Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 2:11
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 a Hebrew, one of his brethren.
11. in those days ] The days of the Egyptian oppression.
was grown up ] According to tradition, 42 (Jubilees 48:1:, comp. with 47:1), or 40 (Act 7:23) years old (half of the 80 of Exo 7:7).
looked on ] i.e. contemplated with sympathy or grief (Gen 21:16; Gen 29:32; Gen 44:34 Heb.). More than merely ‘saw.’
burdens ] as Exo 1:11.
an Egyptian ] Perhaps one of the ‘task-masters,’ or superintendents of the labour-gangs (Exo 3:7).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
11 14. The first acts of Moses’ manhood. He chivalrously interposes, first on behalf of an Israelite maltreated by an Egyptian, and then in a quarrel between two Israelites. On account of his slaughter of the Egyptian, he is obliged to flee to Midian. Cf., in St Stephen’s speech, Act 7:23-29.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Went out unto his brethren – At the end of 40 years. The Egyptian princess had not concealed from him the fact of his belonging to the oppressed race, nor is it likely that she had debarred him from contact with his foster-mother and her family, whether or not she became aware of the true relationship.
An Egyptian – This man was probably one of the overseers of the workmen, natives under the chief superintendent Exo 1:11. They were armed with long heavy scourges, made of a tough pliant wood imported from Syria.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Exo 2:11-12
He slew the Egyptian.
The oppressor slain; or a wrong way of reproving injury
I. There are many instances of cruel oppression in the world.
1. There is oppression in the commercial life of men. The rich smite the poor–the fortunate the unfortunate–the defrauder the honest tradesman.
2. There is oppression in the social life of men. The haughty frown upon the humble.
3. There is oppression in the political life of men. There is the oppression of an unjust king–of a politic statesman–of an unruly crowd–of an unrighteous edict.
4. There is oppression in the Church life of men. The man of little religion wishes to dictate to and perplex those who are more devout than himself.
II. It is the duty of a good and patriotic man to oppose these manifestations of oppression.
1. Because he should have sympathy with the burdens of the oppressed.
2. Because he should recognize the brotherhood of men.
3. Because he should recognize the claim of nationality.
III. That a good man must be careful as to the spirit and manner in which he resents oppression, or he may be as cruel as those whom he reproves.
1. His conscience told him that he was doing wrong.
2. The spirit and manner in which the oppressor should be reproved.
(1) Boldly.
(2) Firmly.
(3) Sometimes kindly.
(4) Make him feel the wrong of his conduct. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Retributive justice
Look at retributive justice in man in three aspects.
I. As excited. He spied an Egyptian, etc. It was always there, working no doubt silently, and in many ways, but now it broke into flame. The moral outrage he witnessed roused him, etc.
II. As restrained. He looked this way, etc. The sight of a child will so frighten the nocturnal desperado that it will paralyze his arms and drive him panic-struck from the scene. Man keeps man in check. A wise and beneficent arrangement. It is a power, however, that has its limits. It should never prevent us from doing right.
III. As free. When he saw there was no man, he slew, etc. Were the retributive instincts of human nature left entirely unrestrained the earth would become a pandemonium. (Homilist.)
Lessons
1. Maturity of years and parts God appoints unto the instruments of deliverance.
2. Providence orders objects to be seen to move instruments unto their work.
3. Sight of pressures and injuries upon the Church must move helpers to compassion.
4. Single injuries done to any member of the Church may occasion just revenge. (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Strife, intervention, and flight of Moses
I. Strife.
1. Between the Egyptian and Hebrew. The Egyptian was smiting the Hebrew. Whipping him to his work, or punishing him for doing less than his allotted task. Cruel, tyrannical. The strong and protected, persecuted the weak and defenceless. Pride of power. Official meanness. Domineering spirit and conduct.
2. Between Hebrew and Hebrew. This is a worse feature of strife. Fellow bondsmen increasing each others sufferings. Children of one family.striving.
II. Intervention.
1. The person. Moses. Adopted son of Pharaohs daughter. Learned. Mighty in deeds and words. Honour, title, wealth before him.
2. His patriotic feelings. Did not abandon his nationality. Not ashamed to call them brethren.
3. Slays the Egyptian. Unjustifiable conduct. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. Yet it was an heroic act, under the peculiar circumstances. The first blow for freedom.
4. Concealment. Hides the body.
5. Second intervention. Not to kill, but to expostulate.
6. Repudiation of Moses by his brethren. Jesus was despised and rejected, came to His own, and His own received Him not.
III. Flight of Moses.
1. The reason. Pharaoh sought to slay him. Moses, dwelling in the palace, would soon hear of this design. His friends–perhaps the princess if living–would inform him.
2. The course of his flight. Over ground to be presently traversed by the Israelites. A long and solitary journey. His thoughts by the way.
3. Incidents of the end. The wells mouth. How many incidents have occurred at the mouth of wells! The sheperdesses and the boors. Moses courage and politeness. The Christian should be a true gentleman. The reward of chivalry and politeness. Kind words and deeds easy. Defence of the weak a mark of true nobleness. Moses a real nobleman. Christ mighty to save the weak; and willing.
learn–
1. The meanness of taking a base advantage.
2. The strong should be helpers of the weak.
3. Jesus, a prophet like unto Moses, raised up to be our peacemaker and deliverer. (J. C. Gray.)
Moses sympathy with his brethren
Strong was the temptation that beset Moses. He had a fair opportunity (as we say) to make his fortune, and to have been serviceable to Israel too, with his interest at court, and yet he obtained a glorious victory by faith. He esteemed it greater honour and advantage to be a son of Abraham than an adopted child of the royal family. He had a tender concern for his poor brethren in bondage, with whom (though he might easily have avoided it) he chose to suffer affliction; he looked on their burdens as one that not only pitied them, but was resolved to venture with them, and, if necessary, to venture for them. 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 patronize 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 Gods witnesses, but Elijah was a witness for God. Darius was so attached to Daniel that he lost a nights rest on his account, but Daniel spent that selfsame night in the lions 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. (A. Nevin, D. D.)
Brotherly sympathy
Prior to the return of Mr. Henson, the original of Uncle Tom, to America in 1851, he was invited to a dinner party in the lordly mansion of one of our city merchants; and when seated at a table covered with the most tempting viands, and surrounded with every comfort and luxury which affluence could provide, he was so overpowered with the remembrance of his former misery and degradation that he rose from the table, feeling that he could not partake of a single morsel of the sumptuous banquet. His generous host went after him, and asked whether he was taken unwell, or whether he would like some other kind of dishes. Oh no, was the touching and pathetic response of this good old man, I am well enough; but, oh I how could I sit down to such a luxurious feast as this when I think of my poor brother at this moment a wretched, miserable, outcast slave, with perhaps scarcely a crust of bread or a glass of water to appease the cravings of nature? (John Lobb.)
Blood thicker than water
Commodore Tatnall was in command of the United States squadron in the East Indies, and, as a neutral, witnessed the desperate fight near Pekin between the English and Chinese fleets. Seeing his old friend, Sir James Hope, hard pressed and in need of help, he manned his barge, and went through a tremendous fire to the flag-ship. Offering his services, surprise was expressed at his action. His reply was, Blood is thicker than water. (H. O. Mackey.)
Sympathy with burden bearers
Napoleon, at St. Helena, was once walking with a lady, when a man came up with a load on his back. The lady kept her side of the path, and was ready to assert her precedence of sex; but Napoleon gently waved her on one side, saying, Respect the burden, madam. You constantly see men and women behave to each other in a way which shows that they do not respect the burden, whatever the burden is. Sometimes the burden is an actual visible load; sometimes it is cold and raggedness; sometimes it is hunger; sometimes it is grief, or illness. And how far, pray, are we to push the kind of chivalry which respects the burden? As far as the love of God will go with us. A great distance; it is a long way to the foot of the rainbow. (Good Words.)
Some people will never look on the burdens of their brethren
1. They pretend not to see them.
2. They have no sympathy with them.
3. They fear lest their purse, or energy should be taxed.
4. They miss the luxury of relieving them. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The inquiring look of conscience
1. It was anxious.
2. It was suspicious.
3. It was troubled.
4. It was perplexed.
5. It was mistaken. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The inquiring look of conscience
1. Gives a moment for reflection.
2. Indicates the moral evil of the deed.
3. Suspects an unhappy issue from the deed. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Hidden sin
He slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.
I. Hidden by fallacy. The Egyptian. He was cruel–unjust; had I not a right to kill him? Moses might reason thus to convince himself. A man must bury sin out of the sight of his own conscience, before he can be happy–by false argument or true.
II. Hidden by folly. In the sand.
1. Would leave traces of his deed.
2. The dead body would be easily discovered.
So all our efforts to bury sin are equally futile. God sees it. He can lead men to its grave. Sin leaves traces. It is better not to be under the necessity of making the soul into a grave, or any spot of life into a tomb. If we do, there will sure to come a resurrection. A man who is going to commit sin, requires to have all his wits about him. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The upward look best
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 mans wrath, and the hope of mans favour. The servant of the living God should neither regard the one nor the ether. 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 judgment of such an one, less than the small dust of the balance. Divine intelligence will ever lead us to look upward and onward. Whenever we look around to shun a mortals frown or catch his smile, we may rest assured there is something wrong; we are off the proper ground of Divine service. (C. H. Mackintosh.)
The chivalry of Moses
This is one of the first recorded acts of the meekest of men! Do not let us be hard upon him! The impulse was right. There must be men in society who can strike, and who need to strike but once. Let it be understood that this, after all, was but the lowest form of heroism–it was a boys resentment–it was a youths untempered chivalry. One can imagine a boy reading this story, and feeling himself called upon to strike everybody who is doing something which displeases him. There is a raw heroism; an animal courage; a rude, barbaric idea of righteousness. We applaud Moses, but it is his impulse rather than his method which is approved. Every man should burn with indignation when he sees oppression. In this instance it must be clearly understood that the case was one of oppressive strength as against downtrodden weakness. This was not a fight between one man and another; the Egyptian and the Hebrew were not fairly pitted in battle: the Egyptian was smiting the Hebrew–the Hebrew in all probability bending over his labour, doing the best in his power, and yet suffering the lash of the tyrant. It was under such circumstances as these that Moses struck in the cause of human justice. In this fiery protest against wrong, in this blow of ungoverned temper against a hoary and pitiless despotism, see somewhat of the tender sympathy that was in Jochebed embodied in a form natural to the impetuosity of youth. Little did Moses know what he did when he smote the nameless Egyptian. In smiting that one man, in reality he struck Pharaoh himself, and every succeeding tyrant! (J. Parker, D. D.)
Moses rash haste
We may not shut our eyes to the fact that but for his lack of selfrestraint Moses might have become an earlier benefactor to the people whom he desired to liberate. He was running before he had been sent; and he discovered by the result that neither was he as yet competent to be the leader of the people, nor were the people ready to rise at his call. There is a long distance often between the formation of a purpose and the right opportunity for its execution; and we should not always regard promptitude as wise. The providential indicators of duty are the call within us, and the willingness of those whom we would benefit, to receive our blessing; and if either of these is absent, we should pause. Above all, we should not allow the passion of a moment to throw us off our guard and lead us into sin, for we may be sure that in the end it will only retard our enterprise and remove us from the sphere of our activities. The ripening of a purpose is not always the mark of the presence of an opportunity. Raw-haste is always half-sister to delay; and wrong-doing can never help forward, directly at least (however God may afterward overrule it), a good cause. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
The prince and the serfs
Many years ago, there was a little boy named Alexander. He was the son of Nicholas, Emperor of Russia, in whose empire there were many millions of poor people, called serfs. These were kept in a state much resembling slavery, and were sold with the lands on which they lived. Many of them were poor and wretched; some few were prosperous and wealthy; but all were under the control of the lords on whose territories they dwelt. One day, Nicholas noticed that little Alexander looked very sad and thoughtful, and asked him of what he was thinking. Of the poor serfs, replied the little boy; and, when I become emperor, I will emancipate them. This reply startled the emperor and his courtiers; for they were very much opposed to all such plans for improvement of the condition of the poor. They asked little Alexander how he came to think of doing this, and what led him to feel so interested for the serfs. He replied, From reading the Scriptures, and hearing them enforced, which teach that all men are brothers. The emperor said very little to his boy on the subject, and it was hoped that the influences and opinions which prevailed in the royal court would gradually correct the boyish notions of the young prince; but this expectation was vain. The early impressions of the little boy grew deeper and stronger; and when at last the great Nicholas died, and Alexander was placed upon his fathers throne, he called the wise statesmen of the land to his councils, and a plan of emancipation was formed; and the imperial decree went forth, which abolished serfdom throughout all the Russian empire. It is in this way that God works wonders by the power of His Word. The great fact, that God has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, lodged like an incorruptible seed in the heart of the young prince, and growing with his growth, and strengthening with his strength, at last budded and blossomed, and brought forth the fruit or blessing for millions of the human race.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 11. When Moses was grown] Being full forty years of age, as St. Stephen says, Ac 7:23, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, i.e., he was excited to it by a Divine inspiration; and seeing one of them suffer wrong, by an Egyptian smiting him, probably one of the task-masters, he avenged him and smote – slew, the Egyptian, supposing that God who had given him commission, had given also his brethren to understand that they were to be delivered by his hand; see Ac 7:23-25. Probably the Egyptian killed the Hebrew, and therefore on the Noahic precept Moses was justified in killing him; and he was authorized so to do by the commission which he had received from God, as all succeeding events amply prove. Previously to the mission of Moses to deliver the Israelites, Josephus says, “The AEthiopians having made an irruption into Egypt, and subdued a great part of it, a Divine oracle advised them to employ Moses the Hebrew. On this the king of Egypt made him general of the Egyptian forces; with these he attacked the AEthiopians, defeated and drove them back into their own land, and forced them to take refuge in the city of Saba, where he besieged them. Tharbis, daughter of the AEthiopian king, seeing him, fell desperately in love with him, and promised to give up the city to him on condition that he would take her to wife, to which Moses agreed, and the city was put into the hands of the Egyptians.” – Jos. Ant. lib. ii., chap. 9. St. Stephen probably alluded to something of this kind when he said Moses was mighty in deeds as well as words.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
In those days, whilst Moses lived at court, and was owned as the son of Pharaohs daughter, and, as some write, designed to succeed Pharaoh in the throne. Moses was grown to maturity, being forty years old, Act 7:23.
He went out unto his brethren; partly by natural affection and inclination, that he might learn the state of his brethren, and help them, as occasion should offer itself; and partly by Divine instigation, and in design that he might give some manifestation to them that he was raised and sent of God to deliver them; as may be gathered from Act 7:25.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11. in those days, when Moses wasgrownnot in age and stature only, but in power as well as inrenown for accomplishments and military prowess (Ac7:22). There is a gap here in the sacred history which, however,is supplied by the inspired commentary of Paul, who has fullydetailed the reasons as well as extent of the change that took placein his worldly condition; and whether, as some say, his royal motherhad proposed to make him coregent and successor to the crown, or someother circumstances, led to a declaration of his mind, he determinedto renounce the palace and identify himself with the suffering peopleof God (Heb 11:24-29).The descent of some great sovereigns, like Diocletian and Charles V,from a throne into private life, is nothing to the sacrifice whichMoses made through the power of faith.
he went out unto hisbrethrento make a full and systematic inspection of theircondition in the various parts of the country where they weredispersed (Ac 7:23), and headopted this proceeding in pursuance of the patriotic purpose thatthe faith, which is of the operation of God, was even then forming inhis heart.
he spied an Egyptian smitingan Hebrewone of the taskmasters scourging a Hebrew slavewithout any just cause (Ac 7:24),and in so cruel a manner, that he seems to have died under thebarbarous treatmentfor the conditions of the sacred story implysuch a fatal issue. The sight was new and strange to him, and thoughpre-eminent for meekness (Nu 12:3),he was fired with indignation.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown,…. To man’s estate; some of the Jewish writers say he was eighteen, others twenty years of age e, but Stephen, who is most to be credited, says he was full forty years of age, Ac 7:23,
that he went out unto his brethren the Hebrews: whom he knew to be his brethren, either by divine revelation, or by conversing with his nurse, who was his mother; who, doubtless, instructed him while he was with her, as far as he was capable of being informed of things, and who might frequently visit her afterwards, by which means he became apprised that he was an Hebrew and not an Egyptian, though he went for the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, which he refused to be called when he knew his parentage, Heb 11:24 now he went out from Pharaoh’s palace, which in a short time he entirely relinquished, to visit his brethren, and converse with them, and understood their case and circumstances:
and looked on their burdens; which they were obliged to carry, and were very heavy, and with which they were pressed; he looked at them with grief and concern, and considered in his mind how to relieve them, if possible:
and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren; the Egyptian was, according to Jarchi, a principal of the taskmasters of Israel, who was beating the Hebrew for not doing his work as he required, and the Hebrew, according to him, was the husband of Shelomith, daughter of Dibri, Le 24:11, though others say it was Dathan f.
e Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 5. 2. f lbid.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Flight of Moses from Egypt to Midian. – The education of Moses at the Egyptian court could not extinguish the feeling that he belonged to the people of Israel. Our history does not inform us how this feeling, which was inherited from his parents and nourished in him when an infant by his mother’s milk, was fostered still further after he had been handed over to Pharaoh’s daughter, and grew into a firm, decided consciousness of will. All that is related is, how this consciousness broke forth at length in the full-grown man, in the slaying of the Egyptian who had injured a Hebrew (Exo 2:11, Exo 2:12), and in the attempt to reconcile two Hebrew men who were quarrelling (Exo 2:13, Exo 2:14). Both of these occurred “in those days,” i.e., in the time of the Egyptian oppression, when Moses had become great ( as in Gen 21:20), i.e., had grown to be a man. According to tradition he was then forty years old (Act 7:23). What impelled him to this was not “a carnal ambition and longing for action,” or a desire to attract the attention of his brethren, but fiery love to his brethren or fellow-countrymen, as is shown in the expression, “One of his brethren” (Exo 2:11), and deep sympathy with them in their oppression and sufferings; whilst, at the same time, they undoubtedly displayed the fire of his impetuous nature, and the ground-work for his future calling. It was from this point of view that Stephen cited these facts (Act 7:25-26), for the purpose of proving to the Jews of his own age, that they had been from time immemorial “stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears” (Act 7:51). And this view is the correct one. Not only did Moses intend to help his brethren when he thus appeared among them, but this forcible interference on behalf of his brethren could and should have aroused the thought in their minds, that God would send them salvation through him. “But they understood not” (Act 7:25). At the same time Moses thereby declared that he would no longer “be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; and chose 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 of Egypt” (Heb 11:24-26; see Delitzsch in loc.). And this had its roots in faith ( ). But his conduct presents another aspect also, which equally demands consideration. His zeal for the welfare of his brethren urged him forward to present himself as the umpire and judge of his brethren before God had called him to this, and drove him to the crime of murder, which cannot be excused as resulting from a sudden ebullition of wrath.
