is then that our Divine Master seems to repeat His words in our ears, “Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” Children confide in those around them with a sweet and simple faith. They obey from affection, and not from fear. And so our Father, which is in heaven, would have His children trust Him, casting all our care upon Him, for He careth for us.

II. Children teach us reverence as well as faith. They listen to us with a solemn awe when we talk to them of God. They tread softly, they speak with bated breath, in His holy place. Our age has need to learn from them that we cannot serve God acceptably without reverence and godly fear.

III. Children teach us to be kind, pitiful, and tender-hearted. They cannot bear to witness pain. They do all they can to soothe. Have we these sorrowful sympathies? Do we “keep the child’s heart in the brave man’s breast”?

IV. If the love of Christ is in our hearts, it should constrain us to do our very best, thoughtfully, prayerfully, generously, to preserve in the children and to restore in ourselves that which made them so precious in His sight, and makes them so like Him now-like Him in their innocence, their sweet humility, their love.

S. R. Hole, The Family Churchman, Jan. 12th, 1887.

References: Exo 2:9.-J. Van Dyke, The Christian at Work, June 17th, 1880; see also Old Testament Outlines, p. 24; S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. ii., p. 274; J. Sherman, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 193; J.Weils, Bible Children, pp. 81, 95. Exo 2:11-15.-W. M. Taylor, Moses the Lawgiver, p. 24. Exo 2:12.-J. Reid Howatt, The Churchette, p. 245. 2:16-4:17.-W. M. Taylor, Moses the Lawgiver, p. 41. Exo 2:23.-W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 113. 2-4.-J. Monro Gibson, The Mosaic Era, p. 17. 3-W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 129. Exo 3:1-2.-J. Hamilton, Works, vol. v., p. 70. Exo 3:1-4.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xvi., p. 97. Exo 3:1-5.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. xi., p. 302. Exo 3:1-6.-W. Jay, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 127.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

2. Moses the Chosen Deliverer

CHAPTER 2 Moses: His Birth, Education, Choice, and Exile

1. His birth and concealment (Exo 2:1-4)

2. His rescue and education (Exo 2:5-10)

3. His choice and failure (Exo 2:11-14)

4. His exile (Exo 2:15-20)

5. His marriage (Exo 2:21-22)

6. The answered cry (Exo 2:23-24)

The history of the chosen deliverer, recorded by himself under the guidance of the Spirit, follows the dark picture of Israel s suffering. He was the offspring of a son and daughter of Levi. His name was Amram (Exo 6:20 and Num 26:59). His wifes name Jochebed. As we saw in Genesis, Levi means joined, and Levi was the third son of Jacob (Gen 29:32-35). Here we have a typical hint of the true Mediator, joined to God and man. Levi was Jacobs third son, and Moses the third child of a son of Levi. The number three is the number of resurrection. It all foreshadows Christ. Pharaohs command had been to cast the male children into the river. The river is the type of death (Jordan , for instance). By death Satan tried to oppose Gods purposes. The babe was in danger of death; Satans hatred through Pharaoh was directed against this child as Herod through Satans instigation tried to kill the newborn King in Bethlehem .

The child was beautiful. Act 7:20 states he was (literally) beautiful to God. For three months he was hid and then his own mother prepared the ark of bulrushes and laid him in the reeds at the rivers brink, in the place of death. The word ark is the same as in Gen 6:14 and the pitch with which it was daubed reminds us likewise of Noahs ark. The dark waters were kept out. It was not alone the natural love of the mother which acted, but faith. By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful; and they were not afraid of the Kings commandment (Heb 11:23). What faith this was! First they saved the child by faith for three months and then the mothers faith prepared the little casket, the place of safety, and in faith committed the ark of bulrushes to the rivers brink. But while faith depends on Gods power and trust in Gods Word, it also fears nothing. They were not afraid of the kings commandment. And God acted as He always will in answer to faith. He guided Pharaohs daughter to the very spot where the child rested with his sister standing afar off. Her faith did not fully measure up to the faith of the mother; but even this was Gods leading. According to Jewish tradition the name of Pharaohs daughter was Thermoutis. The weeping babe stirred her compassion. And what these tears accomplished! Not the smiling face, but the tear-stained countenance of sorrow, lead to the far-reaching results of deliverance. How it reminds us of Him who was the Man of Sorrows, who wept and went into the dark waters of death and judgment.

The mother receives her child again, whom she gave up in faith, and then the child becomes the son of Pharaohs daughter, who gave him the Egyptian name Moses, which means saved from the water. The beautiful faith of Moses mother here meets its full rewards; Satan is confounded; and the marvelous wisdom of God is displayed. Who would have thought that the one who had said, if it be a son, then ye shall kill him, and, again, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, should have in his court one of those very sons, and such a son. The devil was foiled by his own weapon, inasmuch as Pharaoh, whom he was using to frustrate the purpose of God, is used of God to nourish and bring up Moses, who was to be His instrument in confounding the power of Satan. Remarkable providence! Admirable wisdom! Truly, Jehovah is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working. May we learn to trust Him with more artless simplicity, and thus our path shall be more brilliant, and our testimony more effective. (C.H. Mackintush, Exodus)

In Egypt Moses received his instruction and education. What followed is more freely revealed by Stephen in his Spirit-given message.

And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel . And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian: For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them; but they understood not. And the next day he shewed himself unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another? But he that did his neighbor wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? Wilt thou kill me, as thou didst the Egyptian yesterday? (Act 7:22-28).

He had learned the wisdom of Egypt , but not yet the wisdom of God. He manifested zeal for his brethren, but it was not according to knowledge. He attempted a deliverance before the time. Yet it was an action of faith.

By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter. Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt : for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt , not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing Him who is invisible (Heb 11:24-26).

He acted in self will, assuming the office of a judge and leader, without having received the divine call. It was faith, nevertheless, which led Moses into this path and to make this remarkable choice. His heart was filled with deep sympathy for his suffering kinsmen and he yearned for their salvation. He was, however, not received by them; they rejected him. He left the palace and, perhaps, the throne, and came to his own to take up their cause. It all points to Him, who left the glory and came to His own and they received Him not. When Moses came the first time to his brethren to deliver them, they understood not (Act 7:25). But they understood when he came the second time, as Israel will understand, when He, who is greater than Moses, comes the second time.

He became an exile in Midian and met Reuel. His name also is Jethro (Exo 3:1). Reuel means friend of God. He also was a priest, no doubt a true worshipper of God. Moses received a daughter of the Midianite, Zipporah, for his wife. Rejected by his own people, he entered into union with a Gentile. All this is typical. Christ after His first coming, rejected by His own, receives her, who shares His rejection and who will come with Him, when He comes the second time. The church is here indicated.

The forty years spent by Moses in Midian were, as we express it, the best years of his life. He had forty years training in Egypt , and then the Lord took him aside into His school to train him for the great work for which he had been chosen. In the obscurity of the desert he was prepared to be a vessel fit for the Masters use. How blessed must have been his experience, away from man, away from Egypt s pleasures, alone with God. Thus the Lord has dealt with all His servants. Elijah came forth out of the wilderness and went back to Cherith, Ezekiel was alone at the river Chebar. Paul spent his schooling days in Arabia . Blessed are His servants who follow His leading into the desert place, to find their never-failing source of strength in communion with their Lord, who receive their service from Himself, and then go forth to serve.

We give a little diagram of the genealogy of Moses and his brother Aaron.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

am 2432, bc 1572

of the house: Exo 6:16-20, Num 26:59, 1Ch 6:1-3, 1Ch 23:12-14

Reciprocal: Gen 29:34 – was Exo 6:20 – Amram 1Ki 11:17 – Hadad

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

The Child Moses

Exo 2:1-10

INTRODUCTORY WORDS

“God works in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.” As this study opens, we find the Children of Israel in dire distress because of the rigor with which the Egyptians compelled them to serve. The lives of the Israelites were “bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field” where they were made to serve.

1. We have a lesson concerning childhood. Who would have thought that a little babe would be chosen of God to bring deliverance to Israel from the wrath of Pharaoh, yet even so it was. We remember how Christ said, “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones.”

The Lord, in His earth-life, delighted to take the children in His arms. He blessed them, and He said, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the Kingdom of God.” He said again, “Whoso shall receive one such little child in My Name receiveth Me.” He further said, “Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea.”

This love of God toward the child is a message easily caught from the Scripture which will be developed today. The Lord Jesus went so far as to say, “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” There was something about the simplicity of faith and the comforting trust of a child which appealed to the Lord.

2. We have a lesson concerning our Savior. When we think of the infant, Moses, hid by his mother from the wrath of Pharaoh, we cannot but remember how our Lord in after years was, Himself, hid under the Father’s direction from the wrath of Herod. Moses was hidden in Egypt; Jesus Christ was hidden in Egypt. The Bible tells us of how our Lord grew “up before Him (the Father) as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground.” There never was a moment during the life of our Lord that He was not under the tender and compassionate eye of His Heavenly Father.

3. We have a lesson concerning Fatherhood. Let us who are fathers consider God’s attitude toward the infant Moses, and toward His own Son, in His infancy, that we may learn something of our responsibility to those whom God has given to us.

I. NORMAL LIFE IN THE FACE OF A KING’S WRATH (Exo 2:1)

1. An inside picture from the finger of God. As we think of the agony brought upon Israel by Pharaoh’s tyranny, we would very much like to pierce the darkness of those olden days and see how family life took its course. We read, “And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.” Here is a picture of family life facing the edict of the king without fear. The fact is that God said that Moses’ parents feared not the wrath of the king. It was not that the king did not have power, but the eye of faith knew that God had more power. It was not because Pharaoh was not humanly able to break up every home by the death of the male children; but it was that God was Divinely able to stay the wrath of the king.

