Ex. 2: Moses Born, Kills Egyptian, Gets Married...Whew

We open chapter two with the birth of Moses to a Levite couple. After three months, the mother could no longer hide him. He was a fine child, and because of Pharaoh's decree to throw every boy into the Nile, she did just that. Except she included a papyrus basket, coated with tar and pitch. (Sounds a lot like the ark, from Gen. 6:14. A vessel of deliverance.) Yep, then she placed him in the Nile. Pharaoh didn't say anything about pitch coated baskets. I don't think Moses' mom thought he was going to be safe exactly, just that he would last longer than if she just tossed him in the Nile. So Moses' sister walks along the bank to see what would happen.

Well, it just so happen that Pharaoh's daughter was at the Nile to wash up. She saw this basket and had a slave go retrieve it. Might as well get some use out of them. She recognized him as a Hebrew. Moses sister asked if she could go get a Hebrew woman to nurse him, and of course brings their mother. Pharaoh's daughter offers to pay Moses' mother to nurse her own son. Of course mom was going to have to give the baby up afterwards. I imagine that would have been very hard. Very bittersweet. At least the child would live. But here we have a parent forced to give up an only son. Again. But she let him go. And Pharaoh's daughter, since the baby was drawn out of the water, was named Moses.

Then Moses grows up in the span of one verse. He was observing his own people laboring in the sun. He saw an Egyptian wailing on some Hebrew dude. He looks around, figures, "Hey, no one else here," and kills the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. The next day, Wyatt Moses goes back out there and sees to Hebrews wailing on each other. "Why are you wailing on your fellow Hebrew?" He asks. Big mistake. In his rage, one of them says, "who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you going to kill me like you killed that Egyptian?" This freaked Moses out, like when you pull a stunt, and then everyone knows its you.

Well, Pharaoh, his grandfather, heard about it, and wanted to kill him. So Moses skipped town to Midian, at least until stuff settles down back home. He takes a breather by a well. A priest of Midian had seven daughters who frequented the well to water his flock. Some jerky shepherds came along and chased them off. Moses came to their rescue like a nice guy and watered the flock.

So the girls return to Reuel, their father, and tell him the story, and he's like..."why didn't you invite him over to eat?"

So Moses agrees to stay with them, and he got hooked up with Zipporah, Reuel's daughter. Zipporah gave Moses a son, who he named Gershom.

During that time, Pharaoh finally died, and the Israelites were still groaning in their slavery. These cries were heard by God, who remembered his promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I don't think he forgot, he was aware of his covenant, and was concerned about them.

I react to this like, "Thanks for your concern, God, but 'concern' doesn't free me from this slavemaster." How long was God going to allow them to be enslaved? And why? We learned in Gen. 50 about God's intentions, in that Joseph's brothers intended for evil, but God intended good. In a situation like this, I am eager to see how God would use something awful like this into a plan for good.