(Note: The judgment of Augustine is really the true one. Thus, in his c. Faustum Manich. l. 22, c. 70, he says, “I affirm, that the man, though criminal and really the offender, ought not to have been put to death by one who had no legal authority to do so. But minds that are capable of virtues often produce vices also, and show thereby for what virtue they would have been best adapted, if they had but been properly trained. For just as farmers, when they see large herbs, however useless, at once conclude that the land is good for growing corn, so that very impulse of the mind which led Moses to avenge his brother when suffering wrong from a native, without regard to legal forms, was not unfitted to produce the fruits of virtue, but, though hitherto uncultivated, was at least a sign of great fertility.” Augustine then compares this deed to that of Peter, when attempting to defend his Lord with a sword (Mat 26:51), and adds, “Both of them broke through the rules of justice, not through any base inhumanity, but through animosity that needed correction: both sinned through their hatred of another’s wickedness, and their love, though carnal, in the one case towards a brother, in the other to the Lord. This fault needed pruning or rooting up; but yet so great a heart could be as readily cultivated for bearing virtues, as land for bearing fruit.”)
For he acted with evident deliberation. “ He looked this way and that way; and when he saw no one, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand ” (Exo 2:12). Through his life at the Egyptian court his own natural inclinations had been formed to rule, and they manifested themselves on this occasion in an ungodly way. This was thrown in his teeth by the man “in the wrong” ( , Exo 2:13), who was striving with his brother and doing him an injury: “Who made thee a ruler and judge over us” (Exo 2:14)? and so far he was right. The murder of the Egyptian had also become known; and as soon as Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses, who fled into the land of Midian in fear for his life (Exo 2:15). Thus dread of Pharaoh’s wrath drove Moses from Egypt into the desert. For all that, it is stated in Heb 11:27, that “by faith ( ) Moses forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king.” This faith, however, he manifested not by fleeing – his flight was rather a sign of timidity – but by leaving Egypt; in other words, by renouncing his position in Egypt, where he might possibly have softened down the kings’ wrath, and perhaps even have brought help and deliverance to his brethren the Hebrews. By the fact that he did not allow such human hopes to lead him to remain in Egypt, and was not afraid to increase the king’s anger by his flight, he manifested faith in the invisible One as though he saw Him, commending not only himself, but his oppressed nation, to the care and protection of God (vid., Delitzsch on Heb 11:27).
The situation of the land of Midian, to which Moses fled, cannot be determined with certainty. The Midianites, who were descended from Abraham through Keturah (Gen 25:2, Gen 25:4), had their principal settlements on the eastern side of the Elanitic Gulf, from which they spread northwards into the fields of Moab (Gen 36:35; Num 22:4, Num 22:7; Num 25:6, Num 25:17; Num 31:1.; Jdg 6:1.), and carried on a caravan trade through Canaan to Egypt (Gen 37:28, Gen 37:36; Isa 60:6). On the eastern side of the Elanitic Gulf, and five days’ journey from Aela, there stood the town of Madian, the ruins of which are mentioned by Edrisi and Abulfeda, who also speak of a well there, from which Moses watered the flocks of his father-in-law Shoeib (i.e., Jethro). But we are precluded from fixing upon this as the home of Jethro by Exo 3:1, where Moses is said to have come to Horeb, when he drove Jethro’s sheep behind the desert. The Midianites on the eastern side of the Elanitic Gulf could not possibly have led their flocks as far as Horeb for pasturage. We must assume, therefore, that one branch of the Midianites, to whom Jethro was priest, had crossed the Elanitic Gulf, and settled in the southern half of the peninsula of Sinai (cf. Exo 3:1). There is nothing improbable in such a supposition. There are several branches of the Towara Arabs occupying the southern portion of Arabia, that have sprung from Hedjas in this way; and even in the most modern times considerable intercourse was carried on between the eastern side of the gulf and the peninsula, whilst there was formerly a ferry between Szytta, Madian, and Nekba. – The words “ and he sat down ( , i.e., settled) in the land of Midian, and sat down by the well, ” are hardly to be understood as simply meaning that “when he was dwelling in Midian, he sat down one day by a well” ( Baumg.), but that immediately upon his arrival in Midian, where he intended to dwell or stay, he sat down by the well. The definite article before points to the well as the only one, or the principal well in that district. Knobel refers to “the well at Sherm;” but at Sherm el Moye (i.e., water-bay) or Sherm el Bir (well-bay) there are “several deep wells finished off with stones,” which are “evidently the work of an early age, and have cost great labour” ( Burckhardt, Syr. p. 854); so that the expression “ the well” would be quite unsuitable. Moreover there is but a very weak support for Knobel’s attempt to determine the site of Midian, in the identification of the or (of Strabo and Artemidorus) with Madyan.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Moses Slays an Egyptian; Rebukes a Contentious Hebrew. | B. C. 1533. |
11 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. 12 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. 13 And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove 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? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known. 15 Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well.
Moses had now passed the first forty years of his life in the court of Pharaoh, preparing himself for business; and now it was time for him to enter upon action, and,
I. He boldly owns and espouses the cause of God’s people: When Moses was grown he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens, v. 11. The best exposition of these words we have from an inspired pen, Heb. xi. 24-26, where we are told that by this he expressed, 1. His holy contempt of the honours and pleasures of the Egyptian court; he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, for he went out. The temptation was indeed very strong. He had a fair opportunity (as we say) to make his fortune, and to have been serviceable to Israel too, with his interest at court. He was obliged, in gratitude as well as interest, to Pharaoh’s daughter, and yet he obtained a glorious victory by faith over his temptation. He reckoned it much more his honour and advantage to be a son of Abraham than to be the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 2. His tender concern for his poor brethren in bondage, with whom (though he might easily have avoided it) he chose to suffer affliction; he looked on their burdens as one that not only pitied them, but was resolved to venture with them, and, if occasion were, to venture for them.
II. He gives a specimen of the great things he was afterwards to do for God and his Israel in two little instances, related particularly by Stephen (Acts vii. 23, c.) with design to show how their fathers had always resisted the Holy Ghost (<i>v. 51), even in Moses himself, when he first appeared as their deliverer, wilfully shutting their eyes against this day-break of their enlargement. He found himself, no doubt, under a divine direction and impulse in what he did, and that he was in an extraordinary manner called of God to do it. Now observe,
1. Moses was afterwards to be employed in plaguing the Egyptians for the wrongs they had done to God’s Israel; and, as a specimen of that, he killed the Egyptian who smote the Hebrew (Exo 2:11; Exo 2:12); probably it was one of the Egyptian taskmasters, whom he found abusing his Hebrew slave, a relation (as some think) of Moses, a man of the same tribe. It was by special warrant from Heaven (which makes not a precedent in ordinary cases) that Moses slew the Egyptian, and rescued his oppressed brother. The Jew’s tradition is that he did not slay him with any weapon, but, as Peter slew Ananias and Sapphira, with the word of his mouth. His hiding him in the sand signified that hereafter Pharaoh and all his Egyptians should, under the control of the rod of Moses, be buried in the sand of the Red Sea. His taking care to execute this justice privately, when no man saw, was a piece of needful prudence and caution, it being but an assay; and perhaps his faith was as yet weak, and what he did was with some hesitation. Those who come to be of great faith, yet began with a little, and at first spoke tremblingly.
2. Moses was afterwards to be employed in governing Israel, and as a specimen of this, we have him here trying to end a controversy between two Hebrews, in which he is forced (as he did afterwards for forty years) to suffer their manners. Observe here,
(1.) The unhappy quarrel which Moses observed between two Hebrews, v. 13. It does not appear what was the occasion; but, whatever it was, it was certainly very unseasonable for Hebrews to strive with one another when they were all oppressed and ruled with rigour by the Egyptians. Had they not beating enough from the Egyptians, but they must beat one another? Note, [1.] Even sufferings in common do not always unite God’s professing people to one another, so much as one might reasonably expect. [2.] When God raises up instruments of salvation for the church they will find enough to do, not only with oppressing Egyptians, to restrain them, but with quarrelsome Israelites, to reconcile them.
(2.) The way he took of dealing with them; he marked him that caused the division, that did the wrong, and mildly reasoned with him: Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? The injurious Egyptian was killed, the injurious Hebrew was only reprimanded; for what the former did was from a rooted malice, what the latter did we may suppose was only upon a sudden provocation. The wise God makes, and, according to his example, all wise governors make, a difference between one offender and another, according to the several qualities of the same offence. Moses endeavoured to make them friends, a good office; thus we find Christ often reproving his disciples’ strifes (Luk 9:46-50; Luk 22:24-27), for he was a prophet like unto Moses, a healing prophet, a peacemaker, who visited his brethren with a design to slay all enmities. The reproof Moses gave on this occasion may still be of use, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? Note, Smiting our fellows is bad in any, especially in Hebrews, smiting with tongue or hand, either in a way of persecution or in a way of strife and contention. Consider the person thou smitest; it is thy fellow, thy fellow-creature, thy fellow-christian, it is thy fellow-servant, thy fellow-sufferer. Consider the cause, Wherefore smitest? Perhaps it is for no cause at all, or no just cause, or none worth speaking of.
(3.) The ill success of his attempt (v. 14): He said, Who made thee a prince? He that did the wrong thus quarrelled with Moses; the injured party, it should seem, was inclinable enough to peace, but the wrong-doer was thus touchy. Note, It is a sign of guilt to be impatient of reproof; and it is often easier to persuade the injured to bear the trouble of taking wrong than the injurious to bear the conviction of having done wrong.1Co 6:7; 1Co 6:8. It was a very wise and mild reproof which Moses gave to this quarrelsome Hebrew, but he could not bear it, he kicked against the pricks (Acts ix. 5), and crossed questions with his reprover. [1.] He challenges his authority: Who made thee a prince? A man needs no great authority for the giving of a friendly reproof, it is an act of kindness; yet this man needs will interpret it an act of dominion, and represents his reprover as imperious and assuming. Thus when people dislike good discourse, or a seasonable admonition, they will call it preaching, as if a man could not speak a work for God and against sin but he took too much upon him. Yet Moses was indeed a prince and a judge, and knew it, and thought the Hebrews would have understood it, and struck in with him; but they stood in their own light, and thrust him away,Act 7:25; Act 7:27. [2.] He upbraids him with what he had done in killing the Egyptian: Intendest thou to kill me? See what base constructions malice puts upon the best words and actions. Moses, for reproving him is immediately charged with a design to kill him. An attempt upon his sin was interpreted an attempt upon his life; and his having killed the Egyptian was thought sufficient to justify the suspicion; as if Moses made no difference between an Egyptian and a Hebrew. If Moses, to right an injured Hebrew, had put his life in his hand, and slain an Egyptian, he ought therefore to have submitted to him, not only as a friend to the Hebrews, but as a friend that had more than ordinary power and zeal. But he throws that in his teeth as a crime which was bravely done, and was intended as a specimen of the promised deliverance; if the Hebrews had taken the hint, and come in to Moses as their head and captain, it is probable that they would have been delivered now; but, despising their deliverer, their deliverance was justly deferred, and their bondage prolonged forty years, as afterwards their despising Canaan kept them out of it forty years more. I would, and you would not. Note, Men know not what they do, nor what enemies they are to their own interest, when they resist and despise faithful reproofs and reprovers. When the Hebrews strove with Moses, God sent him away into Midian, and they never heard of him for forty years; thus the things that belonged to their peace were hidden from their eyes, because they knew not the day of their visitation. As to Moses, we may look on it as a great damp and discouragement to him. He was now choosing to suffer affliction with the people of God, and embracing the reproach of Christ; and now, at his first setting out, to meet with this affliction and reproach from them was a very sore trial of his resolution. He might have said, “If this be the spirit of the Hebrews, I will go to court again, and be the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.” Note, First, We must take heed of being prejudiced against the ways and people of God by the follies and peevishness of some particular persons that profess religion. Secondly, It is no new thing for the church’s best friends to meet with a great deal of opposition and discouragement in their healing, saving attempts, even from their own mother’s children; Christ himself was set at nought by the builders, and is still rejected by those he would save.
(4.) The flight of Moses to Midian, in consequence. The affront given him thus far proved a kindness to him; it gave him to understand that his killing the Egyptian was discovered, and so he had time to make his escape, otherwise the wrath of Pharaoh might have surprised him and taken him off. Note, God can overrule even the strife of tongues, so as, one way or other, to bring good to his people out of it. Information was brought to Pharaoh (and it is well if it was not brought by the Hebrew himself whom Moses reproved) of his killing the Egyptian; warrants are presently out for the apprehending of Moses, which obliged him to shift for his own safety, by flying into the land of Midian, v. 15. [1.] Moses did this out of a prudent care of his own life. If this be his forsaking of Egypt which the apostle refers to as done by faith (Heb. xi. 27), it teaches us that when we are at any time in trouble and danger for doing our duty the grace of faith will be of good use to us in taking proper methods for our own preservation. Yet there it is said, He feared not the wrath of the king; here it is said he feared, v. 14. He did not fear with a fear of diffidence and amazement, which weakens and has torment, but with a fear of diligence, which quickened him to take that way which Providence opened to him for his own preservation. [2.] God ordered it for wise and holy ends. Things were not yet ripe for Israel’s deliverance: the measure of Egypt’s iniquity was not yet full; the Hebrews were not sufficiently humbled, nor were they yet increased to such a multitude as God designed; Moses is to be further fitted for the service, and therefore is directed to withdraw for the present, till the time to favour Israel, even the set time, should come. God guided Moses to Midian because the Midianites were of the seed of Abraham, and retained the worship of the true God among them, so that he might have not only a safe but a comfortable settlement among them. And through this country he was afterwards to lead Israel, with which (that he might do it the better) he now had opportunity of making himself acquainted. Hither he came, and sat down by a well, tired and thoughtful, at a loss, and waiting to see which way Providence would direct him. It was a great change with him, since he was but the other day at ease in Pharaoh’s court: thus God tried his faith, and it was found to praise and honour.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Verses 11-15:
Stephen summarized Moses’ life, Ac 7:20-36. He implied that Moses at an early age was aware of God’s purpose for his brethren, and that he was sympathetic to their sufferings. He attempted by his own efforts to deliver them from this oppression. He murdered an Egyptian slave-master who was mistreating a Hebrew. He thought his brethren would understand his motive. They did not.
Moses made a choice which was to affect his entire life. He chose to become identified with God’s people, rather than to enjoy the pleasures and luxuries of Egypt (Heb 11:24). He made this choice on the basis of faith. This faith must have been instilled in him during the years Jochebed cared for him as his nurse. This emphasizes the importance of early childhood training.