2. That which faces the family of today. We read in the Bible that Satan goeth about seeking whom he may devour. The sentence of death has been pronounced by the devil, and his supreme effort is to slay every son so far as any spiritual life or fellowship with the Father is concerned.

II. A GOODLY CHILD (Exo 2:2)

1. A mother’s eye of faith. We read in our key verse, “She saw him that he was a goodly child.” In Hebrews we read that she saw that he was “a proper child.” We doubt not that every mother believes that her child is “goodly,” and some may believe that they are “proper.” However, here was a woman who looked with an eye of faith. She was not a builder of glass houses, nor one who harbored fanciful dreams. She saw that her child was a child of destiny, a child elect of God, and she saw this with an eye of faith.

2. A mother who shielded her offspring. For three months she hid him from the wrath of Pharaoh. Somehow, or other, she knew, as faith always knows, that God was with her. She did not fear the wrath of the king because she believed in the power of God. Nevertheless, she did hide her child, and she hid him diligently. Faith is never reckless, but takes every wise and rightful precaution against Satan and his wiles.

Jesus Christ did not ruthlessly throw Himself into the face of danger. He had all power and knew no fear, and yet, when the Nazarenes would have cast Him down from the brow of the hill, He quietly withdrew Himself.

3. A mother who dedicated her child to God. We have no doubt whatsoever but that Moses’ mother felt deeply the world conditions under which she moved. If she had the faith to fear not the king, she had also the heart to present her offspring to her Lord. She felt that all she was and all she had belonged to God.

All is on the altar laid

With no reservations made,

All in all;

Never more mine own to be,

For Thy Blood hath purchased me,

Happily I follow Thee

At Thy call.

III. AN IMPROVISED SHIELD (Exo 2:3)

When Jochebed, Moses’ mother, found it impossible to hide her child any longer, then it was that she took “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.”

1. We wonder if she did not think, as she prepared the tiny ark, of that greater ark which housed Noah and his family against the ravages of the flood. We wonder if she had any conception of that which comes to our minds of how we are all safely shielded in the ark, Christ Jesus.

2. We should prepare the ark of prayer. In our day the family altar is all but depleted and broken down. Does the home not need an ark of prayer in which to shield its children from a world filled with temptation and sin, and from Satan who seeks to devour?

3. We should prepare the ark of an holy example. Too many parents are living any kind of life before their children. We need not to say, “Do this” or “Do that.” We need to live out in holy words and deeds, the doctrine we profess.

IV. A BABE DELIVERED TO DEATH (Exo 2:3, l.c.)

Here is one of the striking statements of Scripture; speaking of the ark which Moses’ mother had made we read “she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink.”

1. The river stood for death. We remember how Pharaoh had charged his people that every son that was born was to be cast into the river. Is it not strange, therefore, that the mother of Moses placed her ark in the flags by the river’s brink? Evidently she had no fear of the king’s command. Evidently her faith was not afraid to face the waters which were supposedly to effect her child’s death.

2. The ark was an emblem of security from death. We have a babe in the river of death, yet securely housed against death. Once more our minds go to the ark which Noah built. It, too, was placed in the waters of destruction. The very waves which overflowed the earth, even to the top of the highest mountains, however, did no more than to bear up the ark in safety. Thus it is that in the midst of death we are in life. That which means certain death to those out of Christ, means certain life to those who are in Christ, He took our death and the waters passed over Him; therefore we are borne up in the power of His resurrection life.

3. The basis of her faith. To Moses’ mother the fears of the river were allayed by the fact of an ark which bore up her child. We can almost see Abraham as he took his own son, Isaac, out to the place of death and of sacrifice. As he was about to go he said to the young men, Tarry here, and “I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.” Abraham even prepared the altar, placed Isaac upon the wood. He lifted his hand to slay his son. He did all of this believing that though he slew him he should yet receive him alive. The Bible says he received him from the dead in a figure. In these days of death and destruction about us, let us have the faith of resurrection life and glory.

V. WAITING UPON GOD (Exo 2:4)

After the mother of Moses had blessed her child in the ark and committed it to the river, Moses’ sister stood afar off to see what would be done to him. Faith had gone as far as faith could see. Now from her distant place Miriam watched. From her home farther away the mother of Moses prayed. The wrath of king Pharaoh was unabated, and the waters of the Nile which had claimed so many of the Hebrews’ sons had lost none of their power. However, a mother and a daughter, who could no longer see, trusted on. They had done what they could. They depended upon God to do the rest.

1. Thus it was that Abraham led Isaac forth. He knew not how Isaac, who was about to be delivered to death, could return with him to the young men, but he knew that he would return. All that his human eye could see was an altar built, the wood placed in order, a knife upraised, and a writhing, dying son; but faith saw more. It saw God able to deliver. Abraham also stood waiting and anticipating what would happen. And what did happen? A ram was soon discovered, caught by its horns in the thicket. This ram was then offered in the stead of his son.

2. Thus we go forth. The wages of sin is death, and yet we are not afraid. The curse of God against sin has been pronounced. However, during the centuries saints have stood off to see what would happen. They did, of course, have the promise that Christ would go forth to die, and they stood by to see what would happen. In the case of Moses, something wonderful happened, and this will be brought out by the next division.

VI. THE DIVINE PROVISION (Exo 2:5-9)

From a distant viewpoint Miriam watched. In the home, the parents prayed and waited as they prayed. It will be interesting to see what happened.

1. Pharaoh’s daughter enters the scene. Down to the river, accompanied by her maidens, she came to wash herself. Her maidens protectingly walked along the river’s side. By and by Pharaoh’s daughter caught sight of the ark, and she sent her maidens to fetch it. Little did they realize that they were moving step by step under a Divine commission. Little did Pharaoh’s daughter realize that she was to play the part of a savior to a babe destined to death.

2. The babe’s cry. We read that when Pharaoh’s daughter had opened the lid of the ark that “she saw the child; and, behold, the babe wept.” Here was another step in this Divinely ordered episode. The cry of a little child is appealing. Its innocency, its helplessness, and its plea touched the heart of the daughter of Pharaoh. A woman’s sympathy was brought to play, and we read that “she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews’ children.”

The daughter of Pharaoh knew the orders of her father that the baby should be thrown into the waters and drowned. However, she rescued the child.

3. A mother’s care. The time had come for faith to act. Miriam hurried down from her place of hiding. She quickly proposed, what had evidently been pre-planned, that she should go and call a Hebrew woman to nurse the child for the king’s daughter. The daughter of Pharaoh acquiesced It was thus in the providence of God that Moses’ mother was hired to nurse her own babe until it should be grown sufficiently old to be delivered to Pharaoh’s daughter. Once more we say, “God works in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.”

VII. THE PERSECUTOR MADE A PROTECTOR (Exo 2:10)

We now find the child, Moses, delivered unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son.

1. The importance of his name. Pharaoh’s daughter called his name “Moses” “and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.” She thought that she had saved the child, and so she had. Little, however, did she realize that her arms were none other than the arms of God, that back of her rescue was the all-rescuing prayer-answering and faith-responding Jehovah.

Have not we, too, been drawn out of the water? Were we not consigned to death? The Word of God says: “I, if I be lifted up * * will draw all men unto Me.”

We have not only been drawn unto Him, but we have been drawn out of the waters of death and of hell. We are saved with an everlasting salvation, and safe in His arms.

2. Pharaoh’s home afforded protection from Pharaoh’s wrath. Once more we stand amazed at the prowess of the eternal God. The man who had consigned the sons of the Hebrews to death in the river drew out from the river of death the greatest of Israel’s sons. Not only that, but the hand that sought to destroy that son, guarded him and protected him during the years of his growth. Pharaoh, himself, prepared Moses, from every human viewpoint, to be the deliverer of the Israelites.

We read in the Bible that Moses was taught in all of the learning of the Egyptians. Where could God’s deliverer have been better trained than in the home, under the tutelage of Pharaoh’s daughter and of Pharaoh, himself? Pharaoh, therefore, unwittingly was working out his own undoing. In what he thought was his kingly sagacity to keep Israel as his vassals, he was paving the way for the deliverance of the people whom he so greatly desired to hold as his slaves.

Too hard for God? Nay, it cannot so be,

There is nothing, hard, too hard, for Thee.

AN ILLUSTRATION

“Mother, you have forgotten my soul,” said little Anna, three years old, as her mother was about to lay her in bed. She had just risen from repeating the Lord’s Prayer. “But, mother, you have forgotten my soul!” “What do you mean, Anna?” “Why-

‘Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep;

And if I die before I wake,

I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.’

We have not said that” The child meant nothing more, yet her words were startling. How many mothers, busy hour after hour fashioning pretty garments and caring for the bodies of their little ones, forget their souls.-Sunday at Home.

Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water

Section 2. (Exo 2:1-25.)

The humiliation and rejection of the deliverer.

We now are introduced to the deliverer, raised up of God to fulfill His gracious purposes as to the people of His choice. That he is of Levi, third son of Israel, has a significance which we shall find dwelt on afterward. It speaks of the Mediator, “joined” to God and to the people, as Christ in His own person joins them -Son of God and Son of man. It speaks also of resurrection, typically fulfilled in Moses delivered up to death and brought out of it. The overruling hand of God is seen in his preservation, the power of the world serving one whom it knows not, and who is not of it, whom when revealed in his true character it rejects. Moses is still in all this a type of Christ.

But he is rejected also by the people of his choice -the brethren for whom he humbles himself. There was a true desire for them, and presentiment in his mind that God had chosen him to be their deliverer; but they do not recognize him as such. No doubt there was failure on Moses’ part, and a work needed to be done in him as well as in them, before he could be to them really what his heart desired. But none the less distinctly did they reject one whose love, at all cost to itself, would be their servant. “Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?” is the answer of unbelief, and Moses flees into Midian at that saying. It is as rejected by His brethren, it hardly needs to say, that we have to do with the Lord Jesus now.

