Episode 346 - "Moses' Conscience" - Exodus 2:11-22
[11] One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. [12] He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. [13] When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?” [14] He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” [15] When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well.
[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. [17] The shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and saved them, and watered their flock. [18] When they came home to their father Reuel, he said, “How is it that you have come home so soon today?” [19] They said, “An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and even drew water for us and watered the flock.” [20] He said to his daughters, “Then where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.” [21] And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah. [22] She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.” (ESV)
In our previous episodes, we read about how the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob not only reached a foreign land but were later enslaved and oppressed in Egypt. This fact resonates with what God had revealed to Abraham when he promised that he would not leave them there, but deliver them out of that land to the land God had promised them.
If we start reading Exodus without having read Genesis, we miss out on important details beyond the Abrahamic Covenant. Exodus might better be titled, “Genesis Volume 2.” We are not just anticipating God’s solution to deliver this people group out of bondage, but we are also anticipating the “seed of the woman” who will crush the head of the serpent (the devil) and death itself. These stories are interrelated, and we should not lose sight of this as we read.
So far, the indicators point to a child named Moses, who was protected from the Pharaoh's genocidal death edict, as a key figure and likely protagonist in this Exodus story. He is a Hebrew child born to two descendants of Levi, a son of Jacob (Israel), who, along with his brother Simeon, massacred a community of Hittites in revenge for one of their men raping their sister Dinah. Will this family history have any bearing upon the events that will unfold in Exodus?
An interesting twist in the story is that while baby Moses' life was spared, he was given to his biological mother by the daughter of Pharaoh to nurse. He likely spent at least the first few years of his life with his own mother and culture before being given to Pharaoh’s daughter to be raised in Pharaoh’s household. It’s a twist that makes the reader wonder where his allegiance will ultimately lie.
The answer to that comes very quickly when the story jumps from his early childhood to his adult years. In fact, we understand that Moses was nearing 40 years of age. Verse 11 tells us, “he went out to his people and looked on their burdens.” This suggests that he not only understood his identity as a Hebrew, but that he was compassionate toward their plight and had a conflict of conscience about his position as a member of Pharaoh’s household who oppressed his people. When he watched an Egyptian beating a fellow Hebrew, he murdered the Egyptian and hid his body, thinking no one had seen him. (Maybe a little of that Levitical heritage had come through.)
The next day, he tried to intervene to bring peace between two fighting Hebrew men. The offender asked Moses if he intended to kill him like he killed the Egyptian. Certainly, this man would not have mocked Moses, someone from Pharaoh’s house, unless he knew he had some power over him. There is a bit of irony in the man’s rhetorical question, “Who had made you a prince and judge over us?” (v. 14) As a member of Pharaoh’s household, it seems likely that he was a prince and judge over them. More importantly, we’ll soon discover that God will make Moses a prince and judge over the people. The bottom line is that Moses realized that his crime had been witnessed and his life was in danger. He fled to the east out of Egypt.
Moses stopped at a well where seven daughters of a Midianite priest brought their father’s flocks to water. Other shepherds began to drive them away, but Moses defended them and drove the men away. This act of kindness or justice by Moses led their father, Reuel, to marry off his daughter Zipporah to Moses and make Moses part of his family.
Some interesting facts about these details are that, first, the Midianites were Semitic people. They were descendants of Abraham and his second wife. We don’t know exactly who, what, or how the Midianites worshipped. However, in reading Genesis, Abraham was very specific in sending his servant back to his home area and people to find a wife for his son, Isaac. It was important to Abraham that his son not marry a Canaanite. It seems to me that Moses includes these details to reveal the LORD’s sovereign hand in bringing him into a relation with distant relatives.
A second detail is that the priest of Midian is named Reuel here, but later named Jethro. Scholars suggest that Reuel may have actually been the biological grandfather of the women and Jethro their biological father. Reuel would have been the head of the family and addressed as father. There are other possibilities besides a mistake in the text.
Finally, while we know nothing about the religion of the Midianites. However, later in Exodus 18, we’ll read that Jethro worshipped the LORD for what he had done for the Israelites.
We conclude this section with the birth of Moses and Zipporah’s son, named Gershom, because Moses says, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.” (v. 22) Notably, this has been the case for Moses his entire life.
As this story continues to unfold over decades, the evidence of God’s hand remains consistently evident. I believe that’s true today. God is not some force in the universe with no concern for or involvement in the events that unfold in our lives. God will bring all his promises to fulfillment according to his will.