The day following the murder of the Egyptian, Moses attempted to reconcile two Hebrews who were having a dispute. The one in the wrong responded to this by referring to the murder. Moses thought his crime was hidden. But now it became evident that it was not. Pharaoh soon heard of the crime, and Moses became a fugitive from Egyptian justice.
Moses fled to Midian. This refers to no particular geographical region, since these people were nomads. Their principal settlements appear to have been on the Eastern side of the Gulf of Akabah. At times they ranged as far north as the territory of Moab. They also roamed throughout the Sinai Peninsula, where they apparently were at the time Moses encountered them.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
11. And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown. Now did that faith which the Apostle celebrates begin to shew itself, when Moses, despising the pleasures and riches of the Court, chose rather to suffer the reproach of Christ, than to be accounted happy apart from companionship with the chosen people. Nor was it only love for his nation, but faith in the promises, which induced him to undertake this charge, by which he knew that he should incur the hatred of all the Egyptians. For although he did not immediately resign his wealth, and honorable station, and influence, and power, this was, as it were, the preparation for divesting himself of all these deceitful allurements. Whence the Apostle says,
“
he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.” (Heb 11:24.)
There is certainly no doubt but that he avowed his desire to return to his true and natural kindred, from whom he had been separated: for we gather from the context, that he did not come to see his brethren only to pity their estate, but to bring them some consolation, and even to share their lot. Nor was the Court so near that he could daily visit them in his ordinary walk. And it is said that “he went out the second day.” Therefore, he privately withdrew himself from the Court, or, having asked permission, preferred to expose himself to enmity, rather than not discover his affectionate regard to his people. But he relates that he looked on their burdens, or troubles, so that their unjust oppression must have naturally aroused him to give them help. He adds, too, another motive, that he “saw an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew.” It is probable that they were harshly treated by their taskmasters if they were slow in their work, and since they were given over to the will of wicked men, that every one might exercise the same cruelty upon them with impunity.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Exo. 2:11-12
THE OPPRESSOR SLAIN; OR, A WRONG WAY OF REPROVING INJURY
I. There are many instances of cruel oppression in the world. Slavery is almost obsolete. We have not now to build treasure cities for a tyrant king. Our lives are not made bitter by unrequited labour. Yet the spirit of tyranny and injustice is not yet gone.
1. There is oppression in the commercial life of men. The rich smite the poorthe fortunate the unfortunatethe defrauder the honest tradesman. There are many scenes enacted daily in the commercial life of men in which we see an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew.
2. There is oppression in the social life of men. The haughty frown upon the humblethe lordly render servile the poor.
3. There is oppression in the political life of men. There is the oppression of an unjust kingof a politic statesmanof an unruly crowdof an unrighteous edict.
4. There is oppression in the Church life of men. The man of little religion wishes to dictateto perplexthose who are more devout than himself. In the sanctuary we find an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew.
II. It is the duty of a good and patriotic man to oppose these manifestations of oppression.
1. Because he should have sympathy with the burdens of the oppressed. And looked on their burden. We little dream of the burdens occasioned by the cruel oppressions of this land. How many homes are rendered sad by the despotism of a cruel husband. How many tradesmen are kept in want through the demands of an unthinking landlord. The good man should have sympathy with these in their griefand strive to relieve itby the pressby the power of birthby the influence of a kindly example.
2. Because he should recognise the brotherhood of men. One of his brethren. This argument of humanity should enlist all godly souls against every kind of oppression.
3. Because he should recognise the claim of nationality Smiting an Hebrew. While the claims of brotherhood are co-extensive with the universethose arising from nationality render them more emphatic. A Hebrew should defend a Hebrewunder the relation of citizenship, as well as that of brother. Piety intensifies the national relationships of life.
III. That a good man must be careful as to the spirit and manner in which he resents oppression, or he may be as cruel as those whom he reproves. He slew the Egyptian. Moses was right in sympathising with the burden of the Hebrew, in resenting an injury done to one of his own nationality, but he did wrong in murdering the offender. In defending the oppressed, he became an oppressor himself. He meant rightthe impulse was heroicbut it was not under sufficient control. A good man ought to be indignant at the sight of oppressionbut not passionatenot revengeful.
1. His conscience told him that he was doing wrong. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, &c. If we cannot rebuke oppression in the presence of others, our method of rebuke must be imprudent or sinful. Do not be afraid to let the world see you reprove a social tyrant. The sympathies of all good citizens will be with you. Embody your conscience in your rebuke.
2. The spirit and manner in which the oppressor should be reproved.
(1) Boldly.
(2) Firmly.
(3) Sometimes kindly.
(4) Make him feel the wrong of his conduct.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Exo. 2:11. Though Moses was elevated to a princely position, he was not unmindful of his enslaved brethren. He was not so charmed with the luxury and gaiety of his own surroundings as to forget theirs. He was not so selfish as to be merely content with his own happiness. The mothers training had naturally linked his soul to the history of his nation.
Some people will never look on the burdens of their brethren:
1. They pretend not to see them.
2. They have no sympathy with them.
3. They fear lest their purse, or energy should be taxed.
4. They miss the luxury of relieving them.
The servants of God must have the experience of growth.
When the Church is oppressed, the heroic good must run to her aid.
Exo. 2:12. The inquiring look of conscience:
1. It was anxious.
2. It was suspicious.
3. It was troubled.
4. It was perplexed.
5. It was mistaken.
The inquiring look of conscience:
1. Gives a moment for reflection.
2. Indicates the moral evil of the deed.
3. Suspects an unhappy issue from the deed.
HIDDEN SIN.He slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. I. Hidden by fallacy. The Egyptian. He was cruelunjust; had I not a right to kill him? Moses might reason thus to convince himself. A man must bury sin out of the sight of his own conscience, before he can be happyby false argument or true. II. Hidden by folly. In the sand:
1. Would leave traces of his deed.
2. The dead body would be easily discovered. So all our efforts to bury sin are equally futile. God sees it. He can lead men to its grave. Sin leaves traces. It is better not to be under the necessity of making the soul into a grave, or any spot of life into a tomb. If we do, there will sure to come a resurrection. A man who is going to commit sin, requires to have all his wits about him.
The absence of human observation is a poor argument for, and a wretched consolation in sin.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Exo. 2:11-14. In the ringing of bells, whilst every one keeps his due time and order, what a sweet and harmonious sound they make! All the neighbouring villages are cheered with the sound of them; but when once they jar and check each other, either jangling together or striking preposterously, how harsh and unpleasing is that noise. So that as we testify our public rejoicings by an orderly and well-timed peal, when we would signify the town is on fire, we ring the bells backward in a confused manner. It is just thus in the church: When every one knows his station, authority, and keeps his due rank, there is melodious concert of comfort and contentment: but when either states or persons will be clashing with each other, the discord is grievous and, prejudicial [Halls Occasional Meditations.].
Exo. 2:13. In most quarrels there is fault on both sides. A quarrel may be compared to a spark, which cannot be produced without a flint as well as a steel, either of them may hammer on wood for ever, no fire will follow [Cotton.]
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(11) In those days.Notes of time are used with considerable latitude by the sacred writers. (Comp. Genesis 38; 2Ki. 20:1.) According to the tradition followed by St. Stephen (Act. 7:23), Moses was full forty years old when he took the step here indicated. We might have expected him to have come forward sooner; but there may have been difficulties in his so doing. It is remarkable that he does not tell us anything of his life during youth or early manhood. Later tradition was full of details (Stanley, Lectures on the Jewish Church, pp. 107-9), which, however, are worthless.
He went out unto his brethren.It is probable that Pharaohs daughter had never concealed from Moses that he was not her own child, but one of the oppressed race. She may even have allowed him to hold communication with his family. It is not, however, a mere visit that is here spoken of, but a complete withdrawal from the palace, and renunciation of his position at the court. 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 (Heb. 11:24-25). It is the first sign of that strong sympathy and tender affection for his people which characterises him throughout the narrative, and culminates in the pathetic cry, Forgive them; and if not, blot me out of thy book (Exo. 32:32).
Looked on their burthensi.e., examined into their condition, watched their treatment, made himself acquainted with it by personal inspection.
He spied an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew.Probably a taskmaster chastising one of the labourers, whom he accused of idling. St. Stephen regards the act as one of oppression and wrong-doing (Act. 7:24). Moses must certainly have viewed it in this light, or he would not have been so moved to indignation as to kill the Egyptian. Though not a cruel nation, the Egyptians, no doubt, like other slave-drivers, occasionally abused their power, and treated the unfortunate labourers with cruelty.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
MOSES’S FAILURE, AND FLIGHT FROM EGYPT, Exo 2:11-22.
11, 12. Looked on their burdens Looked with sympathy and longed to help . St . Stephen says (Act 7:23) that he was now forty years old . In the prime of his powers, with the culture of Heliopolis and the faith of Jochebed seeing his great mission dimly rising before him with the quick sympathies of a kinsman and a patriot, and with a fiery soul that pined for action, he offered to cast in his lot with his brethren, and put himself at their head, “esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt . ” But neither he nor the people were yet ready . He was too precipitate and self-confident, nor did he yet see the immensity of his real mission. He needed the forty years’ desert chastisement and the solemn converse of the solitudes of Horeb. Nor had Israel yet felt the throe in which a nation is born. He felt that he was the born and commissioned leader to break the Egyptian chain; he felt that he had the revolutionary right to strike; but erred in thinking that the hour had come.
He looked this way and that way Not from criminal guilt, but with soldierly wariness. He looked on the war as begun, and himself as the captain in the field, and “supposed that his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them.” Act 7:25.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Moses Has To Flee From Egypt ( Exo 2:11-15 b).
Moses would have been educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, being groomed for high office. Loyal relatives who had no pretensions to a claim to the throne were always a bonus to ancient kings. But the writer is not interested in that. What mattered was that Moses aligned himself with the people of God.
a When grown up Moses goes among his Hebrew brothers and sees an Egyptian taskmaster beating one of them severely (Exo 2:11).
b Seeing no one around he kills the Egyptian and hides his body in the sand (Exo 2:12).
c Next day he sees two Hebrews fighting fiercely and challenges the aggressor as to why he is doing it (Exo 2:13).
c The aggressor lets him know that he knows about the murder and Moses is afraid because the thing was known (Exo 2:14).
b When Pharaoh hears of the thing he seeks to have Moses executed (Exo 2:15 a).
a Moses flees from the face of Pharaoh and dwells in the land of Midian (Exo 2:15 b).
We note that in ‘a’ Moses chooses to be with his Hebrew brothers and in the parallel has therefore to flee from Pharaoh’s face for foreign parts (compare Heb 11:24). He had had to choose whose side he was on. In ‘b’ he kills the Egyptian and in the parallel punishment is demanded for the killing. In ‘c’ he challenges the aggressor and in the parallel the aggressor replies.
Exo 2:11-12
‘And it happened in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brothers and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brothers, and he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man there, he smote the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.’
“When Moses was grown up.” What a large compass is contained in this verse. Moses’ education from ‘the teacher of the children of the king’, his tuition under some important court official (with the help of the priestly caste) which would probably include reading and writing, transcription of classical texts and civil and military administration, his experience of courtly affairs, his grounding in the faith of his fathers by his mother, until at last he was ‘grown up’ and had reached manhood. But that he knew his background comes out in the incident here (his natural mother had probably made sure of that). And he goes out to visit his relatives. He saw them as his ‘brothers’. He deliberately aligned himself with the people of God.
And when he saw the burdens they had to bear, and especially some particularly vicious treatment from an Egyptian overseer, he could stand it no longer and, after making sure that there was no one about, slew the overseer. Then he disposed of the body in a sandy grave. The arrogance of his upbringing comes out here. He was not afraid to act (compare also 2:17-19), and he did not feel bound by the law. The beating must have been particularly severe for Moses to act as he did for he must have seen beatings often before. But it does bring out the oneness that he felt with his fellow-Hebrews. Son of Pharaoh he may be, but he loved his kinsfolk, and he loved the God of the Hebrews.
Was Moses wrong in what he did? If the beating might have led to the death of the Hebrew he was surely in the right. And we can well argue that it led to a necessary training in wilderness conditions which would stand him in good stead in the Exodus. On the other hand it might be seen as precipitating God’s plans and, as a result, causing a long delay. It is again illustrative of God’s sovereignty. Whether it was His ‘ideal purpose’ for Moses at that time is another question. But that did not matter. God simply incorporated it in His sovereign plan.
Exo 2:13-14
‘And he went out the second day and behold, two men of the Hebrews were fighting together, and he said to him who did the wrong, “Why do you smite your fellow?” And he said, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you think to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” And Moses was afraid and said, “Surely the thing is known.” ’
The following day he again went out among his fellow-kinsmen and he saw two Hebrews fighting together, a situation clearly caused by the particular viciousness of one of them. This concerned him for he felt that they should all work together in harmony, and he felt very much one of them. He thought that they should be looking out for each other. But he was learning the lesson that was to come home to him even more sharply later, that men are self-willed and selfish, and are generally out for what they can get. They did not want his interference.
When he tried to intervene he discovered that the most belligerent one was not grateful to him for the help he had given one of their fellows. Rather the culprit, who two days previously would probably have responded with submission to such an important man, had lost all fear of Moses because he felt that he now had a hold over him. He knew what Moses had done.
“Who made you a prince and a judge over us?” The answer, as the writer knew, and wants us to recognise, was ‘God’, and a prince and judge over them Moses would later be, but he had much to go through before then. Meanwhile the questioner was rather being derisive. Another answer could have been, ‘Pharaoh’. But not when he had disobeyed Pharaoh and betrayed his trust. Once the truth was known he would no longer have the support and authority of Pharaoh. Let him recognise that he who had given him his authority also had authority over him and would call him to account. Or the man may simply have been saying, “Get lost. Who do you think you are? You have no authority over us. We are not your responsibility. And I have enough on you to get you into very serious trouble.”
“Surely the thing is known.” He realised that the man he had saved had probably told someone, and that others also may have seen what had happened. And he feared that the news would spread like wildfire. Many would be jealous of Moses and would not think well towards him, and they would be quite likely to tell others in authority who hated him. Thus he recognised that the news would pass from man to man until it reached the ears of Pharaoh.
Exo 2:15 a
‘Now when Pharaoh heard this thing he sought to slay Moses.’
As he might have expected the news inevitably filtered through to the Egyptians and then to Pharaoh himself. We can imagine what Pharaoh thought when he found that one of his princes had taken sides with the Hebrews against an Egyptian taskmaster. This was flagrant opposition to Pharaoh and could not be left unpunished, for if it was the Hebrews might be encouraged and rebellion might ensue. He might indeed have seen it as the first beginnings of a rebellion. Thus his only option was a quick and sharp response. The order went out for the arrest of Moses, with a view to his execution.
“He sought to slay Moses.” Compare 4:24 where Yahweh will outwardly seek the death of Moses, although the verb for killing is different. Pharaoh’s was to be a legal execution for disloyalty and treason, Yahweh’s an action because of a covenant breach. But both had in mind that Moses had ‘betrayed his trust’.
Exo 2:15 b
‘But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian.’
Moses knew what was in store for him and that his only hope lay in escape. But he little realised that he was treading a path then that he would again tread many years later with responsibility for a large number of people. It was preparing him for what was to come. So he fled the country, taking a similar route to that which he would take later with the Israelites, and that taken by a man called Sinuhe whose life story we discover in Egyptian records. Indeed it was a route by which many were known to attempt their escape.
“Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian.” is there here a reflection of Gen 4:16? ‘And Cain went out from before the face of Yahweh and dwelt in the land of Nod’. Both had committed murder, but has the writer in mind that while in the case of Cain he had become estranged from Yahweh, Moses had only become estranged from Pharaoh? Yet both would be a long time in the wilderness (Nod was the land of ‘wandering’), and both would find mercy of a kind. On the other hand Cain turned to city-building, while Moses found his way to the mountain of God. Therein lies the difference.
“Dwelt in the land of Midian.” The important thing was to go where he could not be found. Canaan was under Egyptian jurisdiction. But the Midianites, connected with Abraham through Keturah’s son Midian, whose name they had taken, were a roving people and the wilderness was their home. Nor did they owe allegiance to Egypt. They lived to the south and east of Canaan in the semi-desert. They were not a people who would prove helpful to Pharaoh in his search, or among whom he could pursue enquiries with any hope of finding something out. The tribespeople would be inaccessible and uncommunicative, and besides, once he had disappeared Moses was probably not considered to be important enough to make too great a fuss over. No one would know where he had gone. Pharaoh could afford to wait until he surfaced.