We find him, then, in Midian; and soon with a Gentile bride, to whom also he has been, first of all, a deliverer. But his son’s name tells us that he has yet found no real home. He names him “Gershom,” “a stranger there;” for he says, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.” Beautifully in the son is expressed the thought of the father’s heart, as our character and position in the world is to reflect and manifest the thoughts of His heart to whom in endeared relationship we belong.

But the days of Israel’s bondage are coming to an end. God has heard their groaning, and it is to be seen that He remembers His covenant with their fathers -that in which He is Himself revealed. The next section brings us to this revelation.

Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary

Exo 2:1. There went a man Amram, from the place of his abode to another place. A daughter That is, grand-daughter of Levi.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Exo 2:1. Took to wife. Amram married Jochebed, his fathers sister, as in Exo 6:20; that is, as the scriptures often afford example, his fathers relation. But doubts may be entertained of Josephus here, because she must have been very old when Moses was born.

Exo 2:2. A goodly child; a beautiful and fine looking infant. Hence she made an ark of papyrus, a water plant, proper for the purpose. This reed grew ten feet high, and was employed in making canoes, and was used for many other purposes. Its pith and seeds afforded food.

Exo 2:4. His sister. Miriam, who was, according to Josephus, seventeen years of age.

Exo 2:5. The daughter of Pharaoh [Thermutis, as in Josephus] came down to wash in the river, as was her usual religious practice, which was probably known to the parents of Moses. She is said, by Philo, to have been Pharaohs only daughter, and without children. She was evidently influenced by the spirit of God to preserve the child. This humane act would abate, without doubt, much of the cruelty of the kings edict. Moses lived in the palace, and was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; he accompanied the army, as Josephus states, in an expedition to Ethiopia, and was mighty in word and deed among the Egyptians.

Exo 2:10. Moses. Mou in the Egyptian tongue, as in all the dialects of Shems race, signifies water, and ses, saved or drawn out.

Exo 2:11. When Moses was grown. When he was forty years of age, it came into his heart to visit his brethren. Act 7:23. From these words of St. Stephen, and from Moses supposing his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them under him as their captain general, it is evident he must have had a secret call to this high mission, either by dream or vision. On this supposition, how great must have been his inward conflicts? The flesh would say, shall I leave this palace, these gardens, these riches, these princely hopes and pleasures, for a poor persecuted people at the brick kilns? Ah, I cannot do it; let the Lord deliver them by another. Reflection would next say, but if I disobey the Lord he may slay me, and give the glory to another. And what are the pleasures of the court? They are but transient, and they procure pains which endure for ever: an abject state of affliction with Gods people is preferable to this dignified constraint, and these scenes of dissipation. And what are all my riches and hopes in Egypt? A false accusation, a mere suspicion in the kings mind, may deprive me of life or drive me to exile in a moment. In the name of the Lord, I will be weak no longer: I will renounce Egypt. I will own my brethren, and take my lot with my fathers God.

Now animated with the first fire of divine ardour, he went to investigate the afflictions of his brethren; and almost the first object which presented itself was, one of the taskmasters, one of the infant-murderers, smiting a Hebrew. Moses, knowing that God had appointed him judge of Israel, and seeing none of the Egyptians in sight, slew him. The next day, on repeating his visit, he found the affair had transpired; and fearing Pharaohs wrath he crossed the Red sea, or the desert to Midian, and reserved his services for a happier time.

Exo 2:12. He slew the Egyptian, who was a prefect, or general superintendent of the Hebrew works.

Exo 2:15. Midian. This nation was descended from Abraham by Keturah, whom Abraham married after the death of Sarah. Gen 25:4.

Exo 2:16. Priest of Midian. Hebrew, Cohen, is rendered prince by the Chaldaic paraphrase, and no wonder, for most of the priests of the gentiles were of princely descent. He was a worshipper of the true God, as Melchizedek, and Abraham; though this people gradually became idolaters, as in Ruth 1.

Exo 2:18. Reuel. He is called Raguel, Num 10:29. He was of course, the grandfather of these seven fair guardians of the harmless flock. This mode of speaking frequently occurs. Jethro is twice called Hobab: Exo 3:1. It was an ancient custom on some great achievement or honour, for a man to receive a new name.

Exo 2:22. He called his name Gershom, to memorialize the goodness of God to him in a strange land. The vulgate adds here, from chap. 18., And he begot another whom he called Eliezer, saying, for the God of my fathers has been my helper, and has delivered me from the hand of Pharaoh. These names designate the piety of Moses. It is well in prosperity to remember that we were once poor and abject, and to be always humble in the eyes of God.

REFLECTIONS.

We are here struck with the courage of Moses parents, who risked all consequences to save their son: and when safety at home was no longer possible, we are not less struck with the ingenuity of the mother, in preparing the ark, and executing the plan of his preservation. Faith of this kind, in due time, is sure of its reward.

In the preservation of Moses we find that the great wheels of providence often move on the smallest pivots. See this beautiful babe, floating in an ark resembling the growing flags, watched by day and fed by night. See this hope of Israel; yes, the hope of Israel, though unrevealed; see him on the verge of perishing, when God inclined the heart of Thermutis to walk that way, to discover the ark, and to have compassion on the weeping child. Let us learn never to distrust the divine care over us and our children, even at the worst of times.

When God has a great work to do for his church and people, he is never wanting to fit and prepare instruments to accomplish his pleasure. While the infants were destroyed very rigorously, Moses was preserved; and in this view he is a striking figure of Christ, who was saved from the infant massacre at Bethlehem. Pharaohs daughter adopts him; he is instructed in all the literature of this ancient nation, and on becoming religious he enjoys the solitude of pastoral life for forty years; and he found it so sweet that he never sought to return to the court of Egypt. God having better things for him than the glory of this world, graciously prepared him for his work. Let us not fear; the name of Israel shall not become extinct; in defiance of all foes the Lord will raise up ambassadors for his work.

The gay and giddy youth of the age may learn from the example of Moses a variety of important lessons. They are as really called to leave the sinful pleasures of the age, as he was to withdraw from the sins of the Memphian court: and in so doing their faith will find no small support in the recollection, that the pleasures of sin are but for a season, and that the pleasures of piety endure for ever.

On reforming his habits Moses changed his company; he chose affliction with the people of God, and esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. Young people have much to learn in religion, and they need the fostering care of advanced believers. They will improve in knowledge and in every virtue, by the society and conversation of good men; and they will surmount every difficulty if they look, like Moses, at the recompense of reward.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Exodus 2

This section of our book abounds in the weightiest principles of divine truth – principles, which range themselves under the three following heads, namely, the power of Satan, the power of God, and the power of faith.

In the last verse of the previous chapter, we read, “And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river.” This was Satan’s power. The river was the place of death; and, by death, the enemy sought to frustrate the purpose of God. It has ever been thus. The serpent has, at all times, watched, with malignant eye, those instruments which God was about to use for his own gracious ends. Look at the case of Abel, in Genesis 4. What was that but the serpent watching God’s vessel and seeking to put it out of the way by death? Look at the case of Joseph, in Gen. 37. There you have the enemy seeking to put the man of God’s purpose in the place of death. Look at the case of “the seed royal,” in 2 Chr. 22, the act of Herod, in Matt. 2, the death of Christ, in Matt. 27. In all these cases, you find the enemy seeking, by death, to interrupt the current of divine action.

But, blessed be God, there is something beyond death. The entire sphere of divine action, as connected with redemption, lies beyond the limits of death’s domain. When Satan has exhausted his power, then God begins to show Himself. The grave is the limit of Satan’s activity; but there it is that divine activity begins. This is a glorious truth. Satan has the power of death; but God is the God of the living; and He gives life beyond the reach and power of death – a life which Satan cannot touch. The heart finds sweet relief in such a truth as this, in the midst of a scene where death reigns. Faith can stand and look on at Satan putting forth the plenitude of his power. It can stay itself upon God’s mighty instrumentality of resurrection. It can take its stand at the grave which has just closed over a beloved object, and drink in, from the lips of Him who is “the resurrection and the life,” the elevating assurance of a glorious immortality. It knows that God is stronger than Satan, and it can, therefore, quietly wait for the full manifestation of that superior strength, and, in thus waiting, find its victory and its settled peace. We have a noble example of this power of faith in the opening verses of our chapter.

“And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived and bare a son; and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. And 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. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.” (Ex. 2: 1-4)Here we have a scene of touching interest, in whatever way we contemplate it. In point of fact, it was simply faith triumphing over the influences of nature and death, and leaving room for the God of resurrection to act in His own proper sphere and character. True, the enemy’s power is apparent, in the circumstance that the child had to be placed in such position – a position of death, in principle. And, moreover, a sword was piercing through the mother’s heart, in thus beholding her precious offspring laid, as it were, in death. Satan might act, and nature might weep; but the Quickener of the dead was behind the dark cloud, and faith beheld Him there, gilding heaven’s side of that cloud with His bright and life-giving beams. “By faith Moses when he was born was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment.” (Heb. 11: 23)

Thus, this honoured daughter of Levi teaches us a holy lesson. Her “ark of bulrushes, daubed with slime and pitch,” declares her confidence in the truth that there was a something which could keep out the waters of death, in the case of this “proper child,” as well as in the case of Noah, “the preacher of righteousness. Are we to suppose, for a moment, that this “Ark” was the invention of mere nature? Was it nature’s mere thought that devised it, or nature’s ingenuity that constructed it? Was the babe placed in the ark at the suggestion of a mother’s heart, cherishing the fond but visionary hope of thereby saving her treasure from the ruthless hand of death? Were we to reply to the above inquiries in the affirmative, we should, I believe, lose the beauteous teaching of this entire scene. How could we ever suppose that the “ark” was devised by one who saw no other portion or destiny for her child but death by drowning? Impossible. We can only look upon that significant structure, as faith’s draft handed in at the treasury of the God of resurrection. devised by the hand of faith, as a vessel of mercy, to carry “a proper child” safety over death’s dark waters, into the place assigned him by the immutable purpose of the living God. When we behold this daughter of Levi bending over that ark of bulrushes,” which her faith had constructed, and depositing therein her babe, we see her “walking in the steps of that faith of her father Abraham, which he had,” when “he rose up from before his dead,” and purchased the cave of Machpelah from the sons of Heth. (Gen. 23) We do not recognise in her the energy of mere nature, hanging over the object of its affections, about to fall into the iron grasp of the king of terrors. No; but we trace in her the energy of a faith which enabled her to stand, as a conqueror, at the margin of death’s cold flood, and behold the chosen servant of Jehovah in safety at the other side.

