Exodus 2

The little girl who defined “radio” as “television without pictures” didn’t know what she was talking about. I grew up in the Golden Age of Radio, and I can assure you that as I listened, I saw many vivid and exciting pictures—right in my own imagination. Television doesn’t let you do that. And the stories on radio went on and on, day after day, always leaving us wondering, “What will happen next?”

The Old Testament is God’s “continued story” of His great program of salvation that He announced to Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:15) and to Abraham (12:1–3). That explains why the Hebrew text of Exodus begins with the word “and,” for God is continuing the story He started in Genesis. God’s wonderful story finally led to the coming of Jesus to earth and His death on the cross, and it won’t end until God’s people go to heaven and see Jesus on the throne. What a story!

The theme of Exodus is deliverance, and you can’t have deliverance without a deliverer. That’s where Moses comes in, the great liberator, legislator, and mediator.

Amram and Jochebed were Moses’ parents (6:20), and while the Exodus text emphasizes the faith of the mother, Hebrews 11: commends both the father and the mother for trusting God. Certainly it took faith for them to have normal marital relations during that dangerous time when Jewish babies were being killed. Moses became a great man of faith, and he learned it first from his godly parents. Amram and Jochebed already had two children: Miriam, who was the oldest, and Aaron, who was three years older than Moses (Ex. 7:7).

From the very first, Moses was seen to be “no ordinary child” (Acts 7: niv; see Heb. 11:23), and it was evident that God had a special purpose for him. Believing this to be true, the parents defied Pharaoh’s edict and kept their son alive. This wasn’t easy to do since all the Egyptians were now Pharaoh’s official spies, watching for babies to be drowned (Ex. 1:22).

Jochebed obeyed the letter of the law when she put Moses in the waters of the Nile, but certainly she was defying Pharaoh’s orders in the way she did it. She was trusting the providence of God and God didn’t fail her. When the princess came to the Nile to perform her religious ablutions, she saw the basket, discovered the baby, and heard him cry, and her maternal instincts told her to rescue the child and care for him.

God used a baby’s tears to control the heart of a powerful princess, and He used Miriam’s words to arrange for the baby’s mother to raise the boy and get paid for it! The phrase “as weak as a baby” doesn’t apply in the kingdom of God, for when the Lord wants to accomplish a mighty work, He often starts by sending a baby. This was true when He sent Isaac, Joseph, Samuel, John the Baptist, and especially Jesus. God can use the weakest things to defeat the mightiest enemies (1 Cor. 1:25–29). A baby’s tears were God’s first weapons in His war against Egypt.

The princess adopted Moses as her own son, which means that Moses had a favored position in the land and was given a special education for service in the government (Acts 7:22). In the Egyptian language, Moses means “born” or “son” and sounds like a Hebrew word that means “to draw out” (of the water). Years later, his name would remind Moses of the God who rescued him and did great things for him in Egypt. On more than one occasion, Moses would rescue his people because he trusted the Lord.

Moses spent his first forty years (Acts 7:23) serving in the Egyptian bureaucracy. (Some students think he was being groomed to be the next pharaoh.) Egypt seems the least likely place for God to start training a leader, but God’s ways are not our ways. In equipping Moses for service, God took several approaches.

Education. “And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds” (Acts 7: nkjv). What did that involve? Egypt had a highly developed civilization for its time, particularly in the areas of engineering, mathematics, and astronomy. Thanks to their knowledge of astronomy, they developed an amazingly accurate calendar, and their engineers planned and supervised the construction of edifices that are still standing. Their priests and doctors were masters of the art of embalming, and their leaders were skilled in organization and administration. Visitors to Egypt today can’t help but be impressed with the accomplishments of this ancient people. The servant of God should learn all he can, dedicate it to God, and faithfully serve God.

Failure (vv. 11–14). Though some people were confused about his racial identity (v. 19), Moses knew that he was a Hebrew and not an Egyptian, and he couldn’t help but identify with the plight of his suffering people. One day he made a courageous decision to help his people, even if it meant losing his noble position as the adopted son of the royal princess (Heb. 11:24–26). The pleasures and treasures of Egypt faded from view as he saw himself helping to liberate God’s chosen people.

It’s possible that the Egyptian officer wasn’t just disciplining the Jewish slave but was beating him to death, because the Hebrew word can mean that, so when Moses interfered, he was probably saving a man’s life. And, if the Egyptian officer turned on Moses, which is likely, then Moses was also defending his own life.

But if Moses was planning to free the Hebrews by killing the Egyptians one by one, he was in for a shock. The next day he discovered that the Egyptians were only part of the problem because the Jews couldn’t even get along with each other! When he tried to reconcile the two Jews, they rejected his help! Even more, he learned that his secret was out and that Pharaoh was after his life. There was only one thing to do and that was to flee.

These two incidents reveal Moses as a compassionate man who was sincere in his motives but impetuous in his actions. Knowing this, you would never suspect that later he would be called “the meekest man on the earth” (Num. 12:3). Moses’ failure to help free the Jews must have devastated him. That’s why God took him to Midian and made him a shepherd for forty years. He had to learn that deliverance would come from God’s hand, not Moses’ hand (Acts 7:25; Ex. 13:3).

Solitude and humble service (vv. 15–25). Moses became a fugitive and fled to the land of the Midianites, relatives of the Jews (Gen. 25:2). True to his courageous nature, he assisted the daughters of Reuel, the priest of Midian (Ex. 2:18), and this led to hospitality in their home and marriage with one of the daughters, Zipporah, who bore him a son. Later, she would bear another son, Eliezer (18:1–4; 1 Chron. 23:15). Reuel (“friend of God”) was also known as Jethro (Ex. 3:1; 18:12, 27), but Jethro (“excellence”) may have been his title as priest rather than his given name.

The man who was “mighty in word and deed” is now in the lonely pastures taking care of stubborn sheep, but that was just the kind of preparation he needed for leading a nation of stubborn people. Israel was God’s special flock (Ps. 100:3) and Moses His chosen shepherd. Like Joseph’s thirteen years as a slave in Egypt and Paul’s three years’ hiatus after his conversion (Gal. 1:16–17), Moses’ forty years of waiting and working prepared him for a lifetime of faithful ministry. God doesn’t lay hands suddenly on His servants but takes time to equip them for their work.

God’s delays aren’t evidence of unconcern, for He hears our groans, sees our plight, feels our sorrows, and remembers His covenant. What He has promised, He will perform, for He never breaks His covenant with His people. When the right time comes, God immediately goes to work.