The Midianites already used camels (Gen 37:25) which they would later use extensively (Jdg 6:5). They were split into a number of groups but could come together when the need arose or when it was of some benefit to them.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Moses’ Flight to the Land of Midian Exo 2:11-22 records the flight of Moses to the land of Midian and his marriage to the daughter of the priest of this region. Moses knew that he was a Hebrew since childhood. The occasion of his flight was due to the fact that he killed an Egyptian and brought the wrath of Pharaoh against him. At some point in time Moses came to understand his future role in leading Israel out of bondage (Act 7:25). In Exo 2:11-12 Moses tries to deliver the Israelites in the flesh. The result is murder. Moses had to learn after spending forty years in the wilderness that God will do things in His time, not man’s time or man’s ways. God’s ways are not our ways (Isa 55:8-9).
Act 7:25, “For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not.”
Isa 55:8, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
It is very likely that God’s plan was to deliver Israel by Moses without the forty-year exile of Moses in the wilderness. God’s promise was to deliver Israel after four hundred (400) years (Gen 15:13). Instead, Israel stayed in bondage for four hundred and thirty (430) years (Exo 12:40-41). Perhaps this thirty-year delay was caused by the rejection of Moses by the Hebrews in Exo 2:13-15, when they accused Moses of being a killer; or, perhaps it was caused by Moses’ efforts of trying to deliver the Hebrews before it was time. Thus, Moses would have acted in zeal, in the flesh, and not in the power of God.
Gen 15:13, “And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;”
Exo 12:40-41, “Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.”
Moses stayed in the wilderness for forty years. A forty-year period in the Scriptures represents a period of trial and testing. For example, God judged and tested Israel in the wilderness for 40 years for their rebellion; and Jesus was tested in the wilderness for forty days. Perhaps this thirty-year delay was a judgment on the Hebrews for rejecting Moses as their deliverer, causing him to go into exile for forty years.
Exo 2:14 “Who made thee a prince and a judge over us” Comments – The Hebrews asked Moses who made him a prince or a judge over them. Later in the wilderness, God did make Moses a judge over Israel. This statement is a foreshadowing of his future role as a leader over Israel. It will become typical of how the children Israel are going to begin murmuring against Moses in wilderness. Note:
Exo 18:13, “And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses sat to judge the people: and the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening.”
Note the New Testament references to Exo 2:14:
Act 7:27-28, “But he that did his neighbour wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? Wilt thou kill me, as thou diddest the Egyptian yesterday? ”
Act 7:35, “This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush.”
Exo 2:15 Comments – The land of Midian was just outside of Pharaoh’s jurisdiction, so that Moses was safe there.
Exo 2:15-22 Moses and the Priest of Midian Exo 2:15-22 records the early years of Moses in the land of Midian. He marries a daughter of the priest of Midian, who bears him a son named Gershom.
Exo 2:16 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock.
Exo 2:16
Gen 25:1-2, “Then again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah. And she bare him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian , and Ishbak, and Shuah.”
Exo 2:16 “and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock” – Word Study on “the troughs” – Gesenius tells us that the Hebrew word “troughs” “rahat” ( ) (H7298) literally means, “a watering trough” (Gen 30:38; Gen 30:41, Exo 2:16). He gives us its figurative meaning as “ringlets, curls (apparently so called from their flowing down)” (Son 7:5). BDB tells us that it means, “a trough, a hollow, a lock of hair,” suggesting that this meaning may be dubious. Strong says it probably comes from an unused root meaning, “to hollow out.” The Enhanced Strong says this word is used four times in the Old Testament, being translated in the KJV as “gutter 2, trough 1, gallery 1.”
Gen 30:38, “And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink.”
Gen 30:41, “And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters , that they might conceive among the rods.”
Exo 2:16, “Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock.”
Son 7:5, “Thine head upon thee is like Carmel, and the hair of thine head like purple; the king is held in the galleries .”
Exo 2:18 Comments – Reuel is the same individual as Jethro, or Jether and Hobab (see Exo 3:1, Num 10:29).
Exo 3:1, “Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.”
Num 10:29, “And Moses said unto Hobab , the son of Raguel the Midianite, Moses’ father in law, We are journeying unto the place of which the LORD said, I will give it you: come thou with us, and we will do thee good: for the LORD hath spoken good concerning Israel.”
Exo 2:22 Word Study on “Gershom” – Gesenius says the name “Gershom” ( ) (H1648) means, “expulsion.” Strong says it means, “a refugee.” PTW says it means, “exile.”
Exo 2:24 Comments – God cannot lie (Num 23:19). He had a covenant with Abraham (Exo 3:7). Therefore, God was watching out for the children of Abraham.
Num 23:19, “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”
Exo 3:7, “And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;”
Exo 2:23-25 Comments – Israel’s Cry for Deliverance – God hears the cry of His children.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Moses Attempts to Deliver His People
v. 11. 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. v. 12. And he looked this way and that way, v. 13. And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together, v. 14. And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? v. 15. Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION.
Exo 2:11-15
FIRST ATTEMPT OF MOSES TO DELIVER HIS NATION, AND ITS FAILURE.
After Moses was grown up according to the tradition accepted by St. Stephen (Act 7:23), when he was “full forty years old” having become by some means or other acquainted with the circumstances of his birth, which had most probably never been concealed from him, he determined to “go out” to his brethren, see with his own eyes what their treatment was, and do his best to alleviate it. He had as yet no Divine mission, no command from God to act as he did, but only a natural sympathy with his people, and a feeling perhaps that in his position he was bound, more than any one else, to make some efforts to ameliorate what must have been generally known to be a hard lot. It is scarcely likely that he had formed any definite plans. How he should act would depend on what he should see. Thus far, his conduct deserves nothing but praise. It only perhaps a little surprises us (if St. Stephen’s tradition accords with fact) that he did not earlier in his life take some steps in the direction here indicated. We are bound to recollect, however, that we know very little of the restraints under which he would have been laid whether a severe law of etiquette, or the commands of his benefactress, may not have hampered him, and caused the long delay which strikes us as strange. Living with the court in Tunis probably he would have been required to make a strong effort to break through an established routine, and strike out for himself a new and unheard-of course, if he quitted the princess’s household to make a tour of inspection among the enslaved Hebrews. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews seems to consider that his act in “going out” to “look upon the burdens” of his people involved a renunciation of his court life a refusal to be called any more the son of Pharaoh’s daughter (Heb 11:24); a casting-in of his lot with his brethren, so as thenceforth to be a sharer in their afflictions (ib. ver. 24). If this were so, we can well understand a long period of hesitation before the resolve was made to take the course from which there was no retreating.
Exo 2:11
When Moses was grown. “When he had become a .mall of vigour and intelligence” (Kalisch). He went out. The expression is emphatic, and accords with the view above exhibited that a complete change in the life of Moses was now effected, that the court was quitted, with its attractions and its temptations, its riches and its pleasures; and the position of adopted child of a princess forfeited. He spied an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew. It is not certain that this was one of the “taskmasters” (Exo 1:11); but most probably he was either a taskmaster, or one of the officers employed by them. Such persons are on the Egyptian monuments represented as armed with long rods, said to be “made of a tough pliant wood imported from Syria”. It was their right to employ their rods on the backs of the idle, a right which was sure to degenerate in many cases into tyrannous and cruel oppression. We may assume that it was an instance of such abuse of power that excited the anger of Moses; “seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed” (Act 7:24). For a light fault, or no fault at all, a heavy chastisement was being inflicted.
Exo 2:12
He looked this way and that way. Passion did not so move him as to make him reckless. He looked round to see that he was not observed,, and then, when he saw there was no man, slew the Egyptian. A wrongful act, the outcome of an ardent but undisciplined spirit; not to be placed among the deeds “which history records as noble and magnanimous (Kalisch), but among those which are hasty and regrettable. A warm sympathetic nature, an indignant hatred of wrong-doing, may have lain at the root of the crime, but do not justify it, though they may qualify our condemnation of it. And hid him in the sand. There is abundant “sand” in the “field of Zoan,” and in all the more eastern portion of the land of Goshen.
Exo 2:13
The second day. i.e. “the following day.” See Act 7:26. Him that did the wrong. Literally, “the wicked one.” Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? Literally “thy neighbour.” In interposing here Moses certainly did nothing but what was right. The strife was one in which blows were being exchanged, and it is the duty of everyone in such a case, by persuasion at any rate. to seek to stop the combat.
Exo 2:14
Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? It was not his interference now, but his wrongful act of the day before, that exposed Moses to this rebuke. There was no assumption of lordship or of judicial authority in the bare inquiry, “Why smitest thou thy neighhour?” nor in the fuller phrase reported by St. Stephen, “Sirs, ye are brethren. Why do ye wrong one to another?” (Act 7:26), unless as coupled with the deed of the preceding day. Thus the violence of today renders of no avail the loving persuasion of to-morrow; the influence for good which the education and position of Moses might have enabled him to exercise upon his nation was lost by the very act to which he had been urged by his sympathy with them; it was an act which could be thrown in his teeth, an act which he could not justify, which he trembled to find was known. The retort of the aggressor stopped his mouth at once, and made his interposition valueless.
Exo 2:15
Pharaoh heard. If we have been right in supposing the Pharaoh of the original oppression to have been Seti I., the present Pharaoh, from whom Moses flies when he is “full forty years old” (Act 7:23), and who does not die till Moses is near eighty, must be his son, the Great Rameses, Rameses II. This prince was associated by his father at the age of ten or twelve, and reigned sixty-seven years, as appears from his monuments. He is the only king of the New Empire whose real reign exceeded forty years, and thus the only monarch who fulfils the conditions required by the narrative of Exodus supplemented by St. Stephen’s speech in the Acts. He sought to slay Moses. We need not understand from this expression that the Pharaoh’s will was thwarted or opposed by anything but the sudden disappearance of Moses. As St. Stephen says (Act 7:29), “Then fled Moses at this saying,” i.e. at the mere words of the aggressor, “Writ thou slay me as thou didst the Egyptian?” Moses fled, knowing what he had to expect, quitted Egypt, went to Midian; and the Egyptian monarch “sought to slay him” too late. The land of Midian is a somewhat vague expression, for the Midianites were nomads, and at different times occupied distinct and even remote localities. Their principal settlements appear to have been on the eastern side of the Elanitic Gulf (Gulf of Akabah); but at times they extended northwards to the confines of Moab (Gen 36:35; Num 22:4; Num 22:7, etc.), and westward into the Sinaitic peninsula, which appears to have been “the land of Midian where to Moses fled (see below, Exo 3:1). The Midianites are not expressly mentioned in the Egyptian inscriptions. They were probably included among the Mentu, with whom the Egyptians contended in the Sinaitic region, and from whom they took the copper district north-west of Sinai. And he sat down by a well. Rather “and he dwelt by the well.” He took up his abode in the neighbourhood of the principal well belonging to the tract here called Midian. The tract was probably one of no great size, an offshoot of the greater Midian on the other side of the gulf. We cannot identify the well; but it was certainly not that near the town of Modiana, spoken of by Edrisi and Abulfeda, which was in Arabia Proper, on the east of the gulf.
HOMILETICS.
Exo 2:11-12
1. Moses as a would-be deliverer.
Moses, as a would-be deliverer, shows us how zeal may outrun discretion. Actuated by deep love for his brethren, he had quitted the court, resigned his high prospects, thrown in his lot with his nation, and “gone out” to see with his own eyes their condition. No doubt he came upon many sights which vexed and angered him, but was able to restrain himself. At last, however, he became witness of a grievous an extreme case of oppression. Some Hebrew, we may suppose, weaker than the generality, delicate in constitution or suffering from illness, rested awhile from his weary labour under the scorching sun, and gave himself a few moments of delightful, because rare, repose. But the eye of the taskmaster was on him. Suddenly his rest was interrupted by a shower of severe blows, which were rained pitilessly upon his almost naked frame, raising great wheals, from which the blood streamed down in frequent heavy drops. Moses could no longer contain himself. Pity for the victim and hatred of the oppressor surged up in his heart. “Many a time and oft” had he wished to be a deliverer of his brethren, to revenge their wrongs, to save them from their sufferings. Here was an opportunity to make a beginning. He would save at any rate this one victim, he would punish this one wrongdoer. There was no danger, for no one was looking (Exo 2:12), and surely the man whom he saved would not betray him. So, having a weapon in his belt, or finding one ready to his hand a stone, it may be, or a working man’s implement he raised it, and striking a swift strong blow, slew the Egyptian. In thus acting he was doubly wrong. He acted as an avenger, when he had no authority from God or man to be one; and, had he had authority, still he would have inflicted a punishment disproportionate to the offence. Such a beating as he had himself administered the taskmaster may have deserved, but not to be cut off in his sins; not to be sent to his last account without warning, without time even for a repentant thought. The deed done, conscience reasserted herself: it was a deed of darkness; a thing which must be concealed: so Moses dug a hole in the sand, and hid the dreadful evidence of his crime. It does not appear that the man whom he had delivered helped him; he was perhaps too much exhausted with what he had suffered, and glad to creep to his home. Moses, too, returned to his own abode, well satisfied, as it would seem, on the whole, with what he had done. Having struck the blow, and buried the body unseen, he did not fear detection; and he probably persuaded himself that the man deserved his fate. He may have even had self-complacent thoughts, have admired his own courage and strength, and thought how he had at last come to be a deliverer indeed. In reality, however, he had disqualified himself for the office; he had committed a crime which forced him to quit his brethren and fly to a distance, and be thus unable to do anything towards mitigating their sufferings for the space of forty years! Had he been patient, had he been content with remonstrances, had he used his superior strength to rescue the oppressed without injuring the oppressor, he would have shown himself fit to be a deliverer, and God might not improbably have assigned him his mission at once. But his self-willed and wrongful mode of proceeding showed that he needed a long course of discipline before he could properly be entrusted with the difficult task which God designed him to accomplish. Forty years of almost solitary life in the Sinaitic wilderness chastened the hot spirit which was now too wild and untamed for a leader and governor of men.
Exo 2:13-14
2. Moses as a peacemaker.
A great sin disqualifies a man for many a long year from setting himself up to be a guide and teacher of others. It may at any time be thrown in his teeth, nothing could be better intended than the efforts of Moses, on the day after his crime, to compose the quarrels of his brethren, and set the disputants at one. nor is he fairly taxable with any want of equity, or even of tact, in the manner in which he set to work. He rebuked “him that did the wrong.” His rebuke was mild in character a mere expostulation; “Wherefore smitest thou,” etc. Nay, according to St. Stephen (Act 7:26), it was not even an expostulation addressed to an individual, but a general address which avoided the assignment of special blame to either disputant. “Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?” Yet it had no effect; it failed utterly. The tables were at once turned on the expostulator by the inquiry, “Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? Intendest thou to slay me as thou didst the Egyptian?” Conscience makes cowards of us all. Moses, hearing this, had no more to say; he had essayed to pluck out the mote from his brother’s eye, and behold! the beam was in his own eye. His brethren were quarrelsome and injurious; but he he was a murderer.
Exo 2:15.
3. Moses as a fugitive.
Men’s sins are sure to “find them out.” Moses had thought that he would not be detected. He had carefully “looked this way and that way” ere he struck the blow, and had seen “that there was no man.” He had at once hidden the body of his victim underground. He had concluded that the Hebrew whom he had delivered from the oppressor would keep silence; if from no other reason, yet at any rate to save himself from being suspected. But the man, it appears, had chattered. Perhaps from no ill motive, but simply from inability to keep a secret. He had told his wife, or his daughter, or his neighbour; and at once “the thing was known.” While Moses imagined his deed shrouded in deepest secrecy, it was the general talk. All the Hebrews knew of it; and soon the Egyptians knew also. Presently it came to the ears of the king, whose business it was to punish crime, and who, naturally and rightfully, “sought to slay Moses.” But he had fled away; he had put seas and deserts between himself and the royal vengeance; he was a refugee in Midian. So, though he escaped the public execution which Egyptian law awarded to his crime, he had to expiate it by forty years of exile and of hard service, a hireling shepherd tending the flock of another man.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
Exo 2:11-12
The choice of Moses.