Yes, my reader, faith can take those bold and lofty flights into regions far removed from this land of death and wide-spread desolation. Its eagle eye can pierce the gloomy clouds which gather around the tomb, and behold the God of resurrection displaying the results of His everlasting counsels, in the midst of a sphere which no arrow of death can reach. It can take its stand upon the top of the Rock of Ages, and listen, in holy triumph, while the surges of death are lashing its base.

And what, let me ask, was “the king’s commandment” to one who was in possession of this heaven-born principle? What weight had that commandment with one who could calmly stand beside her “ark of bulrushes” and look death straight in the face? The Holy Ghost replies, “they were not afraid of the king’s commandment.” The spirit that knows ought of communion with Him who quickens the dead, is not afraid of anything. Such an one can take up the triumphant language of 1 Cor: 15 and say, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ.” He can give forth these words of triumph over a martyred Abel; over Joseph in the pit; over Moses in his ark of bulrushes; in the midst of “the seed royal,” slain by the hand of Athaliah; and in the babes of Bethlehem, murdered by the mandate of the cruel Herod; and far above all, he can utter them at the tomb of the Captain of our salvation.

Now, it may be, there are some who cannot trace the activities of faith, in the matter of the ark of bulrushes. Many may not be able to travel beyond the measure of Moses’ sister, when “she stood afar off, to wit, what would be done to him.” It is very evident that “his sister” was not up to ” the measure of faith” possessed by “his mother.” No doubt, she possessed deep interest and true affection, such as we may trace in “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sitting over against the sepulchre.” (Matt. 27: 61) But there was something far beyond either interest or affection in the maker of the “ark.” True, she did not “stand afar off to wit what would be done to” her child, and hence, what frequently happens, the dignity of faith might seem like indifference, on her part. It was not, however, indifference, but true elevation – the elevation of faith. If natural affection did not cause her to linger near the scene of death, it was only because the power of faith was furnishing her with nobler work, in the presence of the God of resurrection. Her faith had cleared the stage for Him, and most gloriously did He show Himself thereon.

“And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river’s side; and when she saw the ark among the flags she sent her maid to fetch it. 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 Hebrews’ children.” Here, then, the divine response begins to break, in sweetest accents, on the ear of faith. God was in all this. rationalism, or scepticism, or infidelity, or atheism, may laugh at such an idea. And faith can laugh also; but the two kinds of laughter are very different. The former laughs, in cold contempt, at the thought of divine interference in the trifling affair of a royal maiden’s walk by the river’s side. The latter laughs, with real heart-felt gladness, at the thought that God is in everything. And, assuredly, if ever God was in anything, He was in this walk of Pharaoh’s daughter, though she knew it not.

The renewed mind enjoys one of its sweetest exercises, while tracing the divine footsteps in circumstances and events in which a thoughtless spirit sees only blind chance or rigid fate. The most trifling matter may, at times, turn out to be a most important link in a chain of events by which the Almighty God is helping forward the development of His grand designs. Look, for instance, at Esther 4: 1, and what do you see? A heathen monarch, spending a restless night. No uncommon circumstance, we may suppose; and, yet, this very circumstance was a link in a great chain of providence at the end of which you find the marvellous deliverance of the oppressed seed of Israel.

Thus was it with the daughter of Pharaoh, in her walk by the river’s side. Little did she think that she was helping forward the purpose of “the Lord God of the Hebrews” How little idea had she that the weeping babe, in that ark of bulrushes, was yet to be Jehovah’s instrument in shaking the land of Egypt to its very centre! Yet so it was. The Lord can make the wrath of man to praise Him, and restrain the remainder. How plainly the truth of this appears in the following passage!

“Then said his sister to Pharaoh’s daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? And Pharaoh’s daughter said unto her, Go. And the maid went and called the child’s mother. And Pharaoh’s daughter said unto her, Take this child sway, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child and nursed it. And the child grew and she brought him unto Pharaohs daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.” (Ex. 2: 7-10) The beautiful faith of Moses’ mother here meets its full reward; Satan is confounded; and the marvellous wisdom of God is displayed. Who would have thought that the one who had said, “If it be a son, then ye shall kill him,” and, again, “every son that is born ye shall cast into the river,” should have in his court one of those very sons, and such “a son.” The devil was foiled by his own weapon, inasmuch as Pharaoh, whom he was using to frustrate the purpose of God, is used of God to nourish and bring up Moses, who was to be His instrument in confounding the power of Satan. Remarkable providence! Admirable wisdom! Truly, Jehovah is “wonderful in counsel and excellent in working.” May we learn to trust Him with more artless simplicity, and thus our path shall be more brilliant, and our testimony more effective.

In considering the history of Moses, we must look at him in two ways, namely, personally and typically.

First, in his personal character, there is much, very much, for us to learn. God had not only to raise him up, but also to train him, in one way or another, for the lengthened period of eighty years-first in the house of Pharaoh’s daughter; and then at “the backside of the desert.” This, to our shallow thoughts, would seem an immense space of time to devote to the education of a minister of God. But then God’s thoughts are not as our thoughts. He knew the need of those forty years, twice told, in the preparation of His chosen vessel. When God educates, He educates in a manner worthy of Himself and His most holy service. He will not have a novice to do His work. The servant of Christ has to learn many a lesson, to undergo many an exercise, to pass through many a conflict, in secret, ere he is really qualified to act in public. Nature does not like this. It would rather figure in public than learn in private. It would rather be gazed upon and admired by the eye of man than be disciplined by the hand of God. But it will not do. We must take God’s way. Nature may rush into the scene of operation; but God does not want it there. It must be withered, crushed, set aside. The place of death is the place for nature. If it will be active, God will so order matters, in His infallible faithfulness and perfect wisdom, that the results of its activity will prove its utter defeat and confusion. He knows what to do with nature, where to put it, and where to keep it. Oh that we may all be in deeper communion with the mind of God, in reference to self and all that pertains thereto. Then shall we make fewer mistakes. Then shall our path be steady and elevated, our spirit tranquil, and our service effective.

“And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens; and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.” This was zeal for his brethren; but it was “not according to knowledge.” God’s time was not yet come for judging Egypt and delivering Israel; and the intelligent servant will ever wait for God’s time. “Moses was grown;” and “he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians;” and, moreover, “he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them.” all this was true; yet he evidently ran before the time, and when one does this failure must be the issue. [In Stephen’s address to the council, at Jerusalem, there is an allusion to Moses’ acting, to which it may be well to advert. “And when he was full forty years old it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian; for he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God, by his hand, would deliver them; but they understood not.” (Acts 7: 23-25) It is evident that Stephen’s object, in his entire address, has to bring the history of the nation to bear upon the consciences of those whom he had before him; and it would have been quite foreign to this object, and at variance with the Spirit’s rule in the New Testament, to raise a question as to whether Moses had not acted before the divinely-appointed time.

Moreover, he merely says, “it came into his heart to visit his brethren.” He does not say that God sent him, at that time. Nor does this, in the least, touch the question of the moral condition of those who rejected him. “They understood not.” This was the fact as to them, whatever Moses might have personally to learn in the matter. The spiritual mind can have no difficulty in apprehending this.

Looking at Moses, typically, we can see the mission of Christ to Israel, and their rejection of Him, and refusal to have Him to reign over them. On the other hand, looking at Moses, personally, we find that he, like others, made mistakes and displayed infirmities; sometimes went too fast, and sometimes too slow. All this is easily understood, and only tends to magnify the infinite grace and exhaustless patience of God.]

And not only is there failure in the end, but also manifest uncertainty, and lack of calm elevation and holy independence in the progress of a work begun before God’s time. Moses “looked this way and that way.” There is no need of this when a man is acting with and for God, and in the full intelligence of His mind, as to the details of his work. If God’s time had really come, and if Moses was conscious of being divinely commissioned to execute judgement upon the Egyptian, and if he felt assured of the divine presence with him, he would not have “looked this way and that way.”

This action teaches a deep practical lesson to all the servants of God. There are two things by which it is superinduced: namely, the fear of man’s wrath, and the hope of man’s favour. The servant of the living God should neither regard the one nor the other. What avails the wrath or favour of a poor mortal, to one who holds the divine commission, and enjoys the divine presence? It is, in the judgement of such an one, less than the small dust of the balance. “Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest.” (Joshua 1: 9) “Thou, therefore, gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak, unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them. For, behold, I have made thee this day a defended city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land. And they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee.” (Jer 1: 17-19)

When the servant of Christ stands upon the elevated ground set forth in the above quotations, he will not “look this way and that way;” he will act on wisdom’s heavenly counsel, “let thine eyes look straight on, and thine eyelids look straight before thee.” Divine intelligence will ever lead us to look upward and onward. Whenever we look around to shun a mortal’s frown or catch his smile, we may rest assured there is something wrong; we are off the proper ground of divine service. We lack the assurance of holding the divine commission, and of enjoying the divine presence, both of which are absolutely essential.

True, there are many who, through profound ignorance, or excessive self-confidence, stand forward in a sphere of service for which God never intended them, and for which He, therefore, never qualified them. And not only do they thus stand forward, but they exhibit an amount of coolness and self-possession perfectly amazing to those who are capable of forming an impartial judgement about their gifts and merits. But all this will very speedily find its level; nor does it in the least interfere with the integrity of the principle that nothing can effectually deliver a man from the tendency to “look this way and that way,” save the consciousness of the divine commission and the divine presence. When these are possessed, there is entire deliverance from human influence, and consequent independence. No man is in a position to serve others who is not wholly independent of them; but a man who knows his proper place can stoop and wash his brethren’s feet.

When we turn away our eyes from man, and fix them upon the only true and perfect Servant, we do not find him looking this way and that way, for this simple reason, that He never had His eye upon men, but always upon God. He feared not the wrath of man nor sought his favour. He never opened His lips to elicit human applause, nor kept them closed to avoid human censure. This gave holy stability and elevation to all He said and did. Of Him alone could it be truly said, “His leaf shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” Everything He did turned to profitable account, because everything was done to God. Every action, every word, every movement, every look, every thought, was like a beauteous cluster of fruit, sent up to refresh the heart of God. He was never afraid of the results of His work, because He always acted with and for God, and in the full intelligence of His mind. His own will, though divinely perfect, never once mingled itself in ought that He did, as a man, on the earth. He could say, “I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” Hence, He brought forth fruit, “in its season” He did “always those things which pleased the Father,” and, therefore, never had any occasion to “fear,” to “repent,” or to “look this way and that way.”

Now in this, as in everything else, the blessed Master stands in marked contrast with His most honoured and eminent servants. Even a Moses “feared,” and a, Paul “repented;” but the Lord Jesus never did either. He never had to retrace a step, to recall a word, or correct a thought. All was absolutely perfect. All was “fruit in season.” The current of His holy and heavenly life flowed onward without a ripple and without a curve. His will was divinely subject. The best and most devoted men make mistakes; but it is perfectly certain that the more we are enabled, through grace, to mortify our own will, the fewer our mistakes will be. Truly happy it is when, in the main, our path is really a path of faith and single-eyed devotedness to Christ.

Thus it was with Moses. He was a man of faith-a man who drank deeply into the spirit of his Master, and walked with marvellous steadiness in His footprints. True, he anticipated, as has been remarked, by forty years, the Lord’s time of judgement on Egypt and deliverance for Israel; yet, when we turn to the inspired commentary, in Hebrews 11, we find nothing about this. We there find only the divine principle upon which, in the main, his course was founded. “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.” (Ver. 24-27)

This quotation furnishes a most gracious view of the actings of Moses. It is ever thus the Holy Ghost deals with the history of Old Testament saints. When He writes a man’s history, He presents him to us as he is, and faithfully sets forth all his failures and imperfections. But when, in the New Testament, he comments upon such history, He merely gives the real principle and main result of a man’s life. Hence, though we read, in Exodus, that “Moses looked this way and that way” – that “he feared and said, surely this thing is known” – and, finally, “Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh;” yet, we are taught, in Hebrews, that what he did, he did “by faith” – that he did not fear” the wrath of the king” – that “he endured as seeing him who is invisible.”

Thus will it be, by and by, when “the Lord comes, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.” (1 Cor. 4: 5) This is a precious and consolatory truth for every upright mind and every loyal heart. Many a “Counsel” the “heart” may form, which, from various causes, the hand may not be able to execute. All such “counsels” will be made “manifest” when “the Lord comes.” Blessed be the grace that has told us so! The affectionate counsels of the heart are far more precious to Christ than the most elaborate works of the hand. The latter may shine before the eye of man; the former are designed only for the heart of Jesus. The latter may be spoken of amongst men; the former will be made manifest before God and His holy angels. May all the servants of Christ have their hearts undividedly occupied with His person, and their eyes steadily fixed upon His advent.

In contemplating the path of Moses, we observe how that faith led him entirely athwart the ordinary course of nature. It led him to despise all the pleasures, the attractions, and the honours of Pharaoh’s court. And not only that, but also to relinquish an apparently wide sphere of usefulness. Human expediency would have conducted him along quite an opposite path. It would have led him to use his influence on behalf of the people of God – to act for them instead of suffering with them. According to man’s judgement, Providence would seem to have opened for Moses a wide and most important sphere of labour; and surely if ever the hand of God was manifest in placing a man in a distinct position, it was in his case. By a most marvellous interposition – by a most unaccountable chain of circumstances, every link of which displayed the finger of the Almighty – by an order of events which no human foresight could have arranged, had the daughter of Pharaoh been made the instrument of drawing Moses out of the water, and of nourishing and educating him until he was “full forty years Old.” With all these circumstances in his view, to abandon his high, honourable, and influential position, could only be regarded as the result of a misguided zeal which no sound judgement could approve.

Thus might poor blind nature reason. But faith thought differently; for nature and faith are always at issue. They cannot agree upon a single point. Nor is there anything, perhaps, in reference to which they differ so widely as what are commonly called “openings of Providence.” Nature will constantly regard such openings as warrants for self-indulgence; whereas faith will find in them opportunities for self-denial. Jonah might have deemed it a very remarkable opening of Providence to find a ship going to Tarshish; but in truth it was an opening through which he slipped off the path of obedience.

No doubt, it is the Christian’s privilege to see his Father’s hand, and hear His voice, in everything; but he is not to be guided by circumstances. A Christian so guided is like a vessel at sea without rudder or compass; she is at the mercy of the waves and the winds. God’s promise to His child is, “I will guide thee with mine eye.” (Ps: 32: 8) His warning is, “Be not as the horse or as the mule, which have no understanding; whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.” It is much better to be guided by our Father’s eye, than by the bit and bridle of circumstances; and we know that in the ordinary acceptation of the term, “Providence” is only another word for the impulse of circumstances.

Now, the power of faith may constantly be seen in refusing and forsaking the apparent openings of Providence. It was so in the case of Moses. “By faith he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter;” and “by faith he forsook Egypt.” Had he judged according to the sight of his eyes, he would have grasped at the proffered dignity, as the manifest gift of a kind Providence, and he would have remained in the court of Pharaoh as in a sphere of usefulness plainly thrown open to him by the hand of God. But, then, he walked by faith, and not by the sight of his eyes; and, hence, he forsook all. Noble example! May we have grace to follow it!

And observe what it was that Moses “esteemed greater riches than the treasures in Egypt;” it was the “reproach of Christ.” It was not merely reproach for Christ. “The reproaches of them that reproached thee have fallen upon me.” The Lord Jesus, in perfect grace, identified Himself with His people. He came down from heaven, leaving His Father’s bosom, and laying aside all His glory, He took His people’s place, confessed their sins, and bore their judgement on the cursed tree. Such was His voluntary devotedness, He not merely acted for us, but made Himself one with us, thus perfectly delivering us from all that was or could be against us.

Hence, we see how much in sympathy Moses was with the spirit and mind of Christ, in reference to the people of God. He was in the midst of all the ease the pomp and dignity of Pharaoh’s house, where “the pleasures of sin,” and “the treasures of Egypt,” lay scattered around him, in richest profusion. All these things he might have enjoyed if he would. He could have lived and died in the midst of wealth and splendour. His entire path, from first to last, might, if he had chosen, have been enlightened by the sunshine of royal favour: but that would not have been “faith;” it would not have been Christ-like. From his elevated position, he saw his brethren bowed down beneath their heavy burden, and faith led him to see that his place was to be with them. Yes; with them, in all their reproach, their bondage, their degradation, and their sorrow. Had he been actuated by mere benevolence, philanthropy, or patriotism, he might have used his personal influence on behalf of his brethren. He might have succeeded in inducing Pharaoh to lighten their burden, and render their path somewhat smoother, by royal grants in their favour; but this would never do, never satisfy a heart that had a single pulsation in common with the heart of Christ. Such a heart Moses, by the grace of God, carried in his bosom; and, therefore, with all the energies and all the affections of that heart, he threw himself, body, soul, and spirit, into the very midst of his oppressed brethren. He “chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God.” And, moreover, he did this “by faith.”

Let my reader ponder this deeply. We must not be satisfied with wishing well to, doing service for, or speaking kindly on behalf of, the people of God. We ought to be fully identified with them, no matter how despised or reproached they may be. It is, in a measure, an agreeable thing to a benevolent and generous spirit, to patronise Christianity; but it is a wholly different thing to be identified with Christians, or to suffer with Christ. A patron is one thing, a martyr is quite another. This distinction is apparent throughout the entire book of God. Obadiah took care of God’s witnesses, but Elijah was a witness for God. Darius was so attached to Daniel that he lost a night’s rest on his account, but Daniel spent that selfsame night in the lion’s den, as a witness for the truth of God. Nicodemus ventured to speak a word for Christ, but a more matured discipleship would have led him to identify himself with Christ.

These considerations are eminently practical. The Lord Jesus does not want patronage; He wants fellowship. The truth concerning Him is declared to us, not that we might patronise His cause on earth, but have fellowship with His Person in heaven. He identified Himself with us, at the heavy cost of all that love could give. He might have avoided this. He might have continued to enjoy His eternal place “in the bosom of the Father.” But how, then, could that mighty tide of love, which was pent up in His heart, flow down to us guilty and hell-deserving sinners? Between Him and us there could be no oneness, save on conditions which involved the surrender of everything on His part. But, blessed, throughout the everlasting ages, be His adorable Name, that surrender was voluntarily made. “He gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” (Titus 2: 14) He would not enjoy His glory alone. His loving heart would gratify itself by associating “many sons” with Him in that glory. “Father,” He says, “I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with Me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17: 24) Such were the thoughts of Christ in reference to His people; and we can easily see how much in sympathy with these precious thoughts was the heart of Moses. He, unquestionably, partook largely of his Master’s spirit; and he manifested that excellent spirit in freely sacrificing every personal consideration, and associating himself, unreservedly, with the people of God.