Underlying this episode of killing the Egyptian there is that crisis in the history of Moses to which reference is made so strikingly in the eleventh of the Hebrews “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather,” etc. (Heb 11:24-27). Two views may be taken of the episode. Either, as might be held, the elements of decision were floating in an unfixed state in the mind of Moses, when this event happened, and precipitated a choice; or, what seems more likely, the choice had already been made, and the resolution of Moses .already taken, and this was but the first outward manifestation of it. In either case, the act in question was a deliberate committal of himself to his brethren’s side the crossing of the Rubicon, which necessitated thereafter a casting-in of his lot with theirs. View this choice of Moses
I. AS A RESULT OF MENTAL AND MORAL AWAKENING. “When Moses was grown.” With years came thought; with thought “the philosophic mind;” with this, power of observation. Moses began to think for himself, to see things with his own eyes. What he saw made evident to him the impossibility of halting longer between two opinions. He had not before felt the same necessity of definitely making up his mind whether he would be Hebrew or Egyptian. He had not seen in the same way the impossibility of retaining a sort of connection with both sympathising with the Hebrews, yet enjoying Egypt’s pleasures. Now there came awakening. The two spheres of life fell apart to his vision in their manifest incongruity in their painful, and even, in some respects, hideous contrast. He may now be Hebrew or Egyptian; he can no longer be both. Up to this time choice could be staved off. Now it is forced upon him. To determine now not to choose, would be to choose for Egypt. He knows his duty, and it is for him to decide whether or not he will do it. And such in substance is the effect of moral awakening generally.
1. In most lives there is a time of thoughtlessness, at least of want of serious and independent reflection. It is not at this stage seen why religion should require so very decided a choice. God and the world seem not absolute incompatibles. It is possible to serve both; to agree with both. Christ’s teaching to the contrary sounds strangely on the ears.
2. But an awakening comes, and it is now seen very clearly that this double service is impossible. The friendship of the world is felt to be enmity with God (Jam 4:4). The contrariety, utter and absolute, between what is in the world and love of the Father (Joh 2:15) is manifest beyond dispute. Then comes the need for choice. God or the creature; Christ, or the world which crucified him; God’s people or the friendship of those who deride and despise them. There is no longer room for dallying. Not to choose is already to have chosen wrongly to have decided for the world, and rejected Christ.
II. AS A VICTORY OVER STRONG TEMPTATION. It was no slight victory over the temptations of his position for Moses to renounce all at the call of duty, and cast in his lot with an oppressed and despised race. His temptation was obviously a typical one, including in it everything which tempts men still to refrain from religious decision, and to dissemble relationship to Christ and connection with his people; and his victory was also typical, reminding us of his who became poor that we might be rich (2Co 8:7), and who put aside “all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them,” when offered him on sinful terms (Mat 4:8-10). View it
1. As a victory over the world. Moses knew his advantages at the court of Pharaoh, and doubtless felt the full value of them. Egypt was to him the world. It represented to his mind
(1) Wealth and position. (2) Ease and luxury. (3) Brilliant worldly prospects. (4) A sphere congenial to him as a man of studious tastes.
And all this he voluntarily surrendered at the call of duty surrendered it both in spirit and in fact. And are not we, as Christians, called also to surrender of the world? Renouncing the world, indeed, is not monkery. It is not the thoughtless flinging away of worldly advantages. But neither is it the mere renouncing of what is sinful in the world. It is the renouncing of it wholly, so far as use of it for selfish ends or selfish enjoyment is concerned: the sinking of its ease, its pleasures, its possessions, in entire self-surrender to Christ and duty. And this carries with it the ability for any outward sacrifice that may be needed.
2. As a victory over the dread of reproach. In renouncing Egypt, Moses chose that which the multitudes shun as almost worse than death itself, viz.
(1) Poverty. (2) Reproach.
Yet how many stumble at reproach in the service of the Saviour! A measure of reproach is implied in all earnest religious profession. And it requires courage to face it to encounter the moral crucifixion involved in being flouted and scouted by the world. It is when “tribulation and persecution ariseth because of the word” that “by and by” many are “offended” (Mat 13:21). Yet to be able to encounter reproach is the true moral greatness the mark of the spiritual hero.
3. As a victory over private feelings and inclinations. Not only was there much about his life in Egypt which Moses dearly loved (leisure, opportunities for self-culture, etc.); but there must have been much about the Hebrews which, to a man of his courtly up-bringing, would necessarily be repulsive (coarseness of manners, servility of disposition, etc.). Yet he cheerfully cast in his lot with them, taking this as part of his cross. A lesson for people of culture. He who would serve God or humanity must lay his account for much he does not like. Every reformer, every earnest servant of mankind, has to make this sacrifice. He must not be ashamed to call those “brethren” who are yet in every way “compassed with infirmity,” about whom there is much that is positively distasteful. Here also, “no cross, no crown.”
III. AS AN ACT OF RELIGIOUS FAITH. The determining motives in Moses’ choice were
1. Patriotism. This people was his people, and his blood boiled with indignation at the wrongs they were enduring. Only a nature dead to the last spark of nobleness could have reconciled itself to look on their sufferings and yet eat bread and retain favour at the court of their oppressor.
2. Humanity. “There was in him that nobleness of nature, which besides tending to sympathy with the oppressed, revolts from all that is selfish and cruel; and this nobleness was stirred up in him by seeing the state of his kindred, and comparing it with his own. This was his faith. Faith saved him from being content to be idle and useless, and gave him zeal and courage to play the part of a man and a hero in the liberation of his people” (Dr. J. Service).
3. Religion. We fail of a right view of Moses’ conduct if we stop short of religious faith proper. Moses knew something of the history of his people. He knew them to be the people of God. He knew of the covenants and promises. He knew of their religious hopes. And it was this which weighed most of all with him in casting-in his lot among them, and enabled him to count their reproach greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt. His faith was
(1) Faith in God. He believed in the God of his fathers, and in the truth and certainty of his promise.
(2) Faith in the spiritual greatness of his nation. He saw in these Hebrews, sweat-covered, down-trodden, afflicted as they were, the “people of God.” Faith is not misled by the shows of things. It pierces to the reality.
(3) Faith in duty. “It is of the essence of faith that he who has, it feels himself to be in a world of better things than pleasures, whether innocent of sinful, which are only pleasures of sense; and in which to be right is greater and better than to be mighty or to be rich feels, in a word, that the best of this life, and of all life, is goodness” (Dr. J. Service).
(4) Faith in the recompense of reward. Moses believed in future recompense in immortality. A cardinal doctrine, even in Egyptian theology, it can scarcely be supposed to have been absent from his. How great was the reward of Moses, even in this life! “He was happier as the persecuted and despised worshipper of Jehovah, the avowed kinsman of slaves, than as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, and the admired proficient in all Egyptian wisdom. He felt that he was richer, despoiled of the treasures of Egypt. He felt that he was happier, divorced from the pleasures of sin. He felt that he was freer, reduced to the bondage of his countrymen. He was richer, because enriched with the treasures of grace; happier, because blessed with the smiles of an approving conscience; freer, because enfranchised with the liberty of the sons of God. The blessings he chose were richer than all the advantages he cast away” (Lindsay). How great has been his reward in history! “For ages past his name has outshone all the monarchs combined of the one-and-thirty dynasties” (Hamilton). But the eternal reward has been greatest of all. A glimpse of it in the glorious reappearance of Moses on the mountain of transfiguration. Wise choice, for honours like these to surrender riches and pleasures which were perishable! Through faith in God, Christ, duty, and eternity, let the same noble choice be repeated in ourselves! J.O.
HOMILIES BY J. URQUHART
Exo 2:11-15.
Unfruitful effort.
I. MOSES‘ SELF–SACRIFICE (Heb 11:24-26).
1. He owned his relationship to the enslaved and hated people.
2. He cast in his lot among them. God calls for the same sacrifice to-day; confession of Jesus and brotherhood with his people. 2. There can be no true service without the heart’s waiting upon God. In order to guide we ourselves must follow.
3. The power which does not wait upon God comes to nothing. Contrast the prince with the unknown wanderer in Midian. Not only were means and influence lost, his very opportunity was gone. “Fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.” U.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
Exo 2:11-15
Unpurified zeal.
We must certainly attribute the killing of the Egyptian, not to Divine inspiration, but to the natural impetuosity of Moses’ character. At this stage Moses had zeal, but it was without knowledge. His heart burned with indignation at the wrongs of his brethren. He longed to be their deliverer. Something told him that “God by his hand would deliver them” (Act 7:25). But how to proceed he knew not. His plans had taken no definite shape. There was no revelation, and perhaps one was not expected. So, acting under impulse, he struck the blow which killed the Egyptian, but did no service to the cause he had at heart. That he did not act with moral clearness is manifest from the perturbation with which he did the deed, and from his subsequent attempt to hide the traces of it. It completed his discomfiture when, next day, he learned that the deed was known, and that his brethren, instead of welcoming his interposition, were disposed to resent it. He had involved himself in murder. He had sown the seeds of later troubles. Yet he had gained no end by it. How true it is that violence seldom leads to happy issues! “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God” (Jam 1:20). An exhibition of violence on our own part is a bad preparation for interfering in the quarrels of others. He that does the wrong will rarely fail to remind us of it. Learn lessons from the narrative
I. AS TO THE CHARACTER OF MOSES. Moses, like every man of true, powerful, and loving nature, was capable of vehement and burning anger. He was a man of great natural impetuosity. This casts light upon the sin of Meribah (Num 20:10). An outbreak of the old, long-conquered failing (cf. Exo 4:13). The holier side of the same disposition is seen in the anger with which he broke in pieces the Tables of the Law (Exo 32:19). It casts light also on his meekness, and
3. The result of a mother’s influence: from her he must have learned the truth regarding his descent and the hope of Israel. The seed sown outlived the luxury, temptations, ambitions of the court. God’s blessing rests on these efforts of holiest love.
II. THE LESSONS OF HIS FAILURE.
1. True desire to serve is not the only requisite for success. We may be defeated by mistakes of judgment, an ungoverned temper, etc.
teaches us to distinguish meekness from mere natural placableness and amiability. Meekness the meekness for which Moses is famed (Num 12:3) was not. a gift of nature, but the result of passions, naturally strong, conquered and controlled of long and studied self-repression.
II. AS TO UNPURIFIED ZEAL.
1. Unpurified zeal leads to hasty action. It is ungoverned. It acts from impulse. It is not schooled to bearing and waiting. It cannot bide God’s time, nor keep to God’s ways.
2. Unpurified zeal unfits for God’s service. It relies too much on self. It takes events into its own hand. Hence Moses is sent to Midian to spend forty years in learning humility and patience in acquiring power of self-control. He has to learn that the work is not his, but God’s, and that only God can accomplish it.
3. Unpurified zeal, by its hasty action, retards, rather than furthers, the accomplishment of God s purposes. By driving Moses into Midian, it probably put back the hour of Israel’s deliverance. J.O.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG
Exo 2:11-12.
Moses, the ardent but mistaken patriot.
We are not told much of Moses in the first forty years of his life, just as we are not told much of Jesus before he began his public ministry; but as it is with Jesus, so it is with Moses what we are told is full of light concerning their character, disposition, and thoughts of the future. Just one action may be enough to show the stuff a man is made of. Moses, grown to manhood, by this single action of killing the Egyptian makes clearly manifest his spirit and his sympathies; shows to us in a very impressive way much that was good, and much also that was evil.
I. CONSIDER THE CONDUCT OF MOSES HERE AS CASTING LIGHT UPON CERTAIN QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE WORK TO WHICH HE WAS AFTERWARDS CALLED.
1. Though he had been brought up amid Egyptian surroundings, he remained an Israelite in heart. Very early he must have been made acquainted, in some way or other, with the strange romance that belonged to his infancy. Whatever Pharaoh’s daughter brought to bear on him in the way of Egyptian influence one day, would be neutralised by what he heard from his own mother the next. For it was not likely that, alter he was able to understand it, his nurse would long conceal the fact that she was his true mother. Perhaps the very ark of bulrushes had become one of his treasured possessions. His name, once explained, was a continual memento of infantile peril and deliverance. And as he grew onward to manhood, he would be inclined to reproach himself again and again for living so easily and comfortably with Pharaoh’s daughter, while her father was treating with such harshness and injustice his own people, his own kinsfolk Aaron his own brother being probably among them. Thus there was everything to keep the state of Israel incessantly in his mind; everything in the way of good soil to make the seed of patriotism grow, if only the seed were in his nature to begin with. And there it unquestionably was, growing with his growth and strengthening with his strength.
2. It is very important to notice how clearly the vicarious element comes out in the relation of Moses to Israel during the years he spent with Pharaoh’s daughter. In one sense, he did not suffer himself. His life was not made “bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field.” No taskmaster ever smote him. And yet, in another sense, he suffered perhaps even more than any of the Israelites. There are burdens of the spirit which produce a groaning and prostration far worse than those of any bodily toil. There is a laceration of the heart more painful, and harder to heal, than that of any bodily wound. Moses felt the sorrows of Israel as if they were his own. In all their affliction he was afflicted. Not one of them smarted more under a sense of the injustice with which they were treated than he did. It is a most precious, ennobling and fruitful feeling to have in the heart this feeling which links the unsuffering to the suffering in a bond not to be broken. It brings together those who have the opportunity to deliver, and those who, fastened hand and then can do nothing for themselves. We find this feeling, in its purest, most operative, and most valuable expression in Jesus, in him who knew no sin, no defiling thoughts, no torture of conscience for his own wrong-doing; and who yet came to feel so deeply the misery and helplessness of a fallen world, that he descended into it for its deliverance, having an unspeakably keener sense of its calamities than the most observant and meditative of its own children. It is a grand thing to have this element of vicarious suffering in our hearts; for the more we have it the more we are able to follow Jesus in serving our needy fellow-men. Moses had this element; the prophets had it; Paul had it; every true and successful apostle and evangelist must have it (Rom 9:1-5). Every Christian in process of salvation should have this element as he looks round on those still ignorant and out of the way. The civilised should have it as he looks on the savage; the freeman as he looks on the slave; the healthy as he looks on the sick; the man as he looks on the brute creation. This element of vicarious suffering has been at the root of some of the noblest and most useful lives in all ages, and not least in modern times. A thousand times let us run the risk of being called sentimental and maudlin, rather than lack the element or cripple it in its vigorous growth. Certain it is, that we shall do but little for Christ without it.
3. We have a very suggestive intimation of the superiority of Moses to the people whom he was about to deliver; this superiority being not a mere matter of greater social advantages, but arising out of personal character. The brother whom he succoured treated him but badly in return. He did not mean to treat him badly; but simple thoughtlessness makes untold mischief. He must have known that Moses wished the act kept a secret, yet in a few hours it is known far and wide through Israel. Not all might have been so inconsiderate, but assuredly most would; and so this man may be taken as representative of his people. He had not the courage and energy to return the Egyptian’s blow himself; nor had he the activity and forethought of mind to shelter the generous champion who did return the blow. Israel was in servitude altogether; not only in body, but in all the nobler faculties of life as well. Hence, if Israel was to be saved, it must be by the condescending act of a superior and stronger land. And thus Moses slaying the Egyptian shadows forth a prime requirement in the greater matter of the world’s redemption. Unless the Son of God had stooped from his brighter, holier sphere, to break the bonds of sin and death, what could we poor slaves have done?
II. CONSIDER THE CONDUCT OF MOSES HERE AS INDICATING THE PRESENCE IN HIM OF GREAT DEFECTS WHICH REQUIRED MUCH DISCIPLINE AND ENLIGHTENMENT TO REMOVE THEM. Moses, in respect of his ardent and sustained sympathy with Israel, was a man after God’s own heart; but he had everything yet to learn as to how that sympathy was to be made truly serviceable. His patriotism, strong and operative as it had proved, was produced by entirely wrong considerations. His profound and fervent interest in Israel was a right feeling, and an indispensable one for his work; but it needed to be produced by quite different agencies, and directed to quite different ends. How had the feeling been produced? Simply by observing the cruelties inflicted on his brethren.
He slew the Egyptian simply because he smote his brother, not because that brother belonged to the chosen people of God. The thing wanted was that he should come to understand clearly the connection of Israel with God, their origin and their destiny. He was to sympathise with Israel, not only as his brethren, but first and chiefly as the people of God. Patriotism is a blessing or a curse just according to the form it takes. If it begins to say, “Our country, right or wrong,” then it is one of the greatest curses a nation can be afflicted with. Arrogance, conceit, and exorbitant self-assertion are as hideous in a nation as in an individual, and in the end correspondingly disastrous. Our greatest sympathy with men is wanted in that which affects them most deeply and abidingly. Sympathy has no full right to the name till it is the sympathy of forgiven sinners who are being sanctified and perfected, with those who are not only sinners, but still in the bondage of sin, and perhaps hardly conscious of the degradation of the bondage, and the firmness with which its fetters are fixed. Moses did not know how much his brethren were losing, because he did not know how much he himself was still lacking, even though in such comfortable freedom at Pharaoh’s court. In his eyes, the main thing to be done for Israel was to get them freedom, independence, self-control in this world’s affairs. And therefore it was necessary for God to effect a complete and abiding change in Moses’ way of thinking. He needed to be made better acquainted with God, and with God’s past revelations, and expressed purposes for Israel. Slaying the Egyptian did not advance the real interests of Israel a whit, except as God wove the action in with his own far-reaching plans. Considered purely as a human action, it was an aimless one, fruitful of evil rather than good. It was natural enough and excusable enough; but the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God; they that take the sword shall perish with the sword; and thus Moses in his carnal impetuosity made clear how dependent he was to be upon God for a really wise, comprehensive, practical plan of action. In the providence of God he was to come back to Israel, not to deal with some obscure subordinate, but with a Pharaoh himself; not to take the sword into his own hands, but to stand still himself, and make the people stand still also, that he and they together might see the salvation of God. Y.
Exo 2:13-15
Moses the hater of all oppression.
I. WE HAVE HERE FURTHER IMPORTANT REVELATIONS WITH RESPECT TO THE CHARACTER OF MOSES AND HIS FITNESS TO BE DELIVERER OF ISRAEL.
1. It is evident that his conscience did not accuse him, as touching the slaying of the Egyptian. Wrong as the action was, he made it clear that he had done it from a right motive. Although he had taken the life of a fellowman, he had taken it not as a murderer, with malice in his heart against the individual, but as a patriot. Hence the conscience that makes cowards of us all the consciousness, that is, of having done a wrong thing was absent from his breast. It is a very great matter indeed not to go against conscience. Let conscience have life and authority, and God will take his own time and means to cure the blinded understanding.
2. Moses felt continued interest in the state of -Israel. He Went out the second day. He did not say, upon reflection, that these visits to his brethren were too perilous to be continued. He did not say, “I cannot trust my own indignant. ,, feelings,, and therefore I must keep away from these oppressed countrymen of mine. His heart was wholly and steadily with them. Interest may be easily produced while the exhibition of an injury is fresh, or the emotions are excited by some skilful speaker. But we do not want the heart to be like an instrument, only producing music so long as the performer touches it. We want it to have such a continued activity within, such a continued thoughtfulness, as will maintain a noble and alert sympathy with men in all their varied and incessant needs.
3. The conduct of Moses here shows that he was a hater of all oppression. His patriotic feeling had been excited by the Egyptian smiting the Hebrew, and now his natural sense of justice was outraged by seeing one Hebrew smiting another. He beheld these men the victims of a common oppression, and yet one of them who happens to be the stronger adds to the already existing sufferings of his weaker brother instead of doing what he can to diminish them. The patriotism of Moses, even with all its yet unremedied defects, was founded not only in community of blood, but in a deep and ardent love for all human rights. We may conclude that if Moses had been an Egyptian, he would not have joined Pharaoh in his remorseless treatment of Israel, nor seconded a policy of oppression and diminution on the plea that it was one of necessity. If the Egyptians had been under the thraldom of the Hebrews, then, Hebrew though he was, he would have sympathised with the Egyptians.
II. CONSIDER THE OCCASION OF HIS REMONSTRANCE. It is a sad lesson Moses has now to learn, that the oppressed will be the oppressors, if only they can get the chance. Here we are in the world, all sinners together, with certain outward consequences of sin prevalent amongst us in the shape of poverty and sickness, and all such trials onward to death. Right feeling should teach us, in these circumstances, to stand by one another, to bear one another’s burdens and do what we can, by union and true brotherliness, to mitigate the oppressions of our great enemy. While he is going about seeking whom he may devour, we, his meditated prey, might well refrain from biting and devouring one another. But what is the real state of things? The rich sinner afflicts the poor, and too often uses him in his helplessness for his own aggrandisement. The strong sinner is always on the look-out to make as much as he can out of every sort of weakness among his fellow-sinners. And what is worse still, when the sinner professes to have passed from death unto life, he does not always show the full evidence of it in loving the brethren as he is bound to do (1Jn 3:14). Some professed Christians take a long time to perceive, and some never perceive at all, that even simple self-indulgence is not only hurtful to self, but an ever-flowing spring of untold misery to others.
III. CONSIDER THE REMONSTRANCE ITSELF.
1. Notice the person whom Moses addresses. “He said to him that did the wrong.” He does not pretend to come forward as knowing nothing of the merits of the quarrel. He does not content himself with dwelling in general terms on the unseemliness of a dispute between brethren who are also the victims of a common oppressor. It is not enough for him simply to beseech the disputants to be reconciled. One is clearly in the wrong, and Moses does not hesitate by implication to condemn him. Thus there appears in Moses a certain disposition towards the judicial mind, revealing the germs of another qualification for the work of his after-life. For the judicial mind is not only that which strives to bring out all the evidence in matters of right or wrong, and so to arrive at a correct conclusion; it is also a mind which has the courage to act on its conclusions, and without fear or favour pass the necessary sentence. By addressing one of these men rather than the other, Moses does in a manner declare himself perfectly satisfied that he is in the wrong.
2. Notice the question which Moses puts. He. smote the Egyptian; he expostulated with the Hebrew. The smiting of one Hebrew by another was evidently very unnatural conduct in the eyes of Moses. When we consider what men are, there is of course nothing astonishing in the conduct of this domineering Israelite; he is but seizing the chance which thousands of others in a like temptation would have seized. But when we consider what men ought to be, there was great reason for Moses to ask his question, “Why smitest thou thy fellow?” Why indeed! There was no true mason he could give but what it was a shame to confess. And so we might often say to a wrong-doer, “Why doest thou this or that?” according to the particular wrong he is committing. “Why?” There might be great virtue in this persistent interrogation if only put in a spirit purged as far as possible from the censorious and the meddlesome. What a man does carelessly enough and with much satisfaction, upon the low consideration of self-indulgence, he might come to forsake if only brought face to face with high considerations of duty and love, and of conformity to the will of God and example of Christ. Everything we do ought to have a sufficient reason for it. Not that we are to be in a perpetual fidget over minute scruples. But, being by nature so ignorant, and by training so bound-in with base traditions, we cannot too often or too promptly ask ourselves whether we have indeed a sufficient reason for the chief principles, occupations and habits of life.
3. Notice that the question put to the Hebrew wrong-doer might just as well have been put to the Egyptian. He also had been guilty of indefensible conduct, yet he as well as the other was a man with powers of reflection, and the timely question, “Why smitest thou this Hebrew?” might have made him consider that really he had no sufficient reason at all to smite him. We must not too readily assume that enemies will persist in enmity, if only we approach them in a friendly manner. He that would change an enemy into a friend must show himself friendly. The plan may not always be successful; but it is worth trying to conquer our foes by love, patience and meekness. We must ever strive to get the selfish people to think, their thinking powers and all the better part of their humanity only too often get crushed into a corner before the rush of pride, appetite and passion.
IV. CONSIDER THE RESULT OF THE REMONSTRANCE. The wrong-doer has no sufficient and justifying answer to give; and so he tells Moses to his face that he is a mere meddler. When men are in a right course, a course of high and generous aims, they hail any opportunity of presenting their conduct in a favourable aspect. But when they are doing wrong, then they make a pretence of asserting their independence and liberty in order that they may fight shy of awkward confessions. If we wait till we are never found fault with as meddlers we shall do very little to compose quarrels and redress injuries, to vindicate the innocent or deliver the oppressed. Men will listen to a general harangue against tyranny, injustice and selfishness. They will look at us with great admiration as long as we shoot our arrows in the air; but arrows are not meant to be shot in the air; they are meant, at the very least, to go right into the crowd of men, and sometimes to be directly and closely personal. Y.
HOMILIES BY G.A. GOODHART
Exo 2:11-15
Moses “was grown.”
According to the tradition he had already distinguished himself as a warrior was “a prince and a judge” amongst the Egyptians, if not over the Hebrews (Exo 2:14). Learned, too, in all the wisdom of the day (cf Act 7:22). At his age, forty years, with his influence, surely if ever he was to do anything for his people, now must be the time. Notice:
I. THE HASTY MISCALCULATION OF THE MAN.
1. What he did, and why he did it. “It came into his heart to visit his brethren.” In the seminaries of the priests, in the palace, with the army, he had not forgotten his people; but he had scarcely realised the bitterness of their trial. Now his heart burns within him as he looks upon their burdens. He feels that he is the appointed deliverer trained for this very purpose. What is so plain to him must, he thinks, be equally plain to others (Act 7:25). A chance encounter gives him the opportunity of declaring himself; defending a Hebrew, he kills an Egyptian. The supposition that his brethren will understand proves to be a great mistake: “they understood not.” Moses did that which we are all too ready to do: took it for granted that other people would look at things from his standpoint. A man may be all that he thinks himself to be; but he will fall in accomplishing his designs if he makes their success depend upon other people taking him at his own estimate; there is an unsound premiss in his practical syllogism which will certainly vitiate the conclusion. What we should do is to take pains to place ourselves at the standpoint of other people, and before assuming that they see what we see, make sure that at any rate we see what they see. Moses, the courtier, could see the weakness of the oppressor, and how little power he had if only his slaves should rise; the slaves, however, bowing beneath the tyranny, felt and exaggerated the tyrant’s power they could not see much hope from the aid of this self-constituted champion.
2. What followed from his deed. Life endangered, compulsory flight, a refuge amongst shepherds in a strange land, forty years’ comparative solitude, life’s prospects blighted through impatience. “More haste worse speed” is one of the world’s wise proverbial generalisations. Moses illustrates the proverb forty years’ exile for an hour’s hurry!
II. THE OVERRULING PROVIDENCE OF GOD. “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will.” The apparently wasted years not really wasted no needless delay, only preparation and Divine discipline. Moses had learnt much, but he needed to learn more. God takes him from the school of Egypt, and places him in the university of Nature, with Time and Solitude and the Desert as his tutors. What did they teach him?
1. The value of the knowledge gained already. Well “to be learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” But wisdom improves by keeping it needs time and solitude to ripen it. Intellectually and spiritually we are ruminants; silence and- solitude are needed to appropriate and digest knowledge.
2. New knowledge. Few books, if any, of man’s making, but the books of Nature invited study. The knowledge of the desert would be needed byand-bye, together with much other knowledge which could be gained nowhere else.
3. Meekness. He not merely became a wiser man, he grew to be also a better man. The old self-confidence yielded place to entire dependence upon the will of God. God had delivered him from the sword of Pharaoh (cf. Exo 2:15 with Exo 18:3), and would help him still, though in a strange land. Nothing makes a man so meek as faith; the more he realises God’s presence and confides in him, the more utterly does the “consuming fire’ burn out of him all pride and selfishness.
Application: Turning the pages of the book of memory, what records of delay occasioned by impatience! Yet how do the same pages testify to the way in which all along God has shaped our ends! It is a mercy that we are in such good hands, and not left to our own devices. Trusting in God, we can hope to make the best even of our errors. He can restore ay, more than restore even years which the locust hath eaten (Joe 2:25). G.
HOMILIES BY H.T. ROBJOHNS
Exo 2:11-15.
Mistake in life’s morning.
“He supposed his brethren would have,” etc. (Act 7:25). The heart-abandonment of the throne must have taken place before Moses went out from the palace of the princess to inquire, and therefore before the enforced flight. Place therefore “the crisis of being” between Exo 2:10-11. Let no one fear to face this error in the life of the Lord’s servant. Admit frankly that Moses was wrong. We are embarrassed by a notion that clings to us, that the Bible is a repertory of good examples. It is not so. Only One perfect. All other men and women in tee Bible are imperfect and sinful, the subjects of God’s grace, pardoning, correcting, sanctifying, glorifying. Never lower the moral standard to defend a Bible character. It gives occasion to the adversary, and brings no satisfaction to the believer. In this chapter of the biography of Moses observe in his conduct
I. THE RIGHT.
1. Inquiry. No inclination to shrink from responsibility under the plea of want of knowledge. See the striking passage, Pro 24:11-12. Moses going out to investigate for himself, argues that either his mother or his people, or both, had opened and maintained communication with him, informing him of his origin, teaching the doctrine of the true God, and awakening concern.
2. Sympathy. “He looked on their burdens.”
3. Indignation. We may be angry and sin; but it is also true that we may not be angry, and sin even yet more deeply. For illustration cite modern instances of cruel oppression.
II. THE WRONG.
1. Excess of indignat feeling. 2. Murder.
The “supposition” of Stephen is no justification, even if true; but it may not be true, or may be only partially true; for the utterance of Stephen, based on tradition, is not to be confounded with the inspired dictum of God. That furtive look “this way and that way” does not indicate an assured conscience. Note the true meaning and spirit of Rom 14:23.
III. THE IMMEDIATE RESULTS. Failure Peril Fear Flight Delay of Israel’s deliverance.
IV. THE FINAL OVERRULING. God originates no wrong, but, being done, lays on it the hand of the mighty. That enforced life in the desert became as important a part of the training of Moses as life at Avaris; acquainted him with “the Wilderness of the Wandering,” its resources, mode of life; those other children of Abraham the Midianites; gave him to wife a descendant of Abraham; led to an important policy for all the future of Israel (Exo 18:1-27.); and furnished an all-but-indispensable human helper and guide (Num 10:29-31). Thus does the Eternal Mercy overrule and countervail the errors, even the sins, of penitent believers. R.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Exo 2:11. When Moses was grown The event mentioned in this verse, must have happened many years after Moses was grown to man’s estate. St. Stephen says, he was full forty years old, Act 7:23. It seems to follow, from St. Stephen’s account, that he was stirred up by some Divine impulse to visit his brethren, and to insinuate to them, that God, by him, would work their deliverance. It has been supposed, that the Egyptian, whom he slew through indignation at his brethren’s wrongs, was one of the task-masters. It has been questioned how far the action of Moses was justifiable. Le Clerc observes, that as the Egyptian king authorised the oppression of the Israelites, it was fruitless to apply to him for redress of their grievances. The civil magistrate, who ought to have protected injured innocence, was himself become the oppressor; and, consequently, the society being degenerated into a confederacy in oppression and injustice, it was as lawful to use private force and resistance, as against a band of robbers and cut-throats. However, we are to remember, that the Divine Hand was in all this; and that thus the way was preparing for the grand deliverance of Israel from Egyptian oppression.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
This was at least after 40 years. See Act 7:23 ; Heb 11:24-27 . The Holy Ghost hath told us what age Moses was at this time: see Act 7:23 . And we are indebted to that blessed Spirit for yet more important information, namely, the cause of his going forth. See Heb 11:24-26 . Reader! depend upon it that is a precious mark of grace, when a soul is enabled, like Moses, to turn his back upon worldly prospects, to seek him of whom Moses and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Exo 2:11 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.
Ver. 11. When Moses was grown. ] In stature and authority, being “mighty in words and deeds,” Act 7:22 being a great orator, a great warrior. See Trapp on “ Heb 11:24 “ He was, as Pliny saith of Cato Censorius, optimus Orator, optimus Imperator, optimus Senator, omniumque bonarum artium magister, a man every way accomplished.
That he went out unto his brethren.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
grown; and learned in all the wisdom of Egypt, but not yet of God. unto his brethren. Act 7:23, “it came into his heart”. looked on: more than merely saw = regarded with lively sympathy.
an Egyptian = a man (‘ish), an Egyptian (App-14.)
an Hebrew = a man (‘ish), a Hebrew (App-14.)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Moses Slays an Egyptian and Flees to Midian
Exo 2:11-25
Amid all the allurements of Pharaohs court, the heart of Moses beat true to his own people. Neither the treasures of Egypt, nor the pleasures of sin; the attraction of human love, nor the glamour of the worlds smile, could turn him aside from his own folk. A light shone for him over the humble huts of Goshen, before which that of Pharaohs palaces paled. Some glimmering knowledge of the promised Christ appears to have been present to his mind; and he esteemed that hope to be greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. Heb 11:26.
He had, however, much to learn. By strength no man can prevail. The battle is not to the strong, nor the race to the swift. The salvation of Israel from their untold miseries must be due, from first to last, to the outstretched hand of their Almighty Protector. Hence the failure of Moses first attempt. Instead of looking this way and that, he must look upward.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
am 2473, bc 1531
Moses: Act 7:22-24, Heb 11:24-26
burdens: Exo 1:11, Exo 3:7, Exo 5:9, Exo 5:14, Isa 58:6, Mat 11:28, Luk 4:18
Reciprocal: Gen 14:13 – the Gen 24:27 – of my Gen 31:23 – General Lam 5:13 – fell Act 7:23 – when
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
From the address of Stephen, in Act 7:1-60, we learn that at the time of the event, recorded in verses Exo 2:11-15 of our chapter, Moses was “full forty years old.” He had reached complete maturity as well as conspicuous greatness in the highest court circles of Egypt and, if we only had the record of Exodus we might be inclined to regard his slaughter of the Egyptian as an act prompted simply by a sudden burst of indignation. We have to read Heb 11:24-26, and then we discover that it was an outward expression of an inward resolve, which had been reached in the power of faith.
In Exodus we are given a brief recital of the facts on the surface history of the episode. In Act 7:1-60 we are told of what was in his mind, leading him to act as he did. As to the history, he knew that he sprang from Israel and shared Israel’s hopes, though he was a great man amongst the Egyptians. The assaulted Hebrew was brother to him. He “looked this way and that way,” and as there were no witnesses, he identified himself with the Hebrew and slew the Egyptian But what was in his heart was the conviction that God by his hand was going to deliver the children of Israel, and “he supposed his brethren would have understood” that such would be the case.
His brethren however did not understand, for they did not share his faith. In result they rejected him as their deliverer, wishing to pursue their own way of wrong-doing, and not to stir up retaliation from the power of Egypt. In Act 7:1-60, Stephen is led to make these points clear, in order to show that in the rejection of the Lord Jesus the Jews had re-enacted, on a scale infinitely more serious, what their fathers had previously done with Moses. In the Lord Jesus there was not the slightest element of imperfection. In Moses there was distinct failure. His desires were right: his action wrong.
How often this has been the case with all the servants of God save the one perfect Servant! Again and again there is with us the “seeing” of some “wrong,” that should be avenged – or possibly of some right, that should be established – and then hasty action, confident that God would endorse it. We too have “supposed” that we are at liberty to do God’s work in our own way and strength, and that all will understand. A New Testament example of this is furnished by Peter. To stand by the Lord in the hour of His trial was surely a good thing, and Peter “supposed” that he had grace and power to do it. As in the case of Moses his discomfiture was complete, but like Moses he afterwards did in the power of God what he failed to do in his own wisdom and strength, as we see in Joh 21:19.
But if in Exodus we are given the surface history, and in Acts what was working in the mind of Moses, we discover in Hebrews the amazing faith that illumined his mind and led to his great renunciation – as remarkable a decision as any recorded in Scripture. To his faith the nation of slaves in Egypt were “the people of God.” All that Egypt had to offer him were “the pleasures of sin,” though indeed there were “the treasures in Egypt.” His faith then had about it a quality which reminds us of the X-rays, which pierce to things beneath the surface. It saw through the oppressed Israelites, unattractive as many of them were, and discovered that God was behind them and beneath them. When the treasures of Egypt with all their pleasures passed before his gaze, he discerned far beyond them, and wholly surpassing them, “the recompense of the reward.”
Hence he chose “rather to suffer affliction with the people of God,” and he “esteemed the reproach of Christ” to be of surpassing worth. All this happened about 1,500 years before the Lord Jesus Christ appeared. When He did appear, we have the supreme example of the One who stooped from the heights of the Divine glory to take up the cause of sinful men, with all the reproach that entailed. The step that Moses took was a slight foreshadowing of that marvellous event. The reproach that it involved for him was in its principle and character the reproach of Christ.
One thing further we must remark. The elevation of Moses, to the position of influence and power he held in Egypt, was a singular act of God’s providence. Providence however is not that which is to guide us, but rather faith. His natural reasoning would have said, Providence has placed me in the court of Pharaoh in a most remarkable way, so of course I must be guided by Providence and remain here. Faith discerned that Providence was only a means to an end, preparing him for the step which faith indicated in due time. If we too, in our much smaller affairs, remember that faith in God’s word is to guide us, and not Providential dealings, we shall do well.
The immediate effect of this intervention by Moses was his flight from Egypt and consequent sojourn in Midian for forty years. When he found that the thing was known, and his action, however well-intentioned was rejected by his people, he departed. Reading Exodus, we certainly get the impression that the prevailing motive with him was the anger of Pharaoh. Rather a different light upon it is cast by Act 7:29. “Then fled Moses at this saying” – the saying of the wrongdoer – “Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?” So evidently his rejection by his own people was what cut him to the quick. Forty years later they all had to discover that it was GOD, who made him a ruler and judge over them, but for the time being he was lost to them.
In Exo 2:1-25, the next forty years of Moses’ life is compressed into verses Exo 2:15-22. We again see God acting in His providence and giving Moses a home and a wife in a strange land. The name that he gave to his son showed that he realized that Midian was not the place of God’s purpose for him, and that he had expectations that lay outside of it. Only Divine support could have enabled him to endure the long years of exile, doing nothing but keeping the sheep of his father-in-law, as we are told in the first verse of Exo 3:1-22. It was a tremendous humiliation after his princely place in Egypt. What sustained him?
Personally we believe that Heb 11:27 refers to this period, though some treat it as referring to the exodus mentioned in verse 29 of that chapter. The events referred to there, up to verse 31, are in chronological order, and unless verse 27 occurred before 28, the order of time would be broken in this solitary instance. Moreover, as we have seen, Act 7:1-60 shows that what moved Moses in his flight was acute disappointment that his well-intended intervention was rejected by the very people on whose behalf he made it; so that they did not recognize him as a man sent by God. It was that, and not the wrath of the king, that sent him forth from their midst.
Accepting this view of verse 27, we see at once what it was that sustained him during the dreary years of his exile. The man who had led multitudes amidst the splendours of Egypt, now spends his years leading about a flock of senseless sheep! Yet “he endured, as seeing Him who is invisible.” In Act 7:1-60 it is stated that he acted as “seeing one of them suffer wrong.” When wrong exists it is well that we should see it but if that is all that we see, we easily go wrong ourselves. It is when the eye of faith is fixed on God, that we go right. We are told that, “faith is… the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). Faith can see what is unseen to the natural eye.
Thus it was with Moses. God was before the eyes of his heart during all those 40 years, and hence the discipline to which he was subjected bore its wonderful fruit in due season. During his first 40 years he had attained to being a “Somebody” of much importance in Egypt; but during his second 40 years in Midian he learned how to be a “Nobody” in the world of men.
God was going to entrust to him a work of such magnitude that this lengthy period of discipline and humbling was needful.
The closing verses of Exo 2:1-25 relate the death of the Pharaoh of those days, but the oppression of Israel continuing, God heard their cry and groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham. Let us note that His intervention and His redemption of Israel from the house of bondage was under that covenant, and the covenant of law was not propounded until we reach Exo 19:1-25.
Exo 3:1-22. At the end of the 40 years in Midian, Moses had led the flock of Jethro into the vicinity of Horeb, which appears to be a more general term, embracing the mountain group of which Sinai was the chief peak. At that spot God appeared to him, so that he got his commission at the very place to which he was to lead the people after their liberation from Egypt, and where was to be promulgated the law, which is for ever connected with his name.
A number of times in the Old Testament do we get these appearances of God to men, and they vary in mode and character, so as to suit the communication or revelation that had to be made. Here the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a burning bush. Now in both Old and New Testaments the word used is one that signifies a bush of thorns, or, bramble bush; a bush of little worth and one that fire would soon consume. But God was in the bush, and therefore it was not consumed.
Here was a sight that directly contradicted all that was natural, and Moses was drawn to it. He had to learn that though, “our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29), He could dwell in the midst of a people, who in themselves were thorny and fit fuel for the flames, and yet not consume them. It was indeed a “great sight,” and surely during the forty years in the wilderness, when Jehovah in a pillar of fire dwelt in the midst of rebellious Israel, Moses must have thought upon the way in which God had revealed Himself to him at the start, in His great kindness.
In this incident the Angel, or, Messenger of the Lord is the Lord Himself, as we see if we compare verses Exo 2:2; Exo 2:4. This being so, Moses had to keep at a distance and remove his shoes, as a sign that the place was holy, and he but a servant. Distance there had to be, but it was not nearly so pronounced as it was later when the law was given, and this doubtless because at the outset the Lord revealed Himself to him as “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” The God, who had instituted the covenant of promise, was not so awesome, as when He instituted the law from Sinai.
This is the statement to which the Lord referred when He rebuked the Sadducees, as recorded in Mat 22:23-33. The patriarchs had died out of the world of men, but they lived in God’s presence, and this guaranteed a resurrection in God’s appointed hour; a resurrection, moreover, which would involve an entrance into a new and heavenly order of things. It is noticeable too that the Lord referred to the statement as being “spoken unto you.” What was said to Moses stands good for all, and for all time.
Having revealed Himself to Moses in this way, He made a declaration of three things. First, of His attention to the cry of His people and His sympathetic concern for their sorrows. For a century or two it must have seemed as though He was indifferent. But it was not so. God is never in a hurry and He intervenes in His own time, which is the right time. The three statements in verse Exo 2:7 are very touching: He had seen; He had heard; He knew their sorrows. Thus it ever is with all His people, with us among the rest. The deliverance of Israel meant drastic judgments upon Egypt, and our God is slow to anger. Do we wonder why the Lord Jesus, who is coming quickly, has not yet come? Let us remember that His advent will mean tremendous judgments upon a guilty world.
Second, He declared His purpose to deliver His people from the slavery of Egypt and bring them into a land, “flowing with milk and honey.” This is what Palestine was, as corroborated by the spies, in Num 13:27; it is what the land will be in a coming day, though for centuries it has lain desolate. The blessings of that land were earthly, but they came from the hand of God and were not won as the result of irrigation and toil as in the case of Egypt.
Third, He told Moses that he was to be the servant, commissioned to face the mighty monarch, Pharaoh, and deliver the children of Israel out of his hand. As stated by Stephen, “This Moses whom they refused… the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the Angel, which appeared to him in the bush.” What he had attempted to effect in his own wisdom and strength, and failed to do, he is now to accomplish in the wisdom and power of God.
Fuente: F. B. Hole’s Old and New Testaments Commentary
Moses’ Premature Effort
Exo 2:11-25
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
Act 7:1-60 tells us that Moses was forty years of age when he sought to deliver Israel from the bondage of Pharaoh. We wish, therefore, to base our remarks upon a Scripture found in Heb 11:24-27 which covers this period. There are several vital things for us to consider.
1. The decision of a matured man. When Moses stepped forth from the house of Pharoah he did not do it as a mere child, unable to weigh the full meaning of his acts, He had now come to years. Educationally his preparation for life had been completed. Morally he stands before us unimpeachable. Spiritually, in spite of his contact with Egyptian unbelief and God-denials, he is a man of faith. His surroundings and his worldly accomplishments by no means dimmed his vision of God. The Holy Spirit bears record thus: “By faith Moses, when he was come to years.”
2. The decisions of Moses outlined. May we tabulate them for you?
1.He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.
2.He chose to suffer affliction with the people of God.
3.He refused to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
4.He esteemed the reproach of Christ as greater than treasures of Egypt.
5.He had respect unto the recompense of the reward.
6.He forsook Egypt.
7.He endured as seeing Him who is invisible.
The pleasures of sin lay out before Moses in a most appealing fashion. Moses saw, however, that such things lasted for a season, and he decided definitely to take his place with the children of God, and to suffer affliction with them rather than to enjoy passing pleasures.
Moses even reckoned the reproach of Christ as of greater value than all the treasures of Egypt. All of this was made possible because Moses looked down through the years to the hour of Christ’s revealing, and he had respect unto that recompense of reward which Christ will then bring.
Weighing everything thoroughly, Moses forsook Egypt. He forsook it with an unwavering faith. He forsook it, not fearing the wrath of the king. Perhaps, the statement that overshadows all of the others is the one that explains why Moses endured. We read, “He endured, as seeing Him who is invisible.”
Faith looks past the things seen into the things which are not seen, past the king and the king’s daughter to the King of kings and the Lord of lords. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” God grant that each of us as we come to years may have this same remarkable and unchallengeable faith.
I. MOSES UNDER TRAINING (Exo 2:11, f.c.)
The statement we wish you to notice first of all is this one: “And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown.” Entering this study we stand at the close of the first period when Moses was forty years of age. There were forty more years, however, required before God thrust Moses out into his great lifework. We sometimes think that God does not move fast enough. Nevertheless, when God moves, He sees that everything is made ready. The period of training is a vital period. God has given us a warning in the Bible which runs thus: “Lay hands suddenly on no man.” One thing we know: Moses was a thoroughly prepared man.
1. The first forty years in the king’s house. During these years Moses was educated in all the skill and wisdom of the Egyptians. There are various stories afloat of his prowess as a soldier and leader among the hosts of Pharaoh. This all played a large part in the great task to which Moses in after years was called.
2. The second forty years in the fields of Midian. These years were necessary in order that Moses’ self-life might be conquered, and that his spirit-life might be trained.
II. RUNNING WITHOUT BEING SENT (Exo 2:11, l.c.-12)
1. A burning indignation. As Moses came to years he was accustomed to go among his brethren. He looked on them as they labored under their burdens. He espied the rigor with which they served; he was stirred by the cruelty of the Egyptian taskmasters. Moses might have followed the attitude of many of our own day, and might have said, “What is that to me?” He, at least, was well housed and groomed in the palace of the king. Why should he worry? Yet, he did worry. He made his brethren’s difficulties his own. In all of this we cannot but think of the Lord Jesus Christ who took our sorrows and suffered and bore our pains.
2. A sympathetic alignment. Moses decided that he would suffer affliction with his people, that he would get down among them and make their troubles his. We cannot fail to remember the story of the good Samaritan on the Jericho Road. Seeing a Jew smitten, robbed, and lying half dead, he immediately went to the rescue pouring ointment upon his wounds, covering his nakedness, and placing him upon his own beast, and taking him to the inn.
3. A wrong position. Moses’ heart was so stirred by his people’s need that he thought they would appreciate any effort of his in their behalf. This is the way Stephen put it in Act 7:23-25, speaking of Moses: “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.” This must have been a great blow to Moses. When our good intentions are misunderstood, unappreciated, and even repulsed, it always hurts. There is no doubt but that it hurt Moses.
III. THE REJECTED DELIVERER (Exo 2:13-14)
1. The twofold unpreparedness. When Moses saw that he was repulsed, his heart, no doubt, sank within him. Perhaps Moses did not then understand, but in after years he comprehended that he was not yet prepared to lead the Children of Israel out from under Pharaoh’s tyranny. Moses was a man of great faith, but he was also a man hasty in his actions, When he saw the Egyptians wrongfully smiting one of his brethren, he hurried into the fray to avenge his brother.
Moses did not tarry to weigh the effect of the deed. He hastily looked this way and that way, and then he jumped into the melee. A real leader never acts on the impulses of a moment. He sleeps upon his purposes and impressions. He lays them before God. He seeks to find out whether he is walking in the energy of the flesh, or under the guidance of the Spirit. There is a time when delay is disastrous. That time is when God has spoken, and a conviction is settled.
2. Israel was not ready to receive help. Israel was less prepared than was Moses. The people evidently were jealous of one of their race who was living in the lap of luxury and enjoying every comfort, while they were driven by taskmasters. Deep in their sub-conscious minds there was envy and jealousy and condemnation of Moses; therefore, when Moses leaped in and slew an Egyptian, and the next day sought to correct two Hebrews who strove together, instead of rallying to him, they slurringly remarked: “Who made thee a prince and a judge over us?”
This attitude of Israel toward Moses reminds us in after years of the Jews, in their attitude toward Christ, who had, of course, not run before He was sent.
IV. FAITH AND FEAR IN COMBAT (Portions of Exo 2:12; Exo 2:14-15)
The portions of these verses which we wish you to read are these: Exo 2:12, “And he looked this way and that.” Exo 2:14, “And Moses feared, and said, surely this thing is known.” Exo 2:15, “But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh.”
1. He who follows Christ should not look this way and that fearing what men might do unto him. The child of God should let his eyes look right on. He should run his race “looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of [his] faith.” Peter said unto Christ, “And what shall this man do?” The Lord answered, “What is that to thee? Follow thou Me.” On another occasion we read that when Peter saw the winds and the waves boisterous he began to sink. Moses had faith we know, but his faith was hindered by his fear of the king.
2. He who follows Christ should not fear the king. Moses was afraid of Pharaoh. He said, “Surely this thing is known.” He fled from the face of Pharaoh. For our part, we are sure that this fear was only a temporary fear, for the Holy Spirit bears witness that “By faith he forsook Egypt.” What this means is that Moses’ deeper motives were his willingness to leave everything for God.
In the months preceding this rash and hasty action on the part of Moses he had already come to a matured purpose to leave Pharaoh and Pharaoh’s wealth and power. He had decided definitely that he was done forever with Egypt. It was for this that the Spirit said, “By faith he forsook Egypt.”
In his inner heart he had left Egypt long before. Now he actually left it because he was afraid. His fear, however, did not last. His faith did last.
V. MOSES BY A WELL IN THE LAND OF MIDIAN (Exo 2:15, l.c.-18)
We now are carried in mind to a quiet and pastoral scene. One moment we see Moses fleeing from the face of Pharaoh; the next moment we see him sitting by a well. How great is the contrast between the two countries, and how different the two spirits which dominated Moses. In the land of Midian, Moses had far better opportunities to hear the voice of God. In the rest of his own spirit he was far better prepared to receive what God might speak.
1. At the well in Midian Moses proved himself a protector. As he sat there, the daughters of the priest of Midian came out to water their father’s flock. Other shepherds, however, came up with their flocks and drove the girls away. Immediately Moses stood up and helped them. To us this is a beautiful picture. The man who rushed in to help his own people had not lost in his flight and discouragement the spirit which dominated his nature. He who came to the rescue of his brethren of old, now came to the rescue of some women who had been roughly pushed aside by the shepherds.
2. At the well in Midian Moses showed himself a true helper. He not only drove off the shepherds, but he also drew water enough for the daughters to water their flocks. In all of this Moses portrayed the spirit of our Lord as He moved among men. Jesus Christ was a Protector and a Helper. How many are they whom He delivered from the hands of the enemy!
VI. MOSES IN JETHRO’S HOME (Exo 2:19-22)
1. Comfortably domiciled. God hath said that whosoever shall leave father and mother and brother and sister, and houses, and lands for His sake shall have fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, houses and lands. He who left Egypt found Midian. He who refused to be the son of Pharaoh’s daughter became the husband of the daughter of the priest of Midian. He came out, that he might enter in. He lost that he might find. In the home of the priest of Midian he did not have the luxury, the pleasures, or the riches which were his in the home of Pharaoh. However, he had something far better: he had peace with God and with men.
2. Faithfully shepherdizing. How beautiful is the sight described of Moses keeping the flocks of Jethro, his father-in-law. Jesus Christ was a shepherd of the sheep. He knew His own sheep; He called them by name, and He led them forth. We believe that Moses, as a shepherd of the sheep, learned many a lesson of that greater task of shepherdizing which fell his lot when he led one and a half million people out of Egypt. In the flocks of his father-in-law he learned to protect his sheep from their enemy. He learned to select for them the best of pasture, and he learned to lead them by the still waters. Thus was the shepherd-heart of Moses strengthened.
3. Happily married. It was during the period of Moses’ rejection by his own people and his absence from them that he married Zipporah, the daughter of the priest of Midian. It was during the time of our Lord’s rejection, of His presence in the far country that He had secured a Gentile Bride. This Gentile Bride will become His own before He returns to His chosen people.
VII. GOD’S WATCHFUL EYE (Exo 2:23-24)
1. The king’s death. We read in Exo 2:23, “And it came to pass in the process of time, that the king of Egypt died.” Even kings must succumb to the ravages of death. Of all who have ever lived, with the exception of two, it may be truthfully written, “He lived and he died.”
What were all of the glories of Egypt unto Pharaoh? What was the value of his power and his kingship as he lay there in death? Let us remember that the things of earth, no matter how alluring, must sooner or later fade and pass away.
2. The people’s groaning. Exo 2:23 tells us that “the Children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.” They had for many years groaned under their burdens, but now they began to cry unto God. Sometimes we wonder how it was that God allowed them those eighty years of anguish.
We are sure of one thing; that the moment the people were subdued in spirit, willing to follow God, and to be led forth, God heard their prayer. Sometimes the way seems long and difficult, and we wonder if God ever will come to the rescue, but there is no doubt but that God is always ready to help.
3. The listening ear. Exo 2:24 says, “And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham” etc. Exo 2:25 adds, “And God looked upon the Children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.”
Here are four vital statements: God heard, God remembered, God looked, God had respect. The first shows that our God is a prayer-hearing God; the second shows that our God is a covenant-keeping God; the third statement describes God as the omniscient God who sees and knows us all. The final statement proclaims God as the God who cares. He not only hears, not only sees, but He has respect.
AN ILLUSTRATION
PRIMING
At first Moses failed-afterward he succeded-“A lower degree of faith maketh way for a higher, as the pruning of the wood maketh it receptive of other colors.” Painters often use a paint at the first which is to be the preparation for quite another color; red is commonly thus employed. So, in the work of grace, there may come first a dogmatical faith (as Manton calls it), which receives the doctrine of the Word of God as truth. This does not save the soul, but it is a needful preparative for that receptive and trusting faith, by which salvation is actually received. Dogmatic faith is the priming upon which faith of a saving color is laid by the Master-workman. * * Faith cometh by hearing. Hence the value of all healthy moral influence, instruction, and example. None of these can save, but they may lead up to salvation. The paralyzed man was not cured by his friends, or by the bed, or by the ropes, but these brought him where Jesus was, and so he was healed. Make a man sober, and he is ail the more likely to mind the preacher’s admonitions: give him the power to read, and he may study the Scriptures. These things are not grace, but they may be stepping-stones to grace: they are not the permanent color, but only the priming; yet it would never do to neglect them for that reason.-Chas, H. Spurgeon.
Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water
Exo 2:11-12. When Moses was grown, he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens As one that not only pitied them, but was resolved to venture with them and for them. He slew the Egyptian Probably it was one of the Egyptian task-masters, whom he found abusing his Hebrew slave. By special warrant from Heaven (which makes not a precedent in ordinary cases) Moses slew the Egyptian, and rescued his oppressed brother. The Jews tradition is, that he did not slay him with any weapon, but, as Peter slew Ananias and Sapphira, with the word of his mouth.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Exo 2:11-22 J. Mosess Flight to Midian.Here is interposed an incident from J, who uses the same word grow (contrast Exo 2:10) of Moses reaching mans estate, interpreted in Act 7:23 as 40 years of age (cf. 42 years in Jubilees). The Egyptian slain by Moses may have been some bully of a gangmaster (cf. Exo 3:7). The well-intentioned but unjustifiable assumption of the authority to punish committed Moses to the career of a patriot (cf. Heb 11:24-26). But the incident was distorted by rumour, and not only aroused the kings anger, but set his own countrymen against him. Midian, whither he fled, is on some maps placed in the S.E. of the Sinai peninsula on the W. of the Gulf of Akaba. But the evidence of Ptolemy and the Arabic geographers, confirmed by Burton, locates it on the E. Its people, regarded in Gen 25:1-6 J (cf. 1Ch 2:46 f., 1Ch 4:17) as distant blood-relations of Israel, had, at the time when this story took shape, apparently not yet come to be regarded as the bitterest of national foes (as in Numbers 31, perhaps based on Num 25:6 f.). The later view has led to the troops of Midian being taken as symbolising the enemies of the soul. The priest of Midian is introduced without explanation or apology; and in Exo 2:18 he becomes the counsellor of Moses. It is possible that a real religious connexion existed between the Kenites (to whom the family of Jethro belonged, see Jdg 4:11) and early Israel (cf. Exo 2:18*).Burckhardt found that the pasturing of flocks was still the exclusive duty of the unmarried girls (cf. Rachel in Gen 29:9). MNeile renders Exo 2:19 b, and he actually drew water for us, pointing out that Moses and Jacob drew water for women, while a slave (Gen 24:19 f.) allowed a woman to draw for him. The tradition that Moses married a Midianitish woman would hardly have been preserved unless it had been widespread, for in Num 25:6 ff. (P) such an act is regarded as worthy of death. Zip-porah means bird, and is the feminine of Zippor, the name of the father of Balak. In Jdg 7:25 the Midianitish chiefs are named Oreb (raven) and Zeeb (wolf). It has been suggested that this points to a primitive totemistic belief, betrayed when obsolete by the ancient names (Gen 29:31-33*). A family or clan is by this system linked as having the same totem animal.
Exo 2:18. Reuel: the name, meaning Gods friend, which, if original here, would have been given in Exo 2:16, is oddly inserted by the editor from Num 10:29*. Possibly, like some Saban kings and priests, he had two names. The LXX has Jethro twice in Exo 2:16. The AV Raguel reproduces the same Heb. differently, following LXX.
Exo 2:22. a sojourner in a strange land. Driver notes that strange is no longer in English an equivalent of foreign, and gives instances. The word sojourner implies a popular play upon the first syllable of the word Gershom. In Jdg 18:30 the priests of Dan claim descent from Moses through Gershom.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
2:11 And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was {d} 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.
(d) That is, was forty years old; Act 7:23.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
4. Moses’ flight from Egypt to Midian 2:11-15
Moses was "approaching the age of 40" (Act 7:23) when he took his stand for his Hebrew brethren (Exo 2:11). The reference to the Hebrew man as "one of his brethren" suggests that Moses’ motivation in acting as he did was love that sprang from faith in God’s promises to the patriarchs. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews stated this motivation explicitly in Heb 11:24-26.
Moses’ desire to help his brethren was admirable, but his methods were deplorable (Exo 2:12; cf. Act 7:23-29). He trusted in his own ability to liberate the Israelites and sought to bring this about by natural means. He even resorted to sinful means and seized authority rather than waiting for God to bestow it on him.
". . . there is in the [Hebrew] text no suggestion that Moses meant to kill the Egyptian, any more than that the Egyptian or the Hebrew man was attempting to kill his adversary." [Note: Durham, p. 19.]
"You can never redress a nation’s wrongs by offering brute force to brute force, or by a number of rash, violent acts." [Note: Meyer, p. 32.]
God had to teach Moses that he must not trust in his own ability but rely on God’s strategy and strength and obey His commands. God drove Moses out of Egypt to the desert of Midian where He proceeded to teach His servant these lessons. He made him "a prince" and "a judge" (Exo 2:14) eventually. Here Moses rescued an Israelite from an Egyptian who was beating him, but later he rescued all the Israelites from the Egyptians who were oppressing them (Exo 3:10).
The Pharaoh referred to here was probably Thutmose III ( Exo 2:15; 1504-1450 B.C.) whose reign included a period of 21 years as co-regent with Hatshepsut. Pharaoh probably tried to kill Moses by having him brought to justice through normal legal channels.
The land of Midian lay to the east of the Sinai Peninsula and probably flanked the Gulf of Aqabah on both sides. [Note: On the difficulty of locating Midian exactly, see Durham, p. 20.] Moses ran a long way. The Midianites were descendants of Abraham through Keturah (Gen 25:1-2).
"Midianites were employed in the copper mines of the Sinai Peninsula by Egyptian kings since the very first dynasties." [Note: Schwantes, p. 158.]
Moses’ faith is obvious in his desire to identify with God and His people. He probably struggled in his younger years with whether he could do more for the Israelites by working for them within the Egyptian hierarchy or without. He chose to identify with the faithful and relied on the power of God to a limited extent rather than on the power of Pharaoh to accomplish his goals. It was Moses’ faith in God that led him to give up Egypt (Heb 11:24-26).
God commands all who trust Him to separate from the world system that opposes and excludes Him (Rom 12:2; et al.). This may or may not involve physical separation, depending on God’s will. For Moses it involved physical separation, but for Joseph and Daniel it did not. The will of God is not the same for everyone in this respect.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
THE CHOICE OF MOSES.
Exo 2:11-15.
God works even His miracles by means. As He fed the multitude with barley-loaves, so He would emancipate Israel by human agency. It was therefore necessary to educate one of the trampled race “in all the learning of Egypt,” and Moses was planted in the court of Pharaoh, like the German Arminius in Rome. Wonderful legends may be read in Josephus of his heroism, his wisdom, and his victories; and these have some foundation in reality, for Stephen tells us that he was mighty in his words and works. Might in words need not mean the fluent utterance which he so earnestly disclaimed (Exo 4:10), even if forty years’ disuse of the language were not enough to explain his later diffidence. It may have meant such power of composition as appears in the hymn by the Red Sea, and in the magnificent valediction to his people.
The point is that among a nation originally pastoral, and now sinking fast into the degraded animalism of slaves, which afterwards betrayed itself in their complaining greed, their sighs for the generous Egyptian dietary, and their impure carouse under the mountain, one man should possess the culture and mental grasp needed by a leader and lawgiver. “Could not the grace of God have supplied the place of endowment and attainment?” Yes, truly; and it was quite as likely to do this for one who came down from His immediate presence with his face intolerably bright, as for the last impudent enthusiast who declaims against the need of education in sentences which at least prove that for him the want has by no substitute been completely met. But the grace of God chose to give the qualification, rather than replace it, alike to Moses and St. Paul. Nor is there any conspicuous example among the saints of a man being thrust into a rank for which he was not previously made fit.
The painful contrast between his own refined tastes and habits, and the coarser manners of his nation, was no doubt one difficulty of the choice of Moses, and a lifelong trial to him afterwards. He is an example not only to those whom wealth and power would entangle, but to any who are too fastidious and sensitive for the humble company of the people of God.
While the intellect of Moses was developing, it is plain that his connection with his family was not entirely broken. Such a tie as often binds a foster-child to its nurse may have been permitted to associate him with his real parents. Some means were evidently found to instruct him in the history and messianic hopes of Israel, for he knew that their reproach was that of “the Christ,” greater riches than all the treasure of Egypt, and fraught with a reward for which he looked in faith (Heb 11:26). But what is meant by naming as part of his burden their “reproach,” as distinguished from their sufferings?
We shall understand, if we reflect, that his open rupture with Egypt was unlikely to be the work of a moment. Like all the best workers, he was led forward gradually, at first unconscious of his vocation. Many a protest he must have made against the cruel and unjust policy that steeped the land in innocent blood. Many a jealous councillor must have known how to weaken his dangerous influence by some cautious taunt, some insinuated “reproach” of his own Hebrew origin. The warnings put by Josephus into the lips of the priests in his childhood, were likely enough to have been spoken by some one before he was forty years old. At last, when driven to make his choice, he “refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter,” a phrase, especially in its reference to the rejected title as distinguished from “the pleasures of sin,” which seems to imply a more formal rupture than Exodus records.
We saw that the piety of his parents was not unhelped by their emotions: they hid him by faith when they saw that he was a goodly child. Such was also the faith by which Moses broke with rank and fortune. He went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. Twice the word of kinship is repeated; and Stephen tells us that Moses himself used it in rebuking the dissensions of his fellow-countrymen. Filled with yearning and pity for his trampled brethren, and with the shame of generous natures who are at ease while others suffer, he saw an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew. With that blended caution and vehemence which belong to his nation still, he looked and saw that there was no man, and slew the Egyptian. Like most acts of passion, this was at once an impulse of the moment, and an outcome of long gathering forces–just as the lightning flash, sudden though it seem, has been prepared by the accumulated electricity of weeks.
And this is the reason why God allows the issues of a lifetime, perhaps of an eternity, to be decided by a sudden word, a hasty blow. Men plead that if time had been given, they would have stifled the impulse which ruined them. But what gave the impulse such violent and dreadful force that it overwhelmed them before they could reflect? The explosion in the coal-mine is not caused by the sudden spark, without the accumulation of dangerous gases, and the absence of such wholesome ventilation as would carry them away. It is so in the breast where evil desires or tempers are harboured, unsubdued by grace, until any accident puts them beyond control. Thank God that such sudden movements do not belong to evil only! A high soul is surprised into heroism, as often perhaps as a mean one into theft or falsehood. In the case of Moses there was nothing unworthy, but much that was unwarranted and presumptuous. The decision it involved was on the right side, but the act was self-willed and unwarranted, and it carried heavy penalties. “The trespass originated not in inveterate cruelty,” says St. Augustine, “but in a hasty zeal which admitted of correction … resentment against injury was accompanied by love for a brother…. Here was evil to be rooted out, but the heart with such capabilities, like good soil, needed only cultivation to make it fruitful in virtue.”
Stephen tells us, what is very natural, that Moses expected the people to accept him as their heaven-born deliverer. From which it appears that he cherished high expectations for himself, from Israel if not from Egypt. When he interfered next day between two Hebrews, his question as given in Exodus is somewhat magisterial: “Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?” In Stephen’s version it dictates less, but it lectures a good deal: “Sirs, ye are brethren, why do ye wrong one to another?” And it was natural enough that they should dispute his pretensions, for God had not yet given him the rank he claimed. He still needed a discipline almost as sharp as that of Joseph, who, by talking too boastfully of his dreams, postponed their fulfilment until he was chastened by slavery and a dungeon. Even Saul of Tarsus, when converted, needed three years of close seclusion for the transformation of his fiery ardour into divine zeal, as iron to be tempered must be chilled as well as heated. The precipitate and violent zeal of Moses entailed upon him forty years of exile.
And yet his was a noble patriotism. There is a false love of country, born of pride, which blinds one to her faults; and there is a loftier passion which will brave estrangement and denunciation to correct them. Such was the patriotism of Moses, and of all whom God has ever truly called to lead their fellows. Nevertheless he had to suffer for his error.
His first act had been a kind of manifesto, a claim to lead, which he supposed that they would have understood; and yet, when he found his deed was known, he feared and fled. His false step told against him. One cannot but infer also that he was conscious of having already forfeited court favour–that he had before this not only made his choice, but announced it, and knew that the blow was ready to fall on him at any provocation. We read that he dwelt in the land of Midian, a name which was applied to various tracts according to the nomadic wanderings of the tribe, but which plainly included, at this time, some part of the peninsula formed by the tongues of the Red Sea. For, as he fed his flocks, he came to the Mount of God.