The personal character and actings of this honoured servant of God will come before us again in the next section of our book. We shall here briefly consider him as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. That he was a type of Him is evident from the following passage, “The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken.” (Deut. 18: 15) We are not, therefore, trafficking in human imagination in viewing Moses as a type; it is the plain teaching of scripture, and, in the closing verses of Exodus 2. we see this type in a double way: first, in the matter of his rejection by Israel; and, secondly, in his union with a stranger in the land of Midian. These points have already been, in some measure, developed in the history of Joseph, who, being cast out by his brethren, according to the flesh, forms an alliance with an Egyptian bride. Here, as in the case of Moses, we see shadowed forth Christ’s rejection by Israel, and His union with the Church, but in a different phase. In Joseph’s case, we have the exhibition of positive enmity against his person. In Moses it is the rejection of his mission. In Joseph’s case we read, “they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.” (Gen. 37: 4) In the case of Moses, the word is, “Who made thee a prince and a judge over us?” In short, the former was personally hated; the latter, officially refused.

So also in the mode in which the great mystery of the Church is exemplified, in the history of those two Old Testament saints. “Asenath” presents quite a different phase of the Church from that which we have in the person of “Zipporah.” The former was united to Joseph in the time of his exaltation; the latter was the companion of Moses, in the obscurity of his desert life. (Comp. Gen. 41: 41-45 with Ex. 2: 15; 3: 1) True, both Joseph and Moses were, at the time of their union with a stranger, rejected by their brethren; yet the former was “governor over all the land of Egypt;” whereas the latter tended a few sheep at “the backside of the desert.”

Whether, therefore, we contemplate Christ, as manifested in glory: or as hidden from the world’s gaze, the Church is intimately associated with Him. And now, inasmuch as the world seeth Him not, neither can it take knowledge of that body which is wholly one with Him. “The world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.” (2 John 3: 1) By and by, Christ will appear in His glory, and the Church with Him. “When Christ our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.” (Col. 3: 4) And, again, “The glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved Me.” (John 17: 22, 23)

[There are two distinct unities spoken of in John 17: 21, 23. The first is that unity which the Church was responsible to have maintained, but in which she has utterly failed. The second, that unity which God will infallibly accomplish, and which He will manifest in glory. If the reader will turn to the passage he will at once see the difference, both as to character and result, of the two.]

Such, then, is the Church’s high and holy position. She is one with Him who is cast out by this world, but who occupies the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. The Lord Jesus made Himself responsible for her on the cross, in order that she might share with Him His present rejection and His future glory. Would that all who form a part of such a highly privileged body were more impressed with a sense of what becomes them as to course and character down here! Assuredly, there should be a fuller and clearer response on the part of all the children of God, to that love wherewith He has loved them, to that salvation wherewith He has saved them, and to that dignity wherewith He has invested them. The walk of the Christian should ever be the natural result of realised privilege, and not the constrained result of legal vows and resolutions, the proper fruit of a position known and enjoyed by faith, and not the fruit of one’s own efforts to reach a position “by works of law.” All true believers are a part of the bride of Christ. Hence they owe Him those affections which become that relation. The relationship is not obtained because of the affections, but the affections flow out of the relationship.

So let it be, O Lord, with all thy beloved and blood bought people.

Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch

Exo 2:1 to Exo 4:31. Preparation and Call of Moses.

Exo 2:1-10 E. His Birth and Upbringing.If the text can be trusted, we are informed that a man of the house of Levi took (to wife) the (only) daughter of Levi (cf. Exo 6:20, Num 26:59 P), who would thus be, according to the genealogy of P, his aunt, or the sister of his father Kohath. Possibly, however, the text has been abridged, and ran, as LXX with some variations suggests, took one of the daughters of Levi to wife and made her his own (lit. had her). It is implied in Exo 2:2 that Moses was the firstborn. But in Exo 2:4; Exo 2:8 he has a grown-up sister. Moreover, in Exo 15:20 Miriam is called pointedly the sister of Aaron, and in Numbers 12 complains with him against Moses. This would all be explained if E had related the birth of Aaron and Miriam from Jochebed, and of Moses from a second wife having another name, and if the editor had by abridgment removed the discrepancy with P. Another suggestion has been that Moses was in the oldest tradition of unknown parentage, and Aaron and Miriam unrelated to him. Maternal love and pride would sufficiently explain the three months concealment. In Heb 11:23, where LXX (cf. Syro-Hexaplar) is followed in ascribing the action to both parents, a deeper motive is found in an intuition of faith in the childs future, based on his comeliness (cf. Act 7:20). The ark (Exo 2:3) or chest, in which the child was laid was made of papyrus (mg.) strips, cut from the pith of the tall reed-like plant which then grew along the lower Nile, though now only found higher up the river. Cf. Isa 18:2 for light boats or canoes made of this material. The ark was made watertight with asphalt (slime), which was imported into Egypt from the Dead Sea (pp. 32f., Gen 14:10) for embalming and other purposes, and with pitch. It was then placed in the reedy growth by the rivers brink. It is not clear whether suph, which furnished the Heb. name for the Red Sea (Yam Suph) denoted any specific plant. The Nile banks in the S. half of the delta are now bare, but so late as 1841. were thickly fringed with reeds. That the Divinely-called hero or heroine must overcome all obstacles in the path of destiny was a widespread faith in antiquity, as shown by the stories of Semi-ramis, Perseus, Cyrus, and Romulus. What Driver calls the singularly similar story of Sargon, king of Accad (3800 B.C.), is worth quoting. My lowly mother conceived me, in secret she brought me forth. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she closed my door; she cast me into the river, which rose not over me. The river bore me up; unto Akki, the irrigator, it carried me Akki, the irrigator, as his own son . . . reared me (Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels, 1912, p. 136). In spite of Es fondness for naming, the princess has no name in the text. Later traditions supply the lack with Tharmuth, Thermuthis, Bathja, and Merris. The last, given by Eusebius, recalls Meri, the name of one of the 59 daughters of Rameses II, her mother being a Kheta princess. Of this the first two may be variant forms. While the princess bathed, perhaps from a bath-house, her ladies-in-waiting guarded her privacy from the bank. From the water she saw the chest, and sent the female slave who was in attendance on her in the water to fetch it. Josephus suppresses the circumstance of the bathing. Compassion for the little foundling, whose exposure proved his Hebrew parentage, led the princess to evade her fathers edict. The sister intervened at the psychological moment with her offer to find a woman giving suck, and the childs mother is bidden to suckle it under the guise of a wet-nurse or foster-mother. An Egyptian woman would hardly have undertaken the task. So he grew, i.e. (cf. Gen 21:8) till he was weaned, which would be at three or four years, and became a son to her. On this slender statement tradition built largely, Josephus and Philo much amplifying the modest inference of Stephen that he was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians (Act 7:22). Driver points out that if, according to Erman, a good Egyptian education comprised such things as moral duties and good manners, reading, writing, composition, and arithmetic, it also included such undesirable items as mythology, astrology, magic, and superstitious practices in medicine. It is safer to say that the most certain historical inference from Exo 1:15 to Exo 2:10 is that Moses had an Egyptian name (meaning born. cf. Thutmosis, Thoth is born, Ra-mses, etc.). If he had been invented he would have had a Heb. name. The derivation (Exo 2:10) is a purely popular play on the sound of the word in Heb.

Exo 2:6. Render, And she (the princess) opened it and saw him. The child is an ungrammatical gloss not found in LXX. The next words, and, behold, a boy weeping, may be derived from J, the sound of the child weeping being in his narrative the clue.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

THE BIRTH AND PROTECTION OF MOSES

(vs.1-10)

God’s hand of overruling power and grace is seen beautifully in this chapter. There is nothing spectacular, but an incident takes place that would be normally unnoticed. A man of the tribe of Levi, Amram by name, married a woman (Jochebed) of the same tribe, who gave birth to a son. However, not being afraid of the king’s commandment, and being specially encouraged by the beauty of the child, she hid him for three months. Heb 11:23 tells us that it was the reality of faith that moved the parents in their hiding him.

But the hiding could not continue. Jochebed then did an unusually strange thing which proved to be the leading of God. Making an ark of bulrushes, which we would consider a basket, she covered it with asphalt and pitch, put the child in it and laid it among the reeds in the water near the bank of the river. Thus, in one respect, she obeyed the king’s orders by putting her son in the river, but with the ark around him. What a lesson for every Christian mother! Every parent should realize every child born is really under sentence of death from its birth because of the curse of sin. It is wise therefore for the believe by faith to virtually put the child into the place of death, but committing it to the Lord and to the value of His own death, by which alone the child can ever be save.

The mother, in calmness of faith, returned home, but left his sister to watch from a distance to see what would happen (v.4). Likely Jochebed knew of the habits of Pharaoh’s daughter, and anticipated in some measure what would transpire, for she must have instructed her daughter to do just what she did.

She had chosen the best spot in which to leave the ark, for Pharaoh’s daughter came there to bathe, bringing her female attendants with her. Seeing the ark among the reeds, she sent a maid to bring it to her. Her woman’s heart was tenderly affected in seeing the beautiful child and hearing him weep. She knew immediately that he was a Hebrew child, but how could she obey her father’s decree that the child must be drowned? In fact, before she had time to consider what she should do, the child’s sister appeared immediately and asked her if she should go and get a Hebrew woman who could nurse the child for her (v.7).

Pharaoh’s daughter would not be acquainted with Hebrew women, and the suggestion of Moses’ sister was to her a providential opportunity of possessing a child of her own, with a more natural mother to nurse the child. The immediate suggestion of his sister also averted the alternative that Pharaoh’s daughter might have considered, in having the child put to death.

The child’s sister brought her own mother to Pharaoh’s daughter, who asked her to take the child and nurse it for her with promise of payment for this (v.9). Thus, not only was her child preserved alive, but she was privileged to nurse her own child and receive payment for so doing? Very likely she would hear a voice higher than that of Pharaoh’s daughter, saying “Take this child away and nurse him for me.” Since she had faith in the living God, she would certainly rear the child for His glory rather than for the pleasure of Pharaoh’s daughter.

Those first few formative years would have an unerasable effect on the boy who was to become great among the Egyptians. But the day came when his mother had to give him up to be recognized as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. This would certainly be traumatic for the mother.

MOSES LEAVING EGYPT, RECEIVED IN MIDIAN

(vs.11-25)

This history here passed over many years, but Act 7:22 tells us, “Moses was learned in all the wisdom of Egypt, and was mighty in words and deeds.” Then it is added that he was forty years old (v.27) when verse 11 of Exo 2:1-25 took place. At this time the Lord was moving him to remember seriously his relationship to the suffering nation Israel. No doubt the training of his early years had eventual effect in awakening a long dormant exercise of heart. His first action was to go out to observe how his people were treated by the Egyptians. This was apparently shocking to him, and when he saw an Egyptian beating an Israelite, this stirred his anger. He looked both ways, however, to see that there were no witnesses before he killed the Egyptian and covered him with sand.

The following day he again went out, and this time saw two Israelites fighting. Seeking to remonstrate with the aggressor, he was repulsed by the man as being a meddler, as though he were a prince or a judge appointed over them (v.14). Further still, he asked, “Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Thus Moses found that his killing of the Egyptian was not concealed. In championing the cause of Israel he expected some recognition of this on their part (Act 7:25), but they did not think that he might deliver them from bondage. At this time they were not ready, and in fact Moses himself was not ready to be the deliverer. God had work to do in his heart as well as in theirs.

This work of God involved the change of attitude of Pharaoh toward him. Though Pharaoh had highly honored him, now he turned against him with the intention of killing him. It was impossible for Moses to be half on Pharaoh’s side and half on the side of Israel. God showed him, by means of Pharaoh’s opposition, that he could not serve two masters.

What could he do but escape from Egypt entirely? He took a long journey to Midian, possibly nearly one hundred miles, thus being separated altogether from his own people Israel as well as from Egypt. How intense must have been his loneliness! But it was God who had led him there. Sitting down to rest by a well, he witnessed a scene that again stirred his concern for those who were oppressed. Seven daughters of one man, the priest of Midian, came to water their father’s flock of sheep, but other shepherds came to drive them away. Moses took up the cause of the weak, helping the young women and watering their flock (v.17).

When they told their father, Reuel, of the Egyptian who had helped them, he answered them, “And where is he? Why is it that you have left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread” (v.20). This hospitality developed into an arrangement pleasing to Moses, that he might make his home with Reuel. From Reuel’s family Moses then received his wife, Zipporah, who bore him a son, to whom he gave the name Gershom, meaning “a stranger here.”

PHAROAH DIES, BUT BONDAGE CONTINUES

(vs.23-25)

Moses remained forty years in Midian (Act 7:30), and in the meanwhile the king of Egypt died. Yet the bondage of Israel was not relieved. We are not told they prayed to God for relief, but their groaning and crying out nevertheless was heard by God. The length of time may seem to us too great, but God’s wisdom in greater than ours. In fact, though He took account of their groaning, remembering His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, yet the time would be still lengthened out before their deliverance. It was necessary that they should be made to most deeply feel the oppression and bondage under which they suffered, so that they might later appreciate the greatness of God’s grace in delivering them. Thus today also God deals with awakened sinners to put them through experiences that will make them realize that bondage to sin is a dreadful thing, so that, when He delivers them, they will have so learned the abhorrence of sin that they will never desire to go back to such a state as that which they had left, and also that they should become thankful worshipers, giving glory undividedly to God the Father and to His beloved Son, Jesus Christ.

Moses had become a shepherd, just as David later was a shepherd before becoming king of Israel. If Moses was to be a true deliverer, he must learn to have a heart of kindness toward those weak and dependent, therefore to treat Israel with shepherd care rather than with a scepter of authority. Thus too, the Lord Jesus was prepared by lowly suffering and kind concern for mankind in all His path on earth, in view of His eventually being exalted as Supreme Ruler over all. His life of devoted obedience to God has proven Him to be qualified to rule, not only in righteousness, but in tender grace. Believers today must have the same character if they are to be a true blessing to others. Peter a natural leader, who might therefore desire a place for himself, had to endure a sad fall before he was properly fitted to feed God’s sheep (Joh 21:15-17).

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

2:1 And there went a {a} man of the house of Levi, and took [to wife] a daughter of Levi.

(a) This Levite was called Amram, who married Jochebed in Exo 6:20.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

3. Moses’ birth and education 2:1-10

"Whilst Pharaoh was urging forward the extermination of the Israelites, God was preparing their emancipator." [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, 1:426.]

". . . among other things, the Pentateuch is an attempt to contrast the lives of two individuals, Abraham and Moses. Abraham, who lived before the law (ante legem), is portrayed as one who kept the law [Gen 26:5], whereas Moses, who lived under the law (sub lege), is portrayed as one who died in the wilderness because he did not believe [Num 20:12]." [Note: John H. Sailhamer, "The Mosaic Law and the Theology of the Pentateuch," Westminster Theological Journal 53 (Fall 1991):243.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

The names of Moses’ parents were Amram and Jochebed (Exo 6:20).

"At this point Scripture’s aim is to inform us that from an ordinary man, . . . and from an ordinary woman, . . . whose names there was no need to mention [at this point], God raised up a redeemer unto his people." [Note: Cassuto, p. 17.]

It is not clear from the text if Moses was an unusually beautiful child physically or if he was distinctive in some other respect (Exo 2:2). Some commentators translated "beautiful" as "healthy." [Note: E.g., Brevard Childs, The Book of Exodus, p. 18; The NET Bible note on 2:2.] The phrase used to describe him in Heb 11:23, as well as the Hebrew word used here, can have a broader meaning than physical beauty. Josephus claimed that God had revealed to Amram in a dream that Moses would humble the Egyptians. [Note: Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 2:9:3.] There is no scriptural support for this tradition; it may or may not be true.

Jochebed and Amram hid Moses because they trusted God (Exo 2:3; Heb 11:23-26). The same Hebrew word translated "wicker basket" in this verse (tehvah) reads "ark" or "boat" in English translations of Gen 6:14. As Noah’s ark was God’s instrument for preserving one savior of the human race, Moses’ ark proved to be His means of preserving another savior of the Israelites. Moses’ parents obeyed Pharaoh and put Moses in the river (Exo 1:22), but they also trusted God who delivered their baby.

"Ironically Jochebed, putting her son into the Nile, was in one sense obeying the Pharaoh’s edict to ’throw’ baby boys into the river! (Exo 1:22)" [Note: Hannah, p. 109.]

"There is abundant warrant, afforded by this narrative, for Christian parents to cast their children upon God." [Note: Meyer, p. 26.]

Moses’ older sister was probably Miriam. She is the only sister of Moses mentioned in Scripture (Exo 2:4; Num 26:59).

The daughter of Pharaoh (Thutmose I) was probably Hatshepsut who was a very significant person in Egyptian history (Exo 2:5). She later assumed co-regency with Thutmose III and ruled as the fifth Pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty (1503-1482 B.C.). The ruling class in Egypt was male dominated, and it took a very forceful woman to rise and rule. Queen Hatshepsut adopted certain male mannerisms to minimize objections to her rule including the wearing of a false beard that appears on some Egyptian pictures of her. [Note: See Merrill Unger, Archaeology and the Old Testament, pp. 144-45; Joseph Free, Archaeology and Bible History, p. 86, n. 9; and Francis Nichol, ed., The Seventh-Day Adventist Bible Commentary, 1:502.]

It was not uncommon for Pharaohs and other Egyptians to bathe ceremonially in the sacred Nile River, as many Indians do today in the Ganges River. The Egyptians believed that the waters of the Nile possessed the ability to impart fruitfulness and to prolong life.

Several women were involved in the events surrounding Moses’ birth: the midwives, Pharaoh’s daughter, her maid, Moses’ sister, and Jochebed. How ironic it was that women, whom Egyptian and Israelite men looked down on as less significant than themselves, should have been responsible for saving Israel’s savior! Truly the hand of God is evident. The Gospel writers also recorded that several women ministered to Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, during His first advent.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

CHAPTER II.

THE RESCUE OF MOSES.

Exo 2:1-10.

We have said that the Old Testament history teems with political wisdom, lessons of permanent instruction for mankind, on the level of this life, yet godly, as all true lessons must be, in a world of which Christ is King. These our religion must learn to recognise and proclaim, if it is ever to win the respect of men of affairs, and “leaven the whole lump” of human life with sacred influence.

Such a lesson is the importance of the individual in the history of nations. History, as read in Scripture, is indeed a long relation of heroic resistance or of base compliance in the presence of influences which are at work to debase modern peoples as well as those of old. The holiness of Samuel, the gallant faith of David, the splendour and wisdom of Solomon, the fervid zeal of Elijah, the self-respecting righteousness of Nehemiah,–ignore these, and the whole course of affairs becomes vague and unintelligible. Most of all this is true of Moses, whose appearance is now related.

In profane history it is the same. Alexander, Mahomet, Luther, William the Silent, Napoleon,–will any one pretend that Europe uninfluenced by these personalities would have become the Europe that we know?

And this truth is not at all a speculative, unpractical theory: it is vital. For now there is a fashion of speaking about the tendency of the age, the time-spirit, as an irresistible force which moulds men like potters’ clay, crowning those who discern and help it, but grinding to powder all who resist its course. In reality there are always a hundred time-spirits and tendencies competing for the mastery–some of them violent, selfish, atheistic, or luxurious (as we see with our own eyes today)–and the shrewdest judges are continually at fault as to which of them is to be victorious, and recognised hereafter as the spirit of the age.

This modern pretence that men are nothing, and streams of tendency are all, is plainly a gospel of capitulations, of falsehood to one’s private convictions, and of servile obedience to the majority and the popular cry. For, if individual men are nothing, what am I? If we are all bubbles floating down a stream, it is folly to strive to breast the current. Much practical baseness and servility is due to this base and servile creed. And the cure for it is belief in another spirit than that of the present age, trust in an inspiring God, who rescued a herd of slaves and their fading convictions from the greatest nation upon earth by matching one man, shrinking and reluctant yet obedient to his mission, against Pharaoh and all the tendencies of the age.

And it is always so. God turns the scale of events by the vast weight of a man, faithful and true, and sufficiently aware of Him to refuse, to universal clamour, the surrender of his liberty or his religion. In small matters, as in great, there is no man, faithful to a lonely duty or conviction, understanding that to have discerned it is a gift and a vocation, but makes the world better and stronger, and works out part of the answer to that great prayer “Thy will be done.”

We have seen already that the religion of the Hebrews in Egypt was corrupted and in danger of being lost. To this process, however, there must have been bright exceptions; and the mother of Moses bore witness, by her very name, to her fathers’ God. The first syllable of Jochebed is proof that the name of God, which became the keynote of the new revelation, was not entirely new.

As yet the parents of Moses are not named; nor is there any allusion to the close relationship which would have forbidden their union at a later period (Exo 6:20). And throughout all the story of his youth and early manhood there is no mention whatever of God or of religion. Elsewhere it is not so. The Epistle to the Hebrews declares that through faith the babe was hidden, and through faith the man refused Egyptian rank. Stephen tells us that he expected his brethren to know that God by his hand was giving them deliverance. But the narrative in Exodus is wholly untheological. If Moses were the author, we can see why he avoided reflections which directly tended to glorify himself. But if the story were a subsequent invention, why is the tone so cold, the light so colourless?

Now, it is well that we are invited to look at all these things from their human side, observing the play of human affection, innocent subtlety, and pity. God commonly works through the heart and brain which He has given us, and we do not glorify Him at all by ignoring these. If in this case there were visible a desire to suppress the human agents, in favour of the Divine Preserver, we might suppose that a different historian would have given a less wonderful account of the plagues, the crossing of the Sea, and the revelation from Sinai. But since full weight is allowed to second causes in the early life of Moses, the story is entitled to the greater credit when it tells of the burning bush and the flaming mountain.

Let us, however, put together the various narratives and their lessons. At the outset we read of a marriage celebrated between kinsfolk, when the storm of persecution was rising. And hence we infer that courage or strong affection made the parents worthy of him through whom God should show mercy unto thousands. The first child was a girl, and therefore safe; but we may suppose, although silence in Scripture proves little, that Aaron, three years before the birth of Moses, had not come into equal peril with him. Moses was therefore born just when the last atrocity was devised, when trouble was at its height.

“At this time Moses was born,” said Stephen. Edifying inferences have been drawn from the statement in Exodus that “the woman … hid him.” Perhaps the stronger man quailed, but the maternal instinct was not at fault, and it was rewarded abundantly. From which we only learn, in reality, not to overstrain the words of Scripture; since the Epistle to the Hebrews distinctly says that he “was hid three months by his parents”–both of them, while naturally the mother is the active agent.

All the accounts agree that he was thus hidden, “because they saw that he was a goodly child” (Heb 11:23). It is a pathetic phrase. We see them, before the crisis, vaguely submitting in theory to an unrealised atrocity, ignorant how imperiously their nature would forbid the crime, not planning disobedience in advance, nor led to it by any reasoning process. All is changed when the little one gazes at them with that marvellous appeal in its unconscious eyes, which is known to every parent, and helps him to be a better man. There is a great difference between one’s thought about an infant, and one’s feeling towards the actual baby. He was their child, their beautiful child; and this it was that turned the scale. For him they would now dare anything, “because they saw he was a goodly child, and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment.” Now, impulse is often a great power for evil, as when appetite or fear, suddenly taking visible shape, overwhelms the judgment and plunges men into guilt. But good impulses may be the very voice of God, stirring whatever is noble and generous within us. Nor are they accidental: loving and brave emotions belong to warm and courageous hearts; they come of themselves, like song birds, but they come surely where sunshine and still groves invite them, not into clamour and foul air. Thus arose in their bosoms the sublime thought of God as an active power to be reckoned upon. For as certainly as every bad passion that we harbour preaches atheism, so does all goodness tend to sustain itself by the consciousness of a supreme Goodness in reserve. God had sent them their beautiful child, and who was Pharaoh to forbid the gift? And so religion and natural pity joined hands, their supreme convictions and their yearning for their infant. “By faith Moses was hid … because they saw he was a goodly child, and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment.”

Such, if we desire a real and actual salvation, is always the faith which saves. Postpone salvation to an indefinite future; make it no more than the escape from vaguely realised penalties for sins which do not seem very hateful; and you may suppose that faith in theories can obtain this indulgence; an opinion may weigh against a misgiving. But feel that sin is not only likely to entail damnation, but is really and in itself damnable meanwhile, and then there will be no deliverance possible, but from the hand of a divine Friend, strong to sustain and willing to guide the life. We read that Amram lived a hundred and thirty and seven years, and of all that period we only know that he helped to save the deliverer of his race, by practical faith which made him not afraid, and did not paralyse but stimulate his energies.

When the mother could no longer hide the child, she devised the plan which has made her for ever famous. She placed him in a covered ark, or casket,[3] plaited (after what we know to have been the Egyptian fashion) of the papyrus reed, and rendered watertight with bitumen, and this she laid among the rushes–a lower vegetation, which would not, like the tall papyrus, hide her treasure–in the well-known and secluded place where the daughter of Pharaoh used to bathe. Something in the known character of the princess may have inspired this ingenious device to move her pity; but it is more likely that the woman’s heart, in her extremity, prompted a simple appeal to the woman who could help her if she would. For an Egyptian princess was an important personage, with an establishment of her own, and often possessed of much political influence. The most sanguinary agent of a tyrant would be likely to respect the client of such a patron.

The heart of every woman was in a plot against the cruelty of Pharaoh. Once already the midwives had defeated him; and now, when his own daughter[4] unexpectedly found, in the water at her very feet, a beautiful child sobbing silently (for she knew not what was there until the ark was opened), her indignation is audible enough in the words, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” She means to say “This is only one specimen of the outrages that are going on.”

This was the chance for his sister, who had been set in ambush, not prepared with the exquisite device which follows, but simply “to know what would be done to him.” Clearly the mother had reckoned upon his being found, and neglected nothing, although unable herself to endure the agony of watching, or less easily hidden in that guarded spot. And her prudence had a rich reward. Hitherto Miriam’s duty had been to remain passive–that hard task so often imposed upon the affection, especially of women, by sick-beds, and also in many a more stirring hazard, and many a spiritual crisis, where none can fight his brother’s battle. It is a trying time, when love can only hold its breath, and pray. But let not love suppose that to watch is to do nothing. Often there comes a moment when its word, made wise by the teaching of the heart, is the all-important consideration in deciding mighty issues.

This girl sees the princess at once pitiful and embarrassed, for how can she dispose of her strange charge? Let the moment pass, and the movement of her heart subside, and all may be lost; but Miriam is prompt and bold, and asks “Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?” It is a daring stroke, for the princess must have understood the position thoroughly, the moment the eager Hebrew girl stepped forward. The disguise was very thin. And at least the heart which pitied the infant must have known the mother when she saw her face, pale with longing. It is therefore only as a form, exacted by circumstances, but well enough though tacitly understood upon both sides, that she bids her nurse the child for her, and promises wages. What reward could equal that of clasping her child to her own agitated bosom in safety, while the destroyers were around?

This incident teaches us that good is never to be despaired of, since this kindly woman grew up in the family of the persecutor.

And the promptitude and success of Miriam suggest a reflection. Men do pity, when it is brought home to them, the privation, suffering, and wrong, which lie around. Magnificent sums are contributed yearly for their relief by the generous instincts of the world. The misfortune is that sentiment is evoked only by visible and pathetic griefs, and that it will not labour as readily as it will subscribe. It is a harder task to investigate, to devise appeals, to invent and work the machinery by which misery may be relieved. Mere compassion will accomplish little, unless painstaking affection supplement it. Who supplies that? Who enables common humanity to relieve itself by simply paying “wages,” and confiding the wretched to a painstaking, laborious, loving guardian? The streets would never have known Hospital Saturday, but for Hospital Sunday in the churches. The orphanage is wholly a Christian institution. And so is the lady nurse. The old-fashioned phrase has almost sunk into a party cry, but in a large and noble sense it will continue to be true to nature as long as bereavement, pain or penitence requires a tender bosom and soothing touch, which speaks of Mother Church.

Thus did God fulfil His mysterious plans. And according to a sad but noble law, which operates widely, what was best in Egypt worked with Him for the punishment of its own evil race. The daughter of Pharaoh adopted the perilous foundling, and educated him in the wisdom of Egypt.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] The same word is used for Noah’s ark, but not elsewhere; not, for example, of the ark in the Temple, the name of which occurs elsewhere in Scripture only of the “coffin” of Joseph, and the “chest” for the Temple revenues (Gen 1:26; 2Ch 24:8, 2Ch 24:10-11.)

[4] Or his sister, the daughter of a former Pharaoh.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary