A man of the house of Levi went and took a daughter of Levi as his wife. The woman conceived and bore a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. When she could no longer hide him, she took a papyrus basket for him, and coated it with tar and with pitch. She put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river’s bank. His sister stood far off, to see what would be done to him.
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Exodus 2:1-4 sits inside this longer paragraph.
A man of the house of Levi went and took a daughter of Levi as his wife. The woman conceived and bore a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. When she could no longer hide him, she took a papyrus basket for him, and coated it with tar and with pitch. She put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river’s bank. His sister stood far off, to see what would be done to him. Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe at the river. Her maidens walked along by the riverside. She saw the basket among the reeds, and sent her servant to get it. She opened it, and saw the child, and behold, the baby cried. She had compassion on him, and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.”
Parallel Translations
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A man of the house of Levi went and took a daughter of Levi as his wife.
The woman conceived and bore a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months.
When she could no longer hide him, she took a papyrus basket for him, and coated it with tar and with pitch. She put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river’s bank.
His sister stood far off, to see what would be done to him.
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And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.
And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.
And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink.
And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.
Show all 3 translations
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And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.
And the woman conceived, and bore a son; and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.
And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch; and she put the child therein, and laid it in the flags by the river's brink.
And his sister stood afar off, to know what would be done to him.
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Historical claims about the natural world, weighed against the scientific record.
Cross-references (20)
- Hebrews 11:23 (v2) By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that he was a beautiful child, and they…
- Acts 7:20 (v2) At that time Moses was born, and was exceedingly handsome. He was nourished three months in his father’s house.
- Numbers 26:59 (vv1, 4) The name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, who was born to Levi in Egypt. She bore to Amram Aaron and Moses, and Miriam…
- Exodus 1:22 (v3) Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “You shall cast every son who is born into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.”
- Exodus 15:20 (v4) Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with…
Show all 19 cross-references
- Genesis 6:14 (v3) Make a ship of gopher wood. You shall make rooms in the ship, and shall seal it inside and outside with pitch.
- Micah 6:4 (v4) For I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage. I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.
- Acts 7:19 (v3) The same took advantage of our race, and mistreated our fathers, and forced them to throw out their babies, so that they wouldn’t stay…
- Exodus 6:16-20 (v1) These are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations: Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari; and the years of the life of Levi…
- 1 Chronicles 23:12-14 (v1) The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, four. The sons of Amram: Aaron and Moses; and Aaron was separated, that he should…
- Isaiah 18:2 (v3) that sends ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of papyrus on the waters, saying, “Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and…
- Matthew 2:16 (v3) Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked by the wise men, was exceedingly angry, and sent out, and killed all the male children who were…
- 1 Chronicles 6:1-3 (v1) The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, and Hebron, and Uzziel. The children of Amram: Aaron,…
- Matthew 2:13 (v3) Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise and take the young child and his…
- Genesis 11:3 (v3) They said to one another, “Come, let’s make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.
- Numbers 20:1 (v4) The children of Israel, even the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zin in the first month. The people stayed in Kadesh.…
- Genesis 14:10 (v3) Now the valley of Siddim was full of tar pits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and some fell there. Those who remained fled to…
- Numbers 12:1-15 (v4) Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married; for he had married a Cushite woman. They said, “Has…
- Isaiah 19:6 (v3) The rivers will become foul. The streams of Egypt will be diminished and dried up. The reeds and flags will wither away.
19 distinct cross-references across this passage (20 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (29 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 This Levite was called Amram, who married Jochebed, Exod.…
This Levite was called Amram, who married Jochebed, Exod. 6:20.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–4 Exo 2:1 And there went a man of the…
Exo 2:1 And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took [to wife] a daughter of Levi.
Ver. 1. And took to wife.] His own aunt. {Exo 6:20 Num 26:59} The law against incest {Lev 18:12} was not yet given, nor the state of Israel settled. But what excuse can there be for that abominable incest of the house of Austria by Papal dispensation? King Philip of Spain was uncle to himself, first cousin to his father, husband to his sister, and father to his wife! {a} And what shall we say of our modern sectaries, whose practising of incest is now avowed publicly in print? They shame not to affirm that those marriages are most lawful that are between persons nearest in blood, brother and sister, father and daughter, mother and son, uncle and niece. The prohibition of degrees in Leviticus is to be understood, say they, of fornication, not of marriage {b} Tamar did not doubt to be her brother Amnon’s wife, but detested the act of fornication, &c. Lo, here, what noonday devils do now, in this unhappy time, walk with open face among us! {c}
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{a} Spec. Europ.
{b} See Mr Bayly’s Dissuasion, part 2, and Mr Edwards’s Gangr., part 3.
{c} Little Nonsuch, pp. 5-7.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4 There went a man, viz. Amram, Exo 6:20; Num…
There went a man, viz. Amram, Exo 6:20; Num 26:58,59 from the place of his abode to another place for the following purpose. A daughter of Levi, namely Jochebed, Num 26:59, called a
daughter, not strictly, but more largely, to wit, a grandchild, as the words father and son are oft used for a grandfather and a grandson, as hath been showed before: And so the word sister, Exo 6:20, is to be taken largely, as brother is oft used for a cousin. This seems more probable than that an Israelite should marry his own sister, which even heathens by the light of nature have condemned, especially now when he had such abundant choice elsewhere.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 Moses was a Levite, both by father and mother.…
Moses was a Levite, both by father and mother. Jacob left Levi under marks of disgrace (Gen 49:5); and yet, soon after, Moses appears a descendant from him, that he might typify Christ, who came in the likeness of sinful flesh and was made a curse for us. This tribe began to be distinguished from the rest by the birth of Moses, as afterwards it became remarkable in many other instances. Observe, concerning this newborn infant,
I. How he was hidden. It seems to have been just at the time of his birth that the cruel law was made for the murder of all the male children of the Hebrews; and many, no doubt, perished by the execution of it. The parents of Moses had Miriam and Aaron, both older than he, born to them before this edict came out, and had nursed them without that peril: but those that begin the world in peace know not what troubles they may meet with before they have got through it. Probably the mother of Moses was full of anxiety in the expectation of his birth, now that this edict was in force, and was ready to say, Blessed are the barren that never bore, Luk 23:29. Better so than bring forth children to the murderer, Hos 9:13. Yet this child proves the glory of his father's house. Thus that which is most our fear often proves, in the issue, most our joy. Observe the beauty of providence: just at the time when Pharaoh's cruelty rose to this height the deliverer was born, though he did not appear for many years after. Note, When men are projecting the church's ruin God is preparing for its salvation. Moses, who was afterwards to bring Israel out of this house of bondage, was himself in danger of falling a sacrifice to the fury of the oppressor, God so ordering it that, being afterwards told of this, he might be the more animated with a holy zeal for the deliverance of his brethren out of the hands of such bloody men. 1. His parents observed him to be a goodly child, more than ordinarily beautiful; he was fair to God, Act 7:20. They fancied he had a lustre in his countenance that was something more than human, and was a specimen of the shining of his face afterwards, Exo 34:29. Note, God sometimes gives early earnests of his gifts, and manifests himself betimes in those for whom and by whom he designs to do great things. Thus he put an early strength into Samson (Jdg 13:24, Jdg 13:25), an early forwardness into Samuel (Sa1 2:18), wrought an early deliverance for David (Sa1 17:37), and began betimes with Timothy, Ti1 3:15. 2. Therefore they were the more solicitous for his preservation, because they looked upon this as an indication of some kind purpose of God concerning him, and a happy omen of something great. Note, A lively active faith can take encouragement from the least intimation of the divine favour; a merciful hint of Providence will encourage those whose spirits make diligent search, Three months they hid him in some private apartment of their own house, though probably with the hazard of their own lives, had he been discovered. Herein Moses was a type of Christ, who, in his infancy, was forced to abscond, and in Egypt too (Mat 2:13), and was wonderfully preserved, when many innocents were butchered. It is said (Heb 11:23) that the parents of Moses hid him by faith; some think they had a special revelation to them that the deliverer should spring from their loins; however they had the general promise of Israel's preservation, which they acted faith upon, and in that faith hid their child, not being afraid of the penalty annexed to the king's commandment. Note, Faith in God's promise is so far from superseding that it rather excites and quickens to the use of lawful means for the obtaining of mercy. Duty is ours, events are God's. Again, Faith in God will set us above the ensnaring fear of man.
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II. How he was exposed. At three months' end, probably when the searchers came about to look for concealed children, so that they could not hide him any longer (their faith perhaps beginning now to fail), they put him in an ark of bulrushes by the river's brink (Exo 2:3), and set his little sister at some distance to watch what would become of him, and into whose hands he would fall, Exo 2:4. God put it into their hearts to do this, to bring about his own purposes, that Moses might by this means be brought into the hands of Pharaoh's daughter, and that by his deliverance from this imminent danger a specimen might be given of the deliverance of God's church, which now lay thus exposed. Note, 1. God takes special care of the outcasts of Israel (Psa 147:2); they are his outcasts, Isa 16:4. Moses seemed quite abandoned by his friends; his own mother durst not own him: but now the Lord took him up and protected him, Psa 27:10. 2. In times of extreme difficulty it is good to venture upon the providence of God. Thus to have exposed their child while they might have preserved it, would have been to tempt Providence; but, when they could not, it was to trust to Providence. "Nothing venture, nothing win." If I perish, I perish.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–4 And there went a man of the house of…
And there went a man of the house of Levi,.... This man was Amram, the son of Kohath, and grandson of Levi, as appears from Exo 6:18.
and took to wife a daughter of Levi; one of the same house, family, or tribe; which was proper, that the tribes might be kept distinct: this was Jochebed, said to be his father's sister; see Gill on Exo 6:20, her name in Josephus (s) is Joachebel, which seems to be no other than a corruption of Jochebed, but in the Targum in Ch1 4:18 she is called Jehuditha.
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(s) Antiqu. l. 2. c. 9. sect. 4.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–3 This chapter begins the story of Moses, the most…
This chapter begins the story of Moses, the most remarkable type of Christ as prophet, saviour, law-giver, and mediator, in all the Old Testament. In this chapter we have,
I. The perils of his birth and infancy, ver. 1-4.
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II. His preservation through those perils, and the preferment of his childhood and youth, ver. 5-10.
III. The pious choice of his riper years, which was to own the people of God, (1.) He offered them his service, so they would have accepted it, ver. 11-14. (2.) He retired, that he might reserve himself for farther service, ver. 15-22.
IV. The dawning of the day of Israel's deliverance, ver. 23-25.
And there went a man - Amram, from the place of his abode to another place. A daughter - That is, grand-daughter of Levi.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Amram and Jochebed marry, 1.
CHAPTER II
Amram and Jochebed marry, 1.
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Moses is born, and is hidden by his mother three months, 2.
Is exposed in an ark of bulrushes on the riser Nile, and watched
by his sister, 3, 4.
He is found by the daughter of Pharaoh, who commits him to the
care of his own mother, and has him educated as her own son, 5-9.
When grown up, he is brought to Pharaoh's daughter, who receives
him as her own child, and calls him Moses, 10.
Finding an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, he kills the Egyptian, and
hides him in the sand, 11, 12.
Reproves two Hebrews that were contending together, one of whom
charges him with killing the Egyptian, 13, 14.
Pharaoh, hearing of the death of the Egyptian, sought to slay
Moses, who, being alarmed, escapes to the land of Midian, 15.
Meets with the seven daughters of Reuel, priest or prince of Midian,
who came to water their flocks, and assists them, 16, 17.
On their return they inform their father Reuel, who invites Moses
to his house, 18-20.
Moses dwells with him, and receives Zipporah his daughter to wife, 21.
She bears him a son whom he calls Gershom, 22.
The children of Israel, grievously oppressed in Egypt, cry for
deliverance, 23.
God remembers his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and
hears their prayer, 24, 25.
NOTES ON CHAP. II
Verse 1. There went a man] Amram, son of Kohath, son of Levi, Ex 6:16-20. A daughter of Levi, Jochebed, sister to Kohath, and consequently both the wife and aunt of her husband Amram, Ex 6:20; Nu 26:59. Such marriages were at this time lawful, though they were afterwards forbidden, Le 18:12. But it is possible that daughter of Levi means no more than a descendant of that family, and that probably Amram and Jochebed were only cousin germans. As a new law was to be given and a new priesthood formed, God chose a religious family out of which the lawgiver and the high priest were both to spring.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Exo 2:1. There went a man — Amram, from…
Exo 2:1. There went a man — Amram, from the place of his abode to another place. A daughter — That is, grand-daughter of Levi.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–3 A man ... a daughter of Levi - Amram…
A man ... a daughter of Levi - Amram and Jochebed. See Exo 6:20.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1–4 After this. In process of time, without reference to…
After this. In process of time, without reference to what immediately precedes. The Hebrew and Septuagint omit these words. (Haydock) --- The marriage of Amram, grandson of Levi, with his aunt or cousin, had taken place before the persecution. Tostat and others suppose, that people were not then forbidden to marry their aunts. But it is probable Jochabed was only the grand-daughter of Levi, and the daughter of one of Amram’s brothers, as the Septuagint insinuate. Otherwise their ages would have been very disproportionate. See chap. vi. 20. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 B.—The birth and miraculous preservation of Moses. his elevation…
B.—The birth and miraculous preservation of Moses. his elevation and fidelity to the israelites. His typical act of deliverance and apparently final disappearance. God’s continued purpose to release Israel
Exo_2:1-25
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1And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a [the] daughter of Levi.1 2And the woman conceived and bare a son; and when she [and sheM] saw him, that he was a goodly child [was goodly, and] she hid him three months. 3And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime [bitumen] and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags [sedge] by the river’s brink. 4And his sister stood afar off, to wit [in order to learn] what would be done to him. 5And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself [bathe] at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river’s side; and when she [and she] saw the ark among the flags [sedge, and] she sent her maid to fetch it [maid, and she fetched it]. 6And when she had opened it she [And she opened it, and] saw the child, and behold, the babe [a boy] wept [weeping]. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews’ children. 7Then said his sister [And his sister said] to Pharaoh’s daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? 8And Pharaoh’s daughter said unto her, Go. And the maid went and called the child’s mother. 9And Pharaoh’s daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child and nursed it. 10And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water. 11And it came to pass in those days when Moses was grown [that Moses grew up], that [and] he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens; and he spied [saw] an Egyptian smiting an [a] Hebrew, one of his brethren. 12And he looked [turned] this way and that way, and when he [and he] saw that there was no man [man, and] he slew the Egyptian and hid [buried] him in the sand. 13And when he [And he] went out the second day [day, and] behold, two men of the Hebrews [two Hebrew men] strove together [were quarreling]; and he said to him that did the wrong [to the guilty one], Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? 14And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? Intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And 15Moses feared, and said, Surely this [the] thing is known. Now when [And] Pharaoh heard this thing, [thing, and] he sought to slay Moses. But [And] Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian; and he sat down 16[dwelt2] by a [the] well. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters; and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. 17And the shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock. 18And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How is it that ye are [Wherefore have ye] come so soon to-day? 19And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough3 for [drew water for] us, and watered the flock. 20And he said unto his daughters, And where is ?Hebrews 4 why is it that ye have [why then have ye] left the man? call him, that he may eat bread. 21And Moses was content [consented5] to dwell with the man; and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter. 22And she bare him a [bare a] sod, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, I have been a stranger [A sojourner have I been] in a strange land. 23And it came to pass in process of time [lit. in those many days], that the king of Egypt died; and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage [service], and they cried; and their cry6 came up to God by reason of the bondage [service]. 24And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them [lit. knew them7].
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[Exo_2:1. אֶת, disregarded by the most of the commentators, is noticed by Glaire, who remarks that it “may imply that this daughter, named Jochebed (Exo_6:20) was the only one of the family of Levi still living, or the only one of that house who was then marriageable.” According to Exo_6:20, and Num_26:59, Jochebed was Levi’s own daughter; she may have been an only daughter. Sill it is possible that אֵת, though almost always used only before a definite object, is here used as in Exo_21:28. “If an ox gore a man (אֵת־אִישׁ) or woman (אֶת־אִשָׁה).” Comp. Ewald’s Kritische Grammatik, § 318, Note (9).—Tr.].
[Exo_2:15. Whether the second וָיֵּשֶׁב means “and ho sat down,” or “and he dwelt,” is not easily determined. It seems unnatural that the word should have two meanings in the two consecutive sentences, although undoubtedly it is elsewhere freely used in both senses. If, moreover, the writer meant to say that Moses, while dwelling in Midian, once happened to be sitting by the well, and so became acquainted with Reuel’s daughters, he would probably not have used the Future with the Vav consecutive, but rather the Perfect, or the Participle. Comp. Ewald, Autführt. Gr., § 341 a.—Tr.].
[Exo_2:19. וְגַס־דָּלֹה דָלָה. Lange translates: Auch hat er anhaltend geschöpft, “Also he kept drawing,” as if the Inf. Abs. followed, instead of preceding דָלָה. There is no reason for assigning to the Inf. Abs. here any other than its common use, viz., to emphasize the meaning of the finite verb. Nor does the rendering of the A.V., “drew water enough,” quite reproduce its force. The daughters of Reuel evidently thought it would have been a remarkable occurrence if Moses had only defended them from the shepherds. But more than this: “he even drew for us.”—Tr.].
[Exo_2:20. וְאַיּוֹ. Kalisch renders, “Where then is he?” Correctly enough, so far as the sense is concerned; but unnecessarily deviating from the more literal rendering in the A. V., which exactly expresses the force of the original.—Tr.].
[Exo_2:21. וַיּוֹאֵל. Glaire insists that in all the passages where יָאַל occurs, even where it has the meaning “to be foolish,” the radical meaning is “to venture.” Most lexicograhpers assume a separate root for the signification, which it has in Niph., “to be foolish.” Meier (Wurzelwörterbuch), however, reduces all the significations to that of “opening” or “being open,” from the root חָלַל = אוּל. But better, with Fürst, to assumo two roots, and make the radical signification of this one to be “to resolve, determine.” This covers all cases. e.g. Gen_18:27, “I have resolved.” i.e., undertaken. Jdg_1:27, “The Canaanites determined to dwell.” In cases like the one before us, and 2Ki_5:23; Jdg_19:6, the resolution, being the result of persuasion, is a consent.—Tr.].
[Exo_2:23. שַׁוְעָתָם. “cry for help”—a different root from that of the verb וַיִּזְעָקוּ.—Tr.].
[Exo_2:25. Lange translates: Und Gott sah an die Kinder Israels, und als der Gottheit war’s ihm bewusst (er durchschaute, sie und ihre Situation). “And God looked on the children of Israel, and it was known by Him as the Godhead (e saw through them and their situation).” This translation seems to be suggested by the emphatic repetition of אֱלֹהִים. But better to find the emphatic word in וַיֵדַע “God knew (them),” i.e., had a tender regard for them—a frequent use of יָדַע Comp. Psa_144:3. Or, simply, “God knew,” leaving the object indefinite, as in the Hebrew.—Tr.].
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Exo_2:1. And there went.—הָלָךְ, according to Keil, serves to give a pictorial description. Inasmuch as the woman had already borne Miriam and Aaron, it would mislead us to take the word in this sense. The expression properly means that he had gone; he had, in these dangerous times which, to be sure, at Aaron’s birth had not yet reached the climax (he was three years older than Moses) taken the step of entering the married state.—The descent of these parents from the tribe of Levi is remarked. Energetic boldness had distinguished it even in the ancestor (Gen_49:5; Exo_32:26; Deu_33:8). Although originally not without fanaticism, this boldness yet indicated the qualities needed for the future priesthood.
Exo_2:2. She recognized it as a good omen, that the child was so fair (טוֹבἀστεῖος LXX.; vid., Heb_11:23), Josephus traces this intuition of faith, which harmonized with the maternal feeling of complacency and desire to preserve his life, to a special revelation. But this was here not needed.
Exo_2:3. The means of preservation chosen by the parents is especially attributed to the daughter of Levi. It is all the more daring, since in the use of it she had, or seemed to have, from the outset, the daughter of the child-murderer in mind. The phrase תֵּבָה designates the box as a miniature ark, a ship of deliverance. On the paper-reed, vid. Winer, Real-wörterbuch, II., p. 411. The box, cemented and made water-tight by means of asphalt and pitch, was made fast by the same reed out of which it had been constructed. This extraordinarily useful kind of reed seems by excessive use to have become extirpated.
Exo_2:4. And his sister.—Miriam (Exo_15:20). The sagacious child, certainly older than Aaron, early showed that she was qualified to become a prophetess (Exo_15:20) of such distinction that she could afterwards be puffed up by it.
Exo_2:5. “The daughter of Pharaoh is called Θέρμουθις (Josephus et al.) or Μέῤῥις.… The bathing of the king’s daughter in the open stream is contrary indeed to the custom of the modern Mohammedan Orient, where this is done only by women of low rank in retired places (Lane, Manners and Customs, p. 336, 5th ed.), but accords with the customs of ancient Egypt (comp. the copy of a bathing-scene of a noble Egyptian woman, with four female attendants, in Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, Vol. III., Plate 417), and besides is perhaps connected with the notion held by the ancient Egyptians concerning the sacredness of the Nile, to which even divine honors were paid (vid. Hengstenberg, Egypt and the Books of Moses, p. 113), and with the fructifying, life-preserving power of its waters.” (Keil).
Exo_2:6. The compassion of Pharaoh’s daughter towards the beautiful child led her to adopt him; and when she did so, making him, therefore, prospectively an Egyptian, she did not need, we may suppose, to educate him “behind the king’s back” [as Keil thinks.—Tr.]. We might rather assume that this event more or less neutralized the cruel edict of the king.
Exo_2:9. Nor is it to be assumed that the daughter of Pharaoh had no suspicion of the Hebrew nationality of the mother. How often, in cases of such national hostilities, the feelings of individual women are those of general humanity in contradistinction to those of the great mass of fanatical women.
Exo_2:10. She brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter.—The boy in the meantime had drunk in not only his mother’s milk, but also the Hebrew spirit, and had been intrusted with the secret of his descent and deliverance. Legally and formally he became her son, whilst he inwardly had become the son of another mother; and though she gave him the Egyptian name, “Mousheh,” i.e., saved from the water (Josephus II., 9, 6), yet it was at once changed in the mind of Divine Providence into the name “Mosheh;” the one taken out became the one taking out. (Kurtz). For other explanations of the name, vid. Gesenius, Knobel, Keil. Thus the Egyptian princess herself had to bring up the deliverer and avenger of Israel, and, by instructing him in all the wisdom of Egypt, prepare him both negatively and positively for his vocation.
Exo_2:11. When Moses was grown.—Had become a man. According to Act_7:23, and therefore according to Jewish tradition, he was then forty years old. He had remained true to his destination (Heb_11:24), but had also learned, like William of Orange, the Silent, to restrain himself, until finally a special occasion caused the flame hidden in him to burst forth. An Egyptian smote one of his brethren.—This phrase suggests the ebullient emotion with which he now decided upon his future career.
Exo_2:12. That Moses looked this way and that way before committing the deed, marks, on the one hand, the mature man who knew how to control his heated feeling, but, on the other hand, the man not yet mature in faith; since by this act, which was neither simple murder nor simple self-defence, and which was not sustained by a pure peace of conscience, he anticipated Divine Providence. It cannot be attributed to “a carnal thirst for achievement” [Kurtz]; but as little can it be called a pure act of faith; although the illegal deed, in which he was even strengthened by the consciousness of being an Egyptian prince (as David in his sin and fall might have been misled by feeling himself to be an oriental despot) was a display of his faith, in view of which Stephen (Acts 7) could justly rebuke the unbelief of the Jews. Vid. more in Keil, p. 431.
Exo_2:14. The Jew who thus spoke wag a representative of the unbelieving spirit of which Stephen speaks in Acts 7.
Exo_2:15. The Midianites had made a settlement not only beyond the Elanitic Gulf near Moab, but also, a nomadic branch of them, on the peninsula of Sinai. These seem to have remained more faithful to Shemitic traditions than the trading Midianites on the other side, who joined in the voluptuous worship of Baal. “Reuel” means: Friend of God. He does not seem, by virtue of his priesthood, to have had princely authority.
Exo_2:16. By the well.—A case similar to that in which Jacob helped Rachel at the well, Genesis 29.
Exo_2:18. On the relation of the three names, Reuel, Jethro (Exo_3:1) and Hobab (Num_10:29) vid. the commentaries and Winer. The assumption that חֹתֵן, used of Hobab, means brother-in-law, but used of Jethro (“preference,” like Reuel’s name of dignity “friend of God”) means father-in-law, seems to be the most plausible. Jethro in years and experience is above Moses; but Hobab becomes a guide of the Hebrew caravan through the wilderness, and his descendants remain among the Israelites. Vid. also Jdg_4:11 and the commentary on it.
Exo_2:22. Gershom.—Always a sojourner. So he lived at the court of Pharaoh, so with the priest in Midian. Zipporah hardly understood him (vid. iv. 24). As sojourner he passed through the wilderness, and stood almost among his own people. Yet the view of Canaan from Nebo became a pledge to him of entrance to a higher fatherland.
Exo_2:23. Also the successor of the child-murdering king continued the oppression. But God heard the cry of the children of Israel. He remembered his covenant, and looked into it, and saw through the case as God.
Footnotes:
[1][Exo_2:1. אֶת, disregarded by the most of the commentators, is noticed by Glaire, who remarks that it “may imply that this daughter, named Jochebed (Exo_6:20) was the only one of the family of Levi still living, or the only one of that house who was then marriageable.” According to Exo_6:20, and Num_26:59, Jochebed was Levi’s own daughter; she may have been an only daughter. Sill it is possible that אֵת, though almost always used only before a definite object, is here used as in Exo_21:28. “If an ox gore a man (אֵת־אִישׁ) or woman (אֶת־אִשָׁה).” Comp. Ewald’s Kritische Grammatik, § 318, Note (9).—Tr.].
[2][Exo_2:15. Whether the second וָיֵּשֶׁב means “and ho sat down,” or “and he dwelt,” is not easily determined. It seems unnatural that the word should have two meanings in the two consecutive sentences, although undoubtedly it is elsewhere freely used in both senses. If, moreover, the writer meant to say that Moses, while dwelling in Midian, once happened to be sitting by the well, and so became acquainted with Reuel’s daughters, he would probably not have used the Future with the Vav consecutive, but rather the Perfect, or the Participle. Comp. Ewald, Autführt. Gr., § 341 a.—Tr.].
[3][Exo_2:19. וְגַס־דָּלֹה דָלָה. Lange translates: Auch hat er anhaltend geschöpft, “Also he kept drawing,” as if the Inf. Abs. followed, instead of preceding דָלָה. There is no reason for assigning to the Inf. Abs. here any other than its common use, viz., to emphasize the meaning of the finite verb. Nor does the rendering of the A.V., “drew water enough,” quite reproduce its force. The daughters of Reuel evidently thought it would have been a remarkable occurrence if Moses had only defended them from the shepherds. But more than this: “he even drew for us.”—Tr.].
[4][Exo_2:20. וְאַיּוֹ. Kalisch renders, “Where then is he?” Correctly enough, so far as the sense is concerned; but unnecessarily deviating from the more literal rendering in the A. V., which exactly expresses the force of the original.—Tr.].
[5][Exo_2:21. וַיּוֹאֵל. Glaire insists that in all the passages where יָאַל occurs, even where it has the meaning “to be foolish,” the radical meaning is “to venture.” Most lexicograhpers assume a separate root for the signification, which it has in Niph., “to be foolish.” Meier (Wurzelwörterbuch), however, reduces all the significations to that of “opening” or “being open,” from the root חָלַל = אוּל. But better, with Fürst, to assumo two roots, and make the radical signification of this one to be “to resolve, determine.” This covers all cases. e.g. Gen_18:27, “I have resolved.” i.e., undertaken. Jdg_1:27, “The Canaanites determined to dwell.” In cases like the one before us, and 2Ki_5:23; Jdg_19:6, the resolution, being the result of persuasion, is a consent.—Tr.].
[6]Exo_2:23. שַׁוְעָתָם. “cry for help”—a different root from that of the verb וַיִּזְעָקוּ.—Tr.].
[7][Exo_2:25. Lange translates: Und Gott sah an die Kinder Israels, und als der Gottheit war’s ihm bewusst (er durchschaute, sie und ihre Situation). “And God looked on the children of Israel, and it was known by Him as the Godhead (e saw through them and their situation).” This translation seems to be suggested by the emphatic repetition of אֱלֹהִים. But better to find the emphatic word in וַיֵדַע “God knew (them),” i.e., had a tender regard for them—a frequent use of יָדַע Comp. Psa_144:3. Or, simply, “God knew,” leaving the object indefinite, as in the Hebrew.—Tr.].
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–4 the woman . . . bare a son, &c.--Some…
the woman . . . bare a son, &c.--Some extraordinary appearance of remarkable comeliness led his parents to augur his future greatness. Beauty was regarded by the ancients as a mark of the divine favor.
hid him three months--The parents were a pious couple, and the measures they took were prompted not only by parental attachment, but by a strong faith in the blessing of God prospering their endeavors to save the infant.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–4 BIRTH AND EDUCATION OF MOSES, Exo_2:1-10.
BIRTH AND EDUCATION OF MOSES, Exo_2:1-10.
1. A man of the house of Levi — Amram, a descendant of Levi through Kohath. And took to wife a daughter (descendant) of Levi — Jochebed. Exo_6:20, where see note. See Introductory, (1.)
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–4 1. a daughter of Levi] the daughter of Levi…
1. a daughter of Levi] the daughter of Levi (as the same Heb. is rendered, Num_26:59), i.e. of the individual, the patriarch Levi. This rend, would seem to bring Moses very near to Levi; but it is in agreement with ch. Exo_6:20 (P), where the names of Moses’ parents are for the first time given, and where it is stated that his father was Amram, son of Kohath, and grandson of Levi (vv. 16, 18), and his mother Jochebed, Amram’s father’s sister, i.e. the sister of Kohath, and consequently daughter of Levi. See further on Exo_6:27.
1–10. Birth, deliverance, and education of Moses. ‘The murderous command of the tyrant was to become, in the hand of God, the means of bringing Israel’s future deliverer to the Egyptian court, and of preparing him for his future work (cf. the history of Joseph in the same narrator, E, Gen_45:5; Gen_45:7-8; Gen_50:20)’ (Di.).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–4 (1) There went.—Comp. Gen_35:22; Hos_1:3. The expression is idiomatic,…
II.
THE BIRTH, EDUCATION, AND EARLY LIFE OF MOSES.
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(1) There went.—Comp. Gen_35:22; Hos_1:3. The expression is idiomatic, and has no special force.
A man of the house of Levi.—Note the extreme simplicity of this announcement; and compare it with the elaborate legends wherewith Oriental religions commonly surrounded the birth of those who were considered their founders, as Thoth, Zoroaster, Orpheus. Even the name of the man is here omitted as unimportant. It is difficult to conceive any one but Moses making such an omission.
A daughter of Levi—i.e., a woman of the same tribe as himself, a descendant of Levi—not a daughter in the literal sense, which the chronology makes impossible.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. H. Mackintosh 1880 · Public Domain On v1 Exodus 2
Exodus 2
This section of our book abounds in the weightiest principles of divine truth - principles, which range themselves under the three following heads, namely, the power of Satan, the power of God, and the power of faith.
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In the last verse of the previous chapter, we read, "And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river." This was Satan’s power. The river was the place of death; and, by death, the enemy sought to frustrate the purpose of God. It has ever been thus. The serpent has, at all times, watched, with malignant eye, those instruments which God was about to use for his own gracious ends. Look at the case of Abel, in Genesis 4. What was that but the serpent watching God’s vessel and seeking to put it out of the way by death? Look at the case of Joseph, in Gen. 37. There you have the enemy seeking to put the man of God’s purpose in the place of death. Look at the case of "the seed royal," in 2 Chr. 22, the act of Herod, in Matt. 2, the death of Christ, in Matt. 27. In all these cases, you find the enemy seeking, by death, to interrupt the current of divine action.
But, blessed be God, there is something beyond death. The entire sphere of divine action, as connected with redemption, lies beyond the limits of death’s domain. When Satan has exhausted his power, then God begins to show Himself. The grave is the limit of Satan’s activity; but there it is that divine activity begins. This is a glorious truth. Satan has the power of death; but God is the God of the living; and He gives life beyond the reach and power of death - a life which Satan cannot touch. The heart finds sweet relief in such a truth as this, in the midst of a scene where death reigns. Faith can stand and look on at Satan putting forth the plenitude of his power. It can stay itself upon God’s mighty instrumentality of resurrection. It can take its stand at the grave which has just closed over a beloved object, and drink in, from the lips of Him who is "the resurrection and the life," the elevating assurance of a glorious immortality. It knows that God is stronger than Satan, and it can, therefore, quietly wait for the full manifestation of that superior strength, and, in thus waiting, find its victory and its settled peace. We have a noble example of this power of faith in the opening verses of our chapter.
"And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived and bare a son; and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him." (Ex. 2: 1-4)Here we have a scene of touching interest, in whatever way we contemplate it. In point of fact, it was simply faith triumphing over the influences of nature and death, and leaving room for the God of resurrection to act in His own proper sphere and character. True, the enemy’s power is apparent, in the circumstance that the child had to be placed in such position - a position of death, in principle. And, moreover, a sword was piercing through the mother’s heart, in thus beholding her precious offspring laid, as it were, in death. Satan might act, and nature might weep; but the Quickener of the dead was behind the dark cloud, and faith beheld Him there, gilding heaven’s side of that cloud with His bright and life-giving beams. "By faith Moses when he was born was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment." (Heb. 11: 23)
Thus, this honoured daughter of Levi teaches us a holy lesson. Her "ark of bulrushes, daubed with slime and pitch," declares her confidence in the truth that there was a something which could keep out the waters of death, in the case of this "proper child," as well as in the case of Noah, "the preacher of righteousness. Are we to suppose, for a moment, that this "Ark" was the invention of mere nature? Was it nature’s mere thought that devised it, or nature’s ingenuity that constructed it? Was the babe placed in the ark at the suggestion of a mother’s heart, cherishing the fond but visionary hope of thereby saving her treasure from the ruthless hand of death? Were we to reply to the above inquiries in the affirmative, we should, I believe, lose the beauteous teaching of this entire scene. How could we ever suppose that the "ark" was devised by one who saw no other portion or destiny for her child but death by drowning? Impossible. We can only look upon that significant structure, as faith’s draft handed in at the treasury of the God of resurrection. devised by the hand of faith, as a vessel of mercy, to carry "a proper child" safety over death’s dark waters, into the place assigned him by the immutable purpose of the living God. When we behold this daughter of Levi bending over that ark of bulrushes," which her faith had constructed, and depositing therein her babe, we see her "walking in the steps of that faith of her father Abraham, which he had," when "he rose up from before his dead," and purchased the cave of Machpelah from the sons of Heth. (Gen. 23) We do not recognise in her the energy of mere nature, hanging over the object of its affections, about to fall into the iron grasp of the king of terrors. No; but we trace in her the energy of a faith which enabled her to stand, as a conqueror, at the margin of death’s cold flood, and behold the chosen servant of Jehovah in safety at the other side.
Yes, my reader, faith can take those bold and lofty flights into regions far removed from this land of death and wide-spread desolation. Its eagle eye can pierce the gloomy clouds which gather around the tomb, and behold the God of resurrection displaying the results of His everlasting counsels, in the midst of a sphere which no arrow of death can reach. It can take its stand upon the top of the Rock of Ages, and listen, in holy triumph, while the surges of death are lashing its base.
And what, let me ask, was "the king’s commandment" to one who was in possession of this heaven-born principle? What weight had that commandment with one who could calmly stand beside her "ark of bulrushes" and look death straight in the face? The Holy Ghost replies, "they were not afraid of the king’s commandment." The spirit that knows ought of communion with Him who quickens the dead, is not afraid of anything. Such an one can take up the triumphant language of 1 Cor: 15 and say, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." He can give forth these words of triumph over a martyred Abel; over Joseph in the pit; over Moses in his ark of bulrushes; in the midst of "the seed royal," slain by the hand of Athaliah; and in the babes of Bethlehem, murdered by the mandate of the cruel Herod; and far above all, he can utter them at the tomb of the Captain of our salvation.
Now, it may be, there are some who cannot trace the activities of faith, in the matter of the ark of bulrushes. Many may not be able to travel beyond the measure of Moses’ sister, when "she stood afar off, to wit, what would be done to him." It is very evident that "his sister" was not up to " the measure of faith" possessed by "his mother." No doubt, she possessed deep interest and true affection, such as we may trace in "Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sitting over against the sepulchre." (Matt. 27: 61) But there was something far beyond either interest or affection in the maker of the "ark." True, she did not "stand afar off to wit what would be done to" her child, and hence, what frequently happens, the dignity of faith might seem like indifference, on her part. It was not, however, indifference, but true elevation - the elevation of faith. If natural affection did not cause her to linger near the scene of death, it was only because the power of faith was furnishing her with nobler work, in the presence of the God of resurrection. Her faith had cleared the stage for Him, and most gloriously did He show Himself thereon.
"And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river’s side; and when she saw the ark among the flags she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it she saw the child; and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews’ children." Here, then, the divine response begins to break, in sweetest accents, on the ear of faith. God was in all this. rationalism, or scepticism, or infidelity, or atheism, may laugh at such an idea. And faith can laugh also; but the two kinds of laughter are very different. The former laughs, in cold contempt, at the thought of divine interference in the trifling affair of a royal maiden’s walk by the river’s side. The latter laughs, with real heart-felt gladness, at the thought that God is in everything. And, assuredly, if ever God was in anything, He was in this walk of Pharaoh’s daughter, though she knew it not.
The renewed mind enjoys one of its sweetest exercises, while tracing the divine footsteps in circumstances and events in which a thoughtless spirit sees only blind chance or rigid fate. The most trifling matter may, at times, turn out to be a most important link in a chain of events by which the Almighty God is helping forward the development of His grand designs. Look, for instance, at Esther 4: 1, and what do you see? A heathen monarch, spending a restless night. No uncommon circumstance, we may suppose; and, yet, this very circumstance was a link in a great chain of providence at the end of which you find the marvellous deliverance of the oppressed seed of Israel.
Thus was it with the daughter of Pharaoh, in her walk by the river’s side. Little did she think that she was helping forward the purpose of "the Lord God of the Hebrews" How little idea had she that the weeping babe, in that ark of bulrushes, was yet to be Jehovah’s instrument in shaking the land of Egypt to its very centre! Yet so it was. The Lord can make the wrath of man to praise Him, and restrain the remainder. How plainly the truth of this appears in the following passage!
"Then said his sister to Pharaoh’s daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? And Pharaoh’s daughter said unto her, Go. And the maid went and called the child’s mother. And Pharaoh’s daughter said unto her, Take this child sway, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child and nursed it. And the child grew and she brought him unto Pharaohs daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water." (Ex. 2: 7-10) The beautiful faith of Moses’ mother here meets its full reward; Satan is confounded; and the marvellous wisdom of God is displayed. Who would have thought that the one who had said, "If it be a son, then ye shall kill him," and, again, "every son that is born ye shall cast into the river," should have in his court one of those very sons, and such "a son." The devil was foiled by his own weapon, inasmuch as Pharaoh, whom he was using to frustrate the purpose of God, is used of God to nourish and bring up Moses, who was to be His instrument in confounding the power of Satan. Remarkable providence! Admirable wisdom! Truly, Jehovah is "wonderful in counsel and excellent in working." May we learn to trust Him with more artless simplicity, and thus our path shall be more brilliant, and our testimony more effective.
In considering the history of Moses, we must look at him in two ways, namely, personally and typically.
First, in his personal character, there is much, very much, for us to learn. God had not only to raise him up, but also to train him, in one way or another, for the lengthened period of eighty years-first in the house of Pharaoh’s daughter; and then at "the backside of the desert." This, to our shallow thoughts, would seem an immense space of time to devote to the education of a minister of God. But then God’s thoughts are not as our thoughts. He knew the need of those forty years, twice told, in the preparation of His chosen vessel. When God educates, He educates in a manner worthy of Himself and His most holy service. He will not have a novice to do His work. The servant of Christ has to learn many a lesson, to undergo many an exercise, to pass through many a conflict, in secret, ere he is really qualified to act in public. Nature does not like this. It would rather figure in public than learn in private. It would rather be gazed upon and admired by the eye of man than be disciplined by the hand of God. But it will not do. We must take God’s way. Nature may rush into the scene of operation; but God does not want it there. It must be withered, crushed, set aside. The place of death is the place for nature. If it will be active, God will so order matters, in His infallible faithfulness and perfect wisdom, that the results of its activity will prove its utter defeat and confusion. He knows what to do with nature, where to put it, and where to keep it. Oh that we may all be in deeper communion with the mind of God, in reference to self and all that pertains thereto. Then shall we make fewer mistakes. Then shall our path be steady and elevated, our spirit tranquil, and our service effective.
"And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens; and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand." This was zeal for his brethren; but it was "not according to knowledge." God’s time was not yet come for judging Egypt and delivering Israel; and the intelligent servant will ever wait for God’s time. "Moses was grown;" and "he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians;" and, moreover, "he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them." all this was true; yet he evidently ran before the time, and when one does this failure must be the issue. [In Stephen’s address to the council, at Jerusalem, there is an allusion to Moses’ acting, to which it may be well to advert. "And when he was full forty years old it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian; for he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God, by his hand, would deliver them; but they understood not." (Acts 7: 23-25) It is evident that Stephen’s object, in his entire address, has to bring the history of the nation to bear upon the consciences of those whom he had before him; and it would have been quite foreign to this object, and at variance with the Spirit’s rule in the New Testament, to raise a question as to whether Moses had not acted before the divinely-appointed time.
Moreover, he merely says, "it came into his heart to visit his brethren." He does not say that God sent him, at that time. Nor does this, in the least, touch the question of the moral condition of those who rejected him. "They understood not." This was the fact as to them, whatever Moses might have personally to learn in the matter. The spiritual mind can have no difficulty in apprehending this.
Looking at Moses, typically, we can see the mission of Christ to Israel, and their rejection of Him, and refusal to have Him to reign over them. On the other hand, looking at Moses, personally, we find that he, like others, made mistakes and displayed infirmities; sometimes went too fast, and sometimes too slow. All this is easily understood, and only tends to magnify the infinite grace and exhaustless patience of God.]
And not only is there failure in the end, but also manifest uncertainty, and lack of calm elevation and holy independence in the progress of a work begun before God’s time. Moses "looked this way and that way." There is no need of this when a man is acting with and for God, and in the full intelligence of His mind, as to the details of his work. If God’s time had really come, and if Moses was conscious of being divinely commissioned to execute judgement upon the Egyptian, and if he felt assured of the divine presence with him, he would not have "looked this way and that way."
This action teaches a deep practical lesson to all the servants of God. There are two things by which it is superinduced: namely, the fear of man’s wrath, and the hope of man’s favour. The servant of the living God should neither regard the one nor the other. What avails the wrath or favour of a poor mortal, to one who holds the divine commission, and enjoys the divine presence? It is, in the judgement of such an one, less than the small dust of the balance. "Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest." (Joshua 1: 9) "Thou, therefore, gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak, unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them. For, behold, I have made thee this day a defended city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land. And they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee." (Jer 1: 17-19)
When the servant of Christ stands upon the elevated ground set forth in the above quotations, he will not "look this way and that way;" he will act on wisdom’s heavenly counsel, "let thine eyes look straight on, and thine eyelids look straight before thee." Divine intelligence will ever lead us to look upward and onward. Whenever we look around to shun a mortal’s frown or catch his smile, we may rest assured there is something wrong; we are off the proper ground of divine service. We lack the assurance of holding the divine commission, and of enjoying the divine presence, both of which are absolutely essential.
True, there are many who, through profound ignorance, or excessive self-confidence, stand forward in a sphere of service for which God never intended them, and for which He, therefore, never qualified them. And not only do they thus stand forward, but they exhibit an amount of coolness and self-possession perfectly amazing to those who are capable of forming an impartial judgement about their gifts and merits. But all this will very speedily find its level; nor does it in the least interfere with the integrity of the principle that nothing can effectually deliver a man from the tendency to "look this way and that way," save the consciousness of the divine commission and the divine presence. When these are possessed, there is entire deliverance from human influence, and consequent independence. No man is in a position to serve others who is not wholly independent of them; but a man who knows his proper place can stoop and wash his brethren’s feet.
When we turn away our eyes from man, and fix them upon the only true and perfect Servant, we do not find him looking this way and that way, for this simple reason, that He never had His eye upon men, but always upon God. He feared not the wrath of man nor sought his favour. He never opened His lips to elicit human applause, nor kept them closed to avoid human censure. This gave holy stability and elevation to all He said and did. Of Him alone could it be truly said, "His leaf shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." Everything He did turned to profitable account, because everything was done to God. Every action, every word, every movement, every look, every thought, was like a beauteous cluster of fruit, sent up to refresh the heart of God. He was never afraid of the results of His work, because He always acted with and for God, and in the full intelligence of His mind. His own will, though divinely perfect, never once mingled itself in ought that He did, as a man, on the earth. He could say, "I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me." Hence, He brought forth fruit, "in its season" He did "always those things which pleased the Father," and, therefore, never had any occasion to "fear," to "repent," or to "look this way and that way."
Now in this, as in everything else, the blessed Master stands in marked contrast with His most honoured and eminent servants. Even a Moses "feared," and a, Paul "repented;" but the Lord Jesus never did either. He never had to retrace a step, to recall a word, or correct a thought. All was absolutely perfect. All was "fruit in season." The current of His holy and heavenly life flowed onward without a ripple and without a curve. His will was divinely subject. The best and most devoted men make mistakes; but it is perfectly certain that the more we are enabled, through grace, to mortify our own will, the fewer our mistakes will be. Truly happy it is when, in the main, our path is really a path of faith and single-eyed devotedness to Christ.
Thus it was with Moses. He was a man of faith-a man who drank deeply into the spirit of his Master, and walked with marvellous steadiness in His footprints. True, he anticipated, as has been remarked, by forty years, the Lord’s time of judgement on Egypt and deliverance for Israel; yet, when we turn to the inspired commentary, in Hebrews 11, we find nothing about this. We there find only the divine principle upon which, in the main, his course was founded. "By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing him who is invisible." (Ver. 24-27)
This quotation furnishes a most gracious view of the actings of Moses. It is ever thus the Holy Ghost deals with the history of Old Testament saints. When He writes a man’s history, He presents him to us as he is, and faithfully sets forth all his failures and imperfections. But when, in the New Testament, he comments upon such history, He merely gives the real principle and main result of a man’s life. Hence, though we read, in Exodus, that "Moses looked this way and that way" - that "he feared and said, surely this thing is known" - and, finally, "Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh;" yet, we are taught, in Hebrews, that what he did, he did "by faith" - that he did not fear" the wrath of the king" - that "he endured as seeing him who is invisible."
Thus will it be, by and by, when "the Lord comes, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God." (1 Cor. 4: 5) This is a precious and consolatory truth for every upright mind and every loyal heart. Many a "Counsel" the "heart" may form, which, from various causes, the hand may not be able to execute. All such "counsels" will be made "manifest" when "the Lord comes." Blessed be the grace that has told us so! The affectionate counsels of the heart are far more precious to Christ than the most elaborate works of the hand. The latter may shine before the eye of man; the former are designed only for the heart of Jesus. The latter may be spoken of amongst men; the former will be made manifest before God and His holy angels. May all the servants of Christ have their hearts undividedly occupied with His person, and their eyes steadily fixed upon His advent.
In contemplating the path of Moses, we observe how that faith led him entirely athwart the ordinary course of nature. It led him to despise all the pleasures, the attractions, and the honours of Pharaoh’s court. And not only that, but also to relinquish an apparently wide sphere of usefulness. Human expediency would have conducted him along quite an opposite path. It would have led him to use his influence on behalf of the people of God - to act for them instead of suffering with them. According to man’s judgement, Providence would seem to have opened for Moses a wide and most important sphere of labour; and surely if ever the hand of God was manifest in placing a man in a distinct position, it was in his case. By a most marvellous interposition - by a most unaccountable chain of circumstances, every link of which displayed the finger of the Almighty - by an order of events which no human foresight could have arranged, had the daughter of Pharaoh been made the instrument of drawing Moses out of the water, and of nourishing and educating him until he was "full forty years Old." With all these circumstances in his view, to abandon his high, honourable, and influential position, could only be regarded as the result of a misguided zeal which no sound judgement could approve.
Thus might poor blind nature reason. But faith thought differently; for nature and faith are always at issue. They cannot agree upon a single point. Nor is there anything, perhaps, in reference to which they differ so widely as what are commonly called "openings of Providence." Nature will constantly regard such openings as warrants for self-indulgence; whereas faith will find in them opportunities for self-denial. Jonah might have deemed it a very remarkable opening of Providence to find a ship going to Tarshish; but in truth it was an opening through which he slipped off the path of obedience.
No doubt, it is the Christian’s privilege to see his Father’s hand, and hear His voice, in everything; but he is not to be guided by circumstances. A Christian so guided is like a vessel at sea without rudder or compass; she is at the mercy of the waves and the winds. God’s promise to His child is, "I will guide thee with mine eye." (Ps: 32: 8) His warning is, "Be not as the horse or as the mule, which have no understanding; whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee." It is much better to be guided by our Father’s eye, than by the bit and bridle of circumstances; and we know that in the ordinary acceptation of the term, "Providence" is only another word for the impulse of circumstances.
Now, the power of faith may constantly be seen in refusing and forsaking the apparent openings of Providence. It was so in the case of Moses. "By faith he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter;" and "by faith he forsook Egypt." Had he judged according to the sight of his eyes, he would have grasped at the proffered dignity, as the manifest gift of a kind Providence, and he would have remained in the court of Pharaoh as in a sphere of usefulness plainly thrown open to him by the hand of God. But, then, he walked by faith, and not by the sight of his eyes; and, hence, he forsook all. Noble example! May we have grace to follow it!
And observe what it was that Moses "esteemed greater riches than the treasures in Egypt;" it was the "reproach of Christ." It was not merely reproach for Christ. "The reproaches of them that reproached thee have fallen upon me." The Lord Jesus, in perfect grace, identified Himself with His people. He came down from heaven, leaving His Father’s bosom, and laying aside all His glory, He took His people’s place, confessed their sins, and bore their judgement on the cursed tree. Such was His voluntary devotedness, He not merely acted for us, but made Himself one with us, thus perfectly delivering us from all that was or could be against us.
Hence, we see how much in sympathy Moses was with the spirit and mind of Christ, in reference to the people of God. He was in the midst of all the ease the pomp and dignity of Pharaoh’s house, where "the pleasures of sin," and "the treasures of Egypt," lay scattered around him, in richest profusion. All these things he might have enjoyed if he would. He could have lived and died in the midst of wealth and splendour. His entire path, from first to last, might, if he had chosen, have been enlightened by the sunshine of royal favour: but that would not have been "faith;" it would not have been Christ-like. From his elevated position, he saw his brethren bowed down beneath their heavy burden, and faith led him to see that his place was to be with them. Yes; with them, in all their reproach, their bondage, their degradation, and their sorrow. Had he been actuated by mere benevolence, philanthropy, or patriotism, he might have used his personal influence on behalf of his brethren. He might have succeeded in inducing Pharaoh to lighten their burden, and render their path somewhat smoother, by royal grants in their favour; but this would never do, never satisfy a heart that had a single pulsation in common with the heart of Christ. Such a heart Moses, by the grace of God, carried in his bosom; and, therefore, with all the energies and all the affections of that heart, he threw himself, body, soul, and spirit, into the very midst of his oppressed brethren. He "chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God." And, moreover, he did this "by faith."
Let my reader ponder this deeply. We must not be satisfied with wishing well to, doing service for, or speaking kindly on behalf of, the people of God. We ought to be fully identified with them, no matter how despised or reproached they may be. It is, in a measure, an agreeable thing to a benevolent and generous spirit, to patronise Christianity; but it is a wholly different thing to be identified with Christians, or to suffer with Christ. A patron is one thing, a martyr is quite another. This distinction is apparent throughout the entire book of God. Obadiah took care of God’s witnesses, but Elijah was a witness for God. Darius was so attached to Daniel that he lost a night’s rest on his account, but Daniel spent that selfsame night in the lion’s den, as a witness for the truth of God. Nicodemus ventured to speak a word for Christ, but a more matured discipleship would have led him to identify himself with Christ.
These considerations are eminently practical. The Lord Jesus does not want patronage; He wants fellowship. The truth concerning Him is declared to us, not that we might patronise His cause on earth, but have fellowship with His Person in heaven. He identified Himself with us, at the heavy cost of all that love could give. He might have avoided this. He might have continued to enjoy His eternal place "in the bosom of the Father." But how, then, could that mighty tide of love, which was pent up in His heart, flow down to us guilty and hell-deserving sinners? Between Him and us there could be no oneness, save on conditions which involved the surrender of everything on His part. But, blessed, throughout the everlasting ages, be His adorable Name, that surrender was voluntarily made. "He gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." (Titus 2: 14) He would not enjoy His glory alone. His loving heart would gratify itself by associating "many sons" with Him in that glory. "Father," He says, "I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with Me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world." (John 17: 24) Such were the thoughts of Christ in reference to His people; and we can easily see how much in sympathy with these precious thoughts was the heart of Moses. He, unquestionably, partook largely of his Master’s spirit; and he manifested that excellent spirit in freely sacrificing every personal consideration, and associating himself, unreservedly, with the people of God.
The personal character and actings of this honoured servant of God will come before us again in the next section of our book. We shall here briefly consider him as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. That he was a type of Him is evident from the following passage, "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken." (Deut. 18: 15) We are not, therefore, trafficking in human imagination in viewing Moses as a type; it is the plain teaching of scripture, and, in the closing verses of Exodus 2. we see this type in a double way: first, in the matter of his rejection by Israel; and, secondly, in his union with a stranger in the land of Midian. These points have already been, in some measure, developed in the history of Joseph, who, being cast out by his brethren, according to the flesh, forms an alliance with an Egyptian bride. Here, as in the case of Moses, we see shadowed forth Christ’s rejection by Israel, and His union with the Church, but in a different phase. In Joseph’s case, we have the exhibition of positive enmity against his person. In Moses it is the rejection of his mission. In Joseph’s case we read, "they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him." (Gen. 37: 4) In the case of Moses, the word is, "Who made thee a prince and a judge over us?" In short, the former was personally hated; the latter, officially refused.
So also in the mode in which the great mystery of the Church is exemplified, in the history of those two Old Testament saints. "Asenath" presents quite a different phase of the Church from that which we have in the person of "Zipporah." The former was united to Joseph in the time of his exaltation; the latter was the companion of Moses, in the obscurity of his desert life. (Comp. Gen. 41: 41-45 with Ex. 2: 15; 3: 1) True, both Joseph and Moses were, at the time of their union with a stranger, rejected by their brethren; yet the former was "governor over all the land of Egypt;" whereas the latter tended a few sheep at "the backside of the desert."
Whether, therefore, we contemplate Christ, as manifested in glory: or as hidden from the world’s gaze, the Church is intimately associated with Him. And now, inasmuch as the world seeth Him not, neither can it take knowledge of that body which is wholly one with Him. "The world knoweth us not, because it knew him not." (2 John 3: 1) By and by, Christ will appear in His glory, and the Church with Him. "When Christ our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." (Col. 3: 4) And, again, "The glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved Me." (John 17: 22, 23)
[There are two distinct unities spoken of in John 17: 21, 23. The first is that unity which the Church was responsible to have maintained, but in which she has utterly failed. The second, that unity which God will infallibly accomplish, and which He will manifest in glory. If the reader will turn to the passage he will at once see the difference, both as to character and result, of the two.]
Such, then, is the Church’s high and holy position. She is one with Him who is cast out by this world, but who occupies the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. The Lord Jesus made Himself responsible for her on the cross, in order that she might share with Him His present rejection and His future glory. Would that all who form a part of such a highly privileged body were more impressed with a sense of what becomes them as to course and character down here! Assuredly, there should be a fuller and clearer response on the part of all the children of God, to that love wherewith He has loved them, to that salvation wherewith He has saved them, and to that dignity wherewith He has invested them. The walk of the Christian should ever be the natural result of realised privilege, and not the constrained result of legal vows and resolutions, the proper fruit of a position known and enjoyed by faith, and not the fruit of one’s own efforts to reach a position "by works of law." All true believers are a part of the bride of Christ. Hence they owe Him those affections which become that relation. The relationship is not obtained because of the affections, but the affections flow out of the relationship.
So let it be, O Lord, with all thy beloved and blood bought people.
C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–4 Vers. 1-10. THE BIRTH, ESCAPE, AND EDUCATION OF MOSES.…
Vers. 1-10. THE BIRTH, ESCAPE, AND EDUCATION OF MOSES. Some years before the Pharaoh issued his edict for the general destruction of the Hebrew male children, Amram of the tribe of Levi, had married Jochebed, his kinswoman. (Exo_6:20) They had already had two children Miriam, a daughter, born probably soon after the marriage, and Aaron, a son, born some twelve years later. Soon after the issue of the edict, Jochebed gave birth to her third child, a son, who therefore came under its terms. Knowing as she did what fate was in store for him, if his existence became known to the Egyptians, she "hid him three months." Then, despairing of being able to keep him concealed much longer, she devised the plan related in vers. 3-4, which proved successful.
There went a man. The Hebrew language is deficient in tenses, and cannot mark pluperfect time. The meaning is, that "a man of the house of Levi had gone, some time before, and taken to wife a daughter of Levi." Miriam must have been fourteen or fifteen at the time of the exposure of Moses. By a daughter of Levi, we must not understand an actual daughter, which is irreconcilable with the chronology, but one of Levi"s descendants wife of the daughters of Levi," as the LXX translates.
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Vers. 1-2. The birth of Moses.
In the providence of God, great men are raised up from time to time, for the express object of working out his purposes. A great task is before them, but there is often nothing peculiar, nothing striking, in their birth or parentage. They come into the world with as little commotion, as little eclat, as other children. True history admits this. Legendary history conceals it, denies it, makes up a series of extraordinary events anterior to the birth, which shadow forth the coming greatness of the mighty one, and warn the world what to expect of him. The legends attaching to Cyrus, to Romulus, to Pericles (Heb 6:131) are cases in point. Contrast with such legends the extreme simplicity of vers. 1, 2; went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi; and the woman conceived and bare a son." Here is the founder of the Jewish nation, the originator of its independence, its lawgiver, historian, prophet, for the first time introduced to our notice; and not one word is said to exalt him, to challenge to him special attention, to show that he is the foremost man of his age, greater than Pentaour the poet, or Seti, or Rameses. His father and mother not even named man daughter of Levi no rank assigned them, no epithet used nothing recorded but the bare facts: a marriage, a birth, the child a male child, a son." Here at length a note is struck, which wakes a responsive echo in the heart of the reader, The last verse of ch. 1. had told him of the barbarous edict issued by the cruel despot who wielded the sceptre of Egypt, and his interest is awakened for the poor babe born under such circumstances. Will he perish at once, or will he escape? Can it be possible to elude or defy the express order of an absolute monarch? And if so, how? The sequel shows, relating as it does his escape from death through the faithful, bold, and loving action of his mother. (See below, p. 27.)
HOMILIES BY J. ORR Vers. 1-11. A child of providence.
This section recounts the birth, deliverance, and upbringing at the court of Pharaoh, of the future Deliverer of Israel. In which we have to notice
I AN ACT OF FAITH ON THE PART OF MOSES" PARENTS. The faith of Moses" parents is signalised in the Epistle to the Hebrews. (Heb_11:23) Observe
1. The occasion of its trial. The king"s edict threatened the child"s life. The ease of Moses was peculiar, yet not entirely so. No infancy or childhood but lays a certain strain upon the faith of parents. The bark of a child"s existence is so frail, and it sets out amidst so many perils! And we are reminded that this strain is usually more felt by the mother than the father, her affection for her Offspring being in comparison deeper and more tender. (cf. Isa_49:15) It is the mother of Moses who does all and dares all for the salvation of her babe.
2. Its nature. Both in Old and New Testaments it is connected with something remarkable in the babe"s appearance. (Act_7:20; Heb_11:23) Essentially, however, it must have been the same faith as upholds believers in their trials still simple, strong faith in God, that he would be their Help in trouble, and would protect and deliver the child whom with tears and prayers they cast upon his care. This was sufficient to nerve Jochebed for what she did.
3. Its working. Faith wrought with works, and by works was faith made Perfect. (Jam_2:22)
(1) It nerved them to disobey the tyrant"s edict, and hide the child for three months. Terrible as was,this Period of suspense, they took their measures with prudence, calmness, and success. Religious faith is the secret of self-collectedness.
(2) It enabled them, when concealment was no longer practicable, to make the venture of the ark of bulrushes. The step was bold, and still bolder if, as seems probable, Jochebed put the ark where she did, knowing that the princess and her maidens used that spot as a bathing-place. Under God"s secret guidance, she ventured all on the hope that the babe"s beauty and helplessness would attract the lady"s pity. She would put Pharaoh"s daughter as a shield between her child and Pharaoh"s mandate. Learn
1. Faith is not inconsistent with the use of means.
2. Faith exhausts all means before abandoning effort.
3. Faith, when all means are exhausted, waits patiently on God.
4. Pious parents are warranted in faith to cast their children onGod"s care.
It was a sore trial to Jochebed to trust her child out of her own arms, especially with that terrible decree hanging over him. But faith enabled her to do it. She believed that God would keep him would make him his charge would provide for him, and in that faith she put the ark among the rushes. Scarcely less faith are parents sometimes called upon to exercise in taking steps of importance for their children"s future. Missionaries in India, e.g., parting with their children, sons leaving home, etc. Sorest trial of all, when parents on their deathbeds have to part with little ones, leaving them to care of strangers. Hard, very hard, to flesh and blood; but God lives, God cares, God will provide, will watch the ark of the little one thus pushed out on the waters of the wide, wide world.
II AN ACT OF PROVIDENCE ON THE PART OF MOSES" GOD. The faith of Moses" parents met with its reward. Almost "whiles" they were yet "praying", (Dan_9:20) their prayers were answered, and deliverance was vouchsafed. In regard to which observe
1. How various are the instrumentalities employed by Providence in working out its purposes. A king"s edict, a mother"s love, a babe"s tears, a girl"s shrewdness, the pity of a princess, Egyptian customs, etc.
2. How Providence co-operates with human freedom in bringing aboutdesired results. The will of God was infallibly accomplished, yet no violence was done to the will of the agents. In the most natural way possible, Moses was rescued by Pharaoh"s daughter, restored to his mother to nurse, adopted by the princess as her son, and afterwards educated by her in a way suitable to his position. Thus was secured for Moses
1. Protection.
2. A liberal education.
3. Experience of court-life in Egypt.
3. How easily the plans of the wicked can be turned against themselves. Pharaoh"s plans were foiled by his own daughter. His edict was made the means of introducing to his own court the future deliverer of the race he meant to destroy. God takes the wicked in their own net. (Psa_9:15, Psa_9:16)
4. How good, in God"s providence, is frequently brought out of evil. The People might well count the issuing of this edict as the darkest hour of their night the point of lowest ebb in their fortunes. Yet see what God brought out of it! The deliverance of a Moses the first turning of the tide in the direction of help. What poor judges we are of what is really for or against us!
5. How greatly God often exceeds our expectations in the deliverances he sends. He does for us above what we ask or think. The utmost Moses" parents dared to pray for was doubtless that his life might be preserved. That he should be that very day restored to his mother, and nursed at her bosom; that he should become the son of Pharaoh"s daughter; that he should grow to be great, wise, rich, and powerful this was felicity they had not dared to dream of. But this is God"s way. He exceeds our expectations. He gives to faith more than it looks for. So in Redemption, we are not only saved from perishing, but receive "everlasting life" (Joh_3:16) honour, glory, reward. J.O.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG
Vers. 1-9. The infancy of Moses.
I WE HAVE, IN THIS EXPERIENCE OF THE INFANT AND HIS MOTHER, A MOST AFFECTING ILLUSTRATION OF THE MISERABLE STATE TO WHICH ISRAEL HAD BEEN REDUCED. We come down from the general statement of the first chapter to the particular instance of the second. Moses was born, in all likelihood, just at the very height of Pharaoh"s exasperation, and when the command of Exo_1:22 was in process of being carried out. His servants, ever becoming more savage and brutal in disposition, as the very consequence of the harshness and severity they had daily to exercise, would be going about, watching the midwives and hanging round the abodes of the Israelites.to listen for the first faint cry of the newborn child. In such circumstances, the work of the midwives most likely fell into abeyance; for the midwife became the unwilling herald of the murderer. Thus mothers in the crisis of their greatest need might be left without any ministry or sympathy whatever; their greatest safety in solitude, their greatest comfort to know that the newborn infant"s existence was utterly unknown to any Egyptian. No hour could well be darker, no circumstances more provocative of despair. We may depend upon it that God meant much to be suggested to Israel in after generations, by the birth of Moses just at this time. "In which time Moses was born". (Act_7:20) May we not well imagine that when in later years Moses stole away from time to time, out of the splendours and luxuries of his royal home, to spend an hour or two with his own mother, she would tell him that, for all his relation to Pharaoh"s daughter and all his privileges about the court, he had been once, with many another helpless babe, the object of Pharaoh"s bitterest animosity. Things were in a very bad state when Moses was born. Bad for Israel in point of present suffering; bad for Egypt itself, seeing what a merciless and unscrupulous man sat upon the throne; bad for the prospects of Moses and all the coming generation. And so we cannot but feel that the whole world was in a very bad state when Jesus was born. He was exposed to the risk of a Herod; and Herod was but one of many like-minded oppressors. And worse than any cruelty and oppression from without was the state of the people in their hearts. Jew and Gentile were alike utterly departed from God. Romans, ch. 1., does as much as human language can do to give us the measure of the universal corruption and degradation. We shall do well to mark in the New Testament the many things that show what unregenerate, vile, and apostate hearts were those with whom Christ and his apostles came in contact. Then, when we have the dark, repulsive picture of the times well before us, we may imitate Stephen, and say which time Christ was born.
II WE HAVE A MOST AFFECTING INSTANCE OF THE PECULIAR CARES AND SORROWS WHICH BELONG TO THE MATERNAL RELATION. "When she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months." This can hardly mean that if he had been a puny dwarfling, she would have cast him aside as not worth anxiety. We know that it is precisely the weakest, the least attractive to a stranger"s eye, who most draws forth the mother"s love; thus furnishing a sweet suggestion of that Divine affection which yearns, with the greatest tenderness, over those who may seem to others hopelessly lost. But as Moses Was a goodly child, she was bound by this fact to give all available chances for the promise that was in him. Who can tell what anxieties and alarms filled her thoughts during these terrible three months, and how often she skirted the extreme edge of disaster, always feeling that with each succeeding week her task became more difficult? How keen must have been the struggle before she brought her mind to face the dread necessity of exposure! We can imagine her being driven to decisive action at last, by seeing the agonies of some neighbouring mother, as the servants of Pharaoh discover her child and ruthlessly extinguish its delicate life. Here, in the sufferings of the mother of Moses, and of all the rest whom she but represents, we have something like the full significance set before us of that curse which first rested upon Eve. There may have been a measure of truth in what the midwives said concerning the case with which the mothers in Israel had been delivered; but not so were they going to escape the curse. Their trouble only began when the man-child was born into the world. Not to them at least was the birth to be an occasion of joy, but the beginning of unspeakable solicitude. (Mat_2:16-18 Mat_24:19; Joh_16:21) This poor woman exposed her tender infant, not because she was callous of heart, unnatural, and lacking in love; but because of the very intensity of her love. So wretched had the state of Israel become that its infants found no place so dangerous as the place that should have been safest the warm bosom of the mother.
III WE HAVE A MOST IMPRESSIVE ILLUSTRATION OF WOMANLY SYMPATHY. The Scriptures, true to their character as being the fullest revelation not less of human nature than of the Divine nature, abound in illustrations of the demonstrativeness of womanly sympathy. To go no further afield, we have such an illustration in the previous chapter (the conduct of the midwives). But here there is an instance which is peculiarly impressive. It was the daughter of Pharaoh who showed the much-needed sympathy. She knew well how the babe came to be forsaken, and how, though it was forsaken, this waterproof ark had been so carefully provided for it. Somewhere in Israel she could see a mother anxiously speculating on the fate of this child; and she knew that all the strange discovery she had made came out of the stern, unrelenting policy of her own father. Some women indeed in her circumstances would have said, "Sad it may be that an infant should thus perish, but my father knows best. Leave it there." But compassion rose to flood-tide in her heart, and choked all thoughts of selfish policy, if they even so much as entered into her mind. Jesus says to his disciples, concerning one of the difficulties and pains of discipleship, that a man"s foes shall be they of his own household. And the principle seems to hold good in the carrying out of worldly plans. If a man wants to be downright selfish, he also may find foes in his own household, not to be conquered, bribed, or persuaded. Pharaoh thinks he is closing-up the energies of Israel in a most effective fashion; but his own daughter opens a little window only large enough for an infant three months old to get through it, and by this in the course of time all the cunning and cruelty of her father are made utterly void.
IV We have, in all these events connected with the infancy of Moses, A CRITICAL ILLUSTRATION OF THE REALITY OF SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. Notice that there is not a word about God in the narrative; indeed, he is not mentioned as having anything directly to do with Moses, until the interview, long after, at Horeb. There is plenty of mention of human beings, in the play of their affections, their desires, and their ingenuity. The mother, the child, the sister, the nurse, the mother by adoption, all come before us, but there is no mention of God. Yet who does not feel that the Lord of Israel, unmentioned though he be, is yet the central, commanding, and controlling figure in all that takes place! It was he who caused Moses to be born at that particular time. It was he who sheltered the infant during these three months, when perhaps others were being snatched away in close proximity on the right hand and the left. It was he who put into the heart of the mother to dispose of her child in this particular way, and taught her to make such a cradle as surely never was made before. It was he who gave the sister wisdom to act as she did a wisdom possibly beyond her years. It was he who turned the feet of Pharaoh"s daughter (of her and no one else) in that particular direction, and not in some other. All his excellent working in this matter is hidden from those who do not wish to see it; but how manifest it is, how wonderful and beautiful, to those whose eyes he himself has opened! How different is his working here from the working of the Deus ex machina in the tanglements and complications of classical fable. There, when things get to all appearance, hopelessly.. disordered, a deity comes in visible form and puts them right. But m thin real deliverance of Moses, the God who is the only true God works in a far different way. He works through natural means, and so silently, so unobtrusively, that if men wise in their own conceits are determined to ignore his presence, there is nothing to force it upon them.
V This narrative, along with that of the midwives, has A VERY SPECIAL BEARING ON THE CAPABILITIES AND DUTIES OF WOMEN. We have here in the compass of some five-and-twenty verses a most encouraging instance of what women are able to do. So far, in this book of the Exodus, God is seen exalting the woman and abasing the man. Man, so far as he appears, is set before us a weak, thwarted creature; cruel enough in disposition, but unable to give his cruelty effect. Even a king with all his resources is baffled. But weak women set themselves to work, to shelter a helpless infant, and they succeed. Here as on other occasions the hand of God is manifest, taking the weak thing? of the world to confound the strong. What a lesson, what an appeal and warning to women! We are all only too readily inclined to say, "What can I do?" & Ntilde; women perhaps more than others, because of their inability to share in the bustle and strain of public life. Think then of what God enabled these women to do, simply following out the dictates of natural affection and pity. They did far more than they were conscious of. Might not women ask very earnestly if they are doing anything like what they ought to do, and have the opportunity to do, in bringing up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? Christian women, those who are themselves new creatures in Christ Jesus, able to have all the love and wisdom and every spiritual grace that belongs to the new creature, might do a work for the world, compared with which the work of these women whom we have been considering would look a small matter indeed. Y.
HOMILIES BY G.A. GOODHART
Vers. 1-10. By works was faith made perfect.
Bad times; harsh decrees against the Israelites; doubts and misgivings which must have occurred to one in Amram"s position; a hard experience and a dark prospect. Still the man believed in God, remembered the promises, and knew that God also must remember them; did not see how they were to be fulfilled, but was content to do his own duty and leave all else to God. See
I How HIS FAITH WAS MANIFESTED BY HIS WORKS. We have
1. His marriage. Under all the circumstances he might well have been excused if he had decided to remain unmarried. Such advice as that of St. Paul to the Corinthians (1Co_7:25-28) would seem to apply to such a time. The matter, however, was not to be so easily settled. Faith will not permit marriage without prudence and due forethought, but neither will Faith permit abstinence from marriage merely because marriage will bring "trouble in the flesh." Improvidence and a too-calculating abstinence both prompted by selfishness. Faith looks forward and looks around, but she looks up also, and is guided by the result of that upward look. Theories of political economists, etc., are not to be despised, none the less Faith will act her actions regulated to some extent, but not fettered, by calculation. Paul"s teaching is to be qualified by Amram"s example; Amram knew the times, foresaw the rocks ahead, yet he "took to wife a daughter of Levi.
2. His choice of a wife. Clear from narrative that the woman was the man"s true helpmeet. Of the same family, they must have been well acquainted, and her conduct shows that her faith equalled his. Faith not only prompted marriage, but also directed choice. Amram and his wife did not marry merely for the sake of marrying, but "for the mutual society, help, and comfort which the one ought to have of the other both in prosperity and adversity.
3. Conduct in the face of trial. The two, man and wife, now as one: though the woman comes to the fore, no doubt her faith represents that of both. Aaron and Miriam, reared before the trial reached its height; then "a goodly child," just at the season of greatest danger. Note the action prompted by faith; how different from that which might have been suggested by fatalism. Fatalism would have said, "Let things be; if he must be killed he must." Cf. Eastern proverb, "On two days it skills not to avoid death, the appointed and the unappointed day." Faith, on the other hand, is ready and courageous, holding that God helps those who help themselves, or rather that he helps them through self-help. But notice
II HOW THIS LIVING FAITH WAS APPROVED AND JUSTIFIED.
1. The conduct of the wife justified her husband"s choice. She was thehelpmeet he hoped she would be. God gave her wisdom to comfort and strengthen him; His blessing added the third strand to that threefold cord which is not quickly broken.
2. Their united efforts for the preservation of their children were crownedby God with complete success. Illustrate from the history all happening, all ordained to happen, just as they hoped. They had prepared, by carrying out the plan which faith prompted, a channel through which God"s gracious and ready help might reach them; and God used the channel which they had prepared. The whole narrative shows how faith, when it is living, proves its life by works, and how in response to a living faith God shows that he is a living God. If Amram had walked by sight and not by faith, Moses might never have been bern, Jochebed never have been married; as it was he walked by faith and not by sight, doing his duty and trusting God, and through him came redemption unto Israel the child "taken out of" the water became the leader who should "take" his people "out of" bondage. G.
HOMILIES BY J. URQUHART Vers. 1-10. A picture of true faith.
I WHAT TRUE FAITH IS.
1. There was obedience to a Divine impulse: her heart was appealed to, shesaw he was a goodly child, and she hid him three months. She read in the child"s appearance an intimation of future greatness, and that God did not mean him to die in accordance with the king"s commandment. The work of faith begins in obeying the Spirit"s prompting in the heart.
2. She was not daunted by difficulties. She might have asked what couldthis temporary concealment do but only prolong her misery. Faith is content if it has light but for one step.
3. Faith is fertile in expedients. The safety which is no longer to be had inthe home may be found on the waters.
4. When it has done all, it waits, as with girded loins, for the dawning light.Miriam stood afar off.
II HOW GOD JUSTIFIES OUR TRUST. When we have done all, and, knowing it is nothing, look unto him, then God appears for us.
1. The child"s life was saved.
2. He was given back into his mother"s arms.
3. The very might which before was raised to slay was now used to guardhim.
4. He was freed from the unhappy lot of his countrymen, and set amongthe princes of the land. Our trust prepares a place where God may manifest himself. He "is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. U.
HOMILIES BY H.T. ROBJOHNS Vers. 1-10. The child of the water.
she called his name Moses... water. Exo_2:10. Save Jesus, Moses is the greatest name in history. Compare with it Mahomet, or even that of Paul. As the founder of the Jewish religion under God his influence is felt to-day, not only by 6, 000, 000 Jews, but throughout the Christian Church. Here is the beginning of his career. This mighty stream of influence we can trace to its source; not like the Nile, whose origin is still in debate, a mystery. The text gives the name and its reason. The derivation is either Hebrew, and then= "Drawing out," so designating the act of the princess; or Egyptian, and then= "Saved from the water." The name a memorial of salvation. Happy, when children bearing distinguished names, shame them not in the after-years. We treat the subject in the order of the story: so its suggestiveness for heart and life will appear.
I THE FAMILY OF THE CHILD. Amram and Jochebed, the father and mother; Miriam, much older, and Aaron, three years older, than Moses. Note: Moses owed
1. Little to his family. Look at ver. 1. But the pre-eminence of Levi was not yet. The tribe did not make Moses; rather Moses (with Miriam and Aaron) the tribe. "Blue blood?" Yes! and No! There is a sense in which we may be proud of ancestry, a sense in which not. What to me that I descend from a Norman baron? Everything to me that I come from able, gifted, saintly parentage.
2. Little to his home. Only a slave but; the scene of toil, poverty, suffering, fear. Out of it brought one thing sympathy with suffering.
3. Little to his parents. Biographers usually give us the attributes and history of ancestors, and show how they account for the career of the child. Nothing of that here. Even the names of the parents do not appear. Note omission in ver. 1. "A man," etc. "A daughter," etc. No doubt here a mental and moral heritage; but little training, because little opportunity. Generally, there is, under this head, a lesson of encouragement for those who have, or fancy they have, hard beginnings in life. Some of earth"s noblest have risen out of disadvantage.
II THE APPEARANCE OF THE CHILD. For traditions of predictions of his birth see Jos. Antiq. 2:9. 2-4. Moses was
1. No common child. Scepticism objects that Miriam and Aaron are not mentioned in vers. 1, 2 by name. But the motive and impulse of inspiration are to be taken into account. The object was to give the event which led to the Exodus, and to the constitution of the Jewish Church. From this point of view interest concentrates on Moses. Hence we infer the extraordinary greatness of his character and career.
1. Born at a critical moment. See Act_7:20. So the Jewish proverb: "When the tale of bricks is doubled, then comes Moses." Note:
1. At the moment of deepest darkness God sends deliverance.
2. When he wants instruments he creates them.
2. Of no common beauty. Not only in his mother"s eyes, which would be natural enough, but absolutely. See Act_7:20, as well as Exo_2:2; and for interesting illustration, Jos. Antiq. 2:9.6. All this the promise of a higher beauty of character that opened out with the years.
III THE DANGER OF THE CHILD. The child born to great issues, and therefore must run the gauntlet of peril. Compare Jesus under the edict of Herod with Moses under that of Pharaoh. No sooner born than a battle for life. The two only infants, but full of possibilities. Pharaoh! the babe you may crush; hereafter the man shall ruin you. A seeming law in the ease, to which witness the legends of many nations, e.g. Romulus and Remus, Cyrus, King Arthur.
IV LOVE FENCING FOR THE CHILD.
1. Of the mother.
(1) Concealing. Heb_11:23. How by faith? Went right on in the discharge of common duty to the child, not turning aside to observe the king"s commandment. Then the love went to the other extreme:
(2) Exposing. Here narrate the facts, for which see the text and commentary above; e.g. impossibility of longer concealing a growing child, form and material of the ark, laid in a place of comparative safety, "in the flags" at "the lip of the river," the elements of danger starvation, discoverynot crocodiles on the Tanitic branch of the river. But observe the feeling behind the facts. A mother"s despair becoming hope, and then faith; but a faith provident and workful, for, living in the neighbourhood, she could not fail to know where the childless (so says tradition) princess was wont to bathe. Just there she placed the child.
2. Of the sister. Imagine her anxiety! The mother-heart in every girl. She was
(1) Watchful: over the ark, against an enemy, for the princess;
(2) Active;
(3) Clever, full of resource;
(4) Successful;
(5) Became eminent; a prophetess, Exo_15:20.
One of the three deliverers, Mic_6:4. The adored of the people, Num_12:10-15. In childhood are laid the foundations of character.
3. Of God. Before all, over all, and behind all! Love to the child, sister, parents, to Israel, and to the world to be blest through him.
V THE DELIVERANCE OF THE CHILD. This of God, but note the part played by each of the following instruments:
1. The princess. Note the independent status of an Egyptian princess, the custom then of bathing in the open river, the probable locality, Zoan, (Psa_78:43) that compassion was inculcated by the Egyptian religion, and the probable application to her of Act_10:35.
1. The sister.
2. The mother.
3. The princess again; and possible lifelong parting from the mother.
Finally, observe
1. The deliverances of God are wonderful. Only one person in all the land of Egypt that could save Moses, and she came to the river.
2. The object of God"s deliverances does not centre and rest on the delivered. It passes beyond: Moses for Israel, Israel for the Messiah, Messiah for the world. So Abraham, Gen_12:2. So with elect spirits and elect nations in all ages. None for himself.
3. So is it with the great salvation. Wonderful! The benediction thereof unresting, passing on from the first recipients.
4. But the retributions of God are just as marvellous. Moses was to be the ruin of the house of Pharaoh, and deservedly so. But in the providence of God the tyrant is made to pass by and even protect the instrument of his future punishment. R.
HOMILETICS.
Vers. 11, 12. 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 (ver. 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.
Vers. 1-25. Moses and Christ.
Compare in circumstances of early life.
1. Obscurity of birth.
2. Peril in infancy.
3. Protection in Egypt.
4. Rejected by brethren
5. Humble toil. The carpenter"s shop keeping sheep.
6. Long pencil of silent preparation.
See F. W. Robertson"s striking sermon on "The Early Development of Jesus" ("Sermons," vol. 2.). The period was not so long in Christ s case as in the case of Moses, but had a like significance preparation for future work. J.O.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v1 An ark of bulrushes.
Exo_2:1-4
An ark of bulrushes.
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The Birth of Moses
I. As occurring of noble parentage.
1. They were of moderate social position.
2. They were of strong parental affection.
3. They were of good religious character.
Happy the child that is linked to the providence of God by a mothers faith! Faith in God is the preserving influence of a threatened life--physically, morally, eternally.
II. As happening in perilous times.
1. When his nation was in a condition of servitude. That this servitude was severe, exacting, grievous, disastrous, murderous, is evident from the last chapter.
2. When a cruel edict was in force against the young.
III. As involving momentous issues.
1. Issues relating to the lives of individuals. The birth of Moses made Miriam a watcher, gave her an introduction to a kings daughter, and has given immortality to her name. It brought Aaron into historical prominence.
2. Issues involving the freedom of an enslaved people.
3. Issues relating to the destiny of a proud nation.
IV. As exhibiting the inventiveness of maternal love.
1. In that she devised a scheme for the safety of her child. The mother was more clever than the tyrant king and his accomplices. Tyranny is too calculating to be clever. Maternal love is quick and spontaneous in thought.
V. As eluding the edict of a cruel king. The mother of Moses was justified in eluding this edict, because it was unjust, murderous; it did violence to family affection, to the laws of citizenship, and to the joyful anticipation of men. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The infancy of Moses
1. His concealment.
2. His rescue.
3. His restoration. (Caleb Morris.)
Lessons
1. Providence is preparing good, while wickedness is working evil to the Church.
2. Lines, tribes, and persons are appointed by God, by whom He will work good to His people.
3. In the desolations of the Churchs seed, God will have His to marry and continue it.
4. Tribes cursed for their desert, may be made instrumental of good by grace.
5. Choice and taking in marriage should be under Providence, free, and rational (Exo_2:1).
6. The greatest instruments of the Churchs good God ordereth to being in the common way of man.
7. God ordereth, in His wisdom, instruments of salvation to be born in times of distinction.
8. No policies or cruelties of man can hinder God from sending saviours to His Church (Exo_2:2). (G. Hughes, B. D.)
The ark of bulrushes
I. The goodly child--Moses.
1. Its birth.
(1) In an evil time. The edict of Pharaoh, like the sword of Damocles, over its head. God takes care that men needed for His work in evil times shall be born in them--Wickliffe, Luther.
(2) Of an oppressed people and humble origin. Great men often of lowly extraction.
2. Its appearance--Goodly. Beautiful, not only to a mothers eyes, but really so. Its beauty appealed to the mother, as its tears to the princess.
3. The excitement caused by its birth. Babes usually welcomed. Here were fear and sorrow and perplexity. This Divine gift becomes a trial, through the wickedness of man. Sin turns blessings into Curses, and joy into sorrow.
II. The anxious mother--Jochebed.
1. Her first feelings. Touched by the rare loveliness of her child. Bravely resolves to evade the decree. She had another son--Aaron--now three years of age (Exo_7:7); but could not spare one.
2. Her careful concealment. For three months she contrived to preserve her secret from the Egyptians. Anxiously thinking what she might presently do.
3. Her ingenious device. Concealment no longer possible. She will trust God rather than Pharaoh.
III. The obedient daughter--Miriam.
1. Her obedience. The blessing of obedient children. Trusted by the mother. The elder should care for, and watch over, the younger.
2. Her surprise. The princess and her retinue appear. She attentively watches. The ark discovered, brought out, and opened. Her anxiety. She approaches.
3. Her thoughtfulness. She is quick-witted. Sees compassion in the princesss face. Shall she fetch a nurse? Of the Hebrew women?
4. Her great joy. Her brother saved. Her return home. Perhaps the mother was praying for the child. Jochebeds surprise and gratitude and joy. A great result grew out of her obedience (1Pe_1:14; Eph_6:1; Col_3:20).
IV. The compassionate princess. Kindness in the house of Pharaoh! Out of the strong sweetness. Children not always to be judged by their parents. Elis sons were not godly (1Sa_2:12). Pharaohs daughter not cruel, as her father. Moved by an infants tears, she at once comprehends the history of the child, Resolves to adopt it. Providential use of compassion, maternal solicitude, filial obedience, infantile beauty and helplessness. All things work together for good. Learn--
1. To prize a mothers love, and return it.
2. To imitate Miriams obedience and sisterly affection.
3. Not to judge of children by their parents.
4. To admire the wisdom of Providence.
5. Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given--Jesus. (J. C. Gray.)
The cradle on the waters
I. The power of young life to endure hardship. Codling of children is foolish, unhealthy.
II. The use that one member of a family may be to another. Services which seem trifling may prove far-reaching in effect. Miriam thus helped to bring about the freedom of her nation.
III. The pathetic influence of a babes tears. Touching tokens of sorrow, weakness, helplessness. Potent, inviting help. Many are moved by the sight of personal grief who look unmoved upon a national calamity.
IV. The sensitive conscience of a tyrants daughter. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The babe in the bulrushes
I. Let us consider the perils which surrounded this purposeful life, which was rescued in such a remarkable manner.
1. For one thing, it was the life of an infant child. Infancy alone is more than enough to extinguish such a diminutive glimmer of existence; just leave him where he is a little longer, and you will never hear of that childs going up into Mount Sinai. There is only the side of a slight basket between him and swift drowning; one rush of the waves through a crevice, and the march through the wilderness will never be made.
2. Observe also this was the life of a proscribed child.
3. And then observe that this was the life of an outcast child. He had no friends. His mother had already hidden him until concealment was dangerous.
II. Let us try to find some suggestions as to modern life and duty. There Moses lay, before he was called Moses, or had any right to be--an infant, proscribed, outcast child! You pity him; so do I pity him, with all my heart. Still, I will tell you frankly what I pity more by far, and I trust to better purpose. There are hundreds of sons and daughters of misery drifting out upon a stream of vice, which the Nile river, with all its murkiness and its monsters, cannot parallel for an exposure of peril--a river of depraved humanity, hurrying on before it everything stainless and promising into the darkness of destiny behind the cloud. It was a woman who ultimately brought up this babe from the bulrush ark. Women know how to save children better than men do. The spirit in which all this work must be done is that of faith. There is a sense of possibility in every childs constitution, and this is what gives a loftier value to it than that which is possessed by any other creature of the living God. A child owns in it what a diamond has not: a child can grow, and a diamond cannot. They say it takes a million of years, more or less, to make a big diamond; but the biggest of diamonds has a past only, and the smallest of children has a limitless future. Faith and works are what seemed once to disturb the balance of a man whose business it was to write an epistle in the New Testament. See what a vivid illustration this has in the story here before us. Jochebed had absolute faith; so had Amram; and so had Miriam for all we know. But it would have done no good to fall down and go to crying, nor to sit down and quote the promises, nor to be trampled down and give up the baby. Jochebed told Amram to get her some of the toughest rushes he could find, and he went and did it; then she awaked Moses, and wrapped him in the most comfortable way she could for an outing; then she took some pitch and bitumen, and told Miriam a patient story as to how she was to watch her brother. The word ark is found only in this instance, and in that not altogether unlike it in the case of Noah; only in these two places has the inspired Word of God employed it. There was the same principle at stake in both experiences--Noah believed God, and then made his ark; Amram and Jochebed believed God, and then made their ark. And I can readily imagine that these pious parents got their first notion of the plan to save the baby out of the story of Noah; and so they used, whenever they spoke of it, to employ the same name. At any rate, it has a lesson for every one of us. Trust God, always trust God; then do all within your power to help on the purpose you prayerfully hope He is about to undertake for you. Make the best ark you can; place it in the river at the safest spot you can find; leave it there; then trust God. The main point is, venturesomeness is the highest element of belief in our Father in heaven. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
The mother of Moses
I. The mothers love of the child. Divine. Providential.
II. The mothers ingenuity. Danger risked. Ample reward.
III. The mothers heroism. A sacrifice of love. (J. O. Davies.)
The mother remained at home, showing-
1. The dignity of her faith--she could wait away from the scene of trial.
2. Her supreme hope in God--the issue was to be Divine.
3. Her happy confidence in her little daughter--children do their work better when they feel that they are trusted with it entirely. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The beautiful ministry of a youthful life
1. Loving.
2. Cautious.
3. Obedient.
4. Reflective.
5. Courteous.
6. Successful. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The faith of Moses parents
We shall study the history of Moses without the key if we overlook the point made by the writer to the Hebrews (Heb_11:23). By faith, dec. Faith in God made them fearless of Egypts cruel king. It may sometimes happen that profound interest in a babe of apparently rare promise shall run in a very low and selfish channel, suggesting how much he may do to comfort their own hearts, or to build up the glory of their house or of their name; but when, by a heavenly faith, it takes hold of useful work for God, when it prompts to a special consecration of all the possibilities of his future to the kingdom of Christ, it is morally sublime. Such seems to have been the faith of the parents of the child Moses. How their faith prompted ingenious methods of concealments; how it wrought in harmony with Gods wise providence, not only to preserve the life of this consecrated child, but to give him a place in the heart of Pharaohs daughter, and thus open to his growing mind all the wealth of Egypts culture and wisdom, we learn somewhat from this story. (H. Cowles, D. D.)
Moses and Christ
Moses and Christ stand together in the same supernatural scheme; they are in the line of the same Divine purpose; they work together, though in different ways, towards the same end. Although they occupy far distant ages, and live under completely different conditions, they largely undergo the same experiences, conform to the same laws, confront the same difficulties, and manifest the same spirit. In many cases the events of their lives actually and literally correspond, and in many more it only needs that the veil of outward manifestation be lifted to see that in spirit they are one. And this not by accident, but by design. The plan of God is a complete whole. That Moses, the founder of the preparatory dispensation, should be pre-eminently like Him who was to fulfil it, is most natural; that he should, in his measure, set Him forth, is what we might expect (see Deu_18:15; Joh_5:46). To point out that likeness, and, at the same time, mark the contrasts, is the work upon which we enter. We shall study Moses in the light of Christ. Like two rivers, at one time we shall see the two lives to flow together in the same channel--the same quiet flowing, the same torturous course, the same cataracts in each; but anon they divide, and pursue each a separate bed, only to meet again far away beyond.
1. We take the two lives at their beginnings. The time of each is most significant. The age in each case was charged with expectancy, Both were periods of bondage, and bondage crying out for a deliverer. Both were born to be emancipators. But the one birth is not like the other. The source of the one river is at our feet; the source of the other is like Egypts own mysterious Nile--far, far away in a land of mystery, and where mortals have never trodden.
2. The two deliverers are alike again in this--that they owe nothing of their greatness to their parents. Amram and Joseph, Jochebed and Mary, stand upon the ordinary level of mankind. God is not bound down to evolution. He can raise up a Moses from the slave huts of Egypt; He can send forth His Christ from the peasantry of Galilee.
3. They start together from obscurity and poverty and adversity.
4. Both children are born to great issues, and both must meet, therefore, that opposition with which goodness is ever assailed. It would seem that the birth of any soul having great moral capabilities arouses the opposition of the powers of darkness. Fable and legend have recognized this, and have made their heroes pass through extraordinary dangers whilst only children. Romulus and Remus, cast away to die, were nursed by a wolf, and thus lived to build the foundations of Rome and the Roman Empire. Cyrus, the founder of the MedePersian monarchy, was said to have been thrown out into the wilderness, and to have been adopted by a shepherds wife, whose own babe was dead. Our own King Arthur, too, passed a similar peril. Doubtless these are no more than legends, confused echoes possibly from the story of Moses itself; but they serve to show us how mankind has ever recognized that lives destined to be great are met by hardship and opposition. Moses and Christ are one in this.
5. The likeness of the two births is not, however, completed until we notice the special providences of God, by which they are delivered from their enemies. What are the edicts of Pharaoh or the swords of Herod against the purposes of the Most High? Who are kings and princes, that they should withstand the Lord? What are all the combinations of evil, and all the plots of the devil, against His will, who ruleth over all? (H. Wonnacott.)
The bulrush
The bulrush is the papyrus, or paper reed, of the ancients. It grows in marshy places, and was once most abundant on the banks of the Nile; but now that the river has been opened to commerce, it has disappeared, save in a few unfrequented spots. It is described as having an angular stem from three to six feet high, though occasionally it grows to the height of fourteen feet; it has no leaves; the flowers are in very small spikelets, which grow in thread-like, flowering branchlets, which form a bushy crown to each stem. It was used for many purposes by the Egyptians--as, for example, for shoes, baskets, vessels of different sorts, and boats; but it was especially valuable as famishing the material corresponding to our paper, on which written communication could be made. To obtain this last fibre, the course exterior rind was taken off, and then with a needle the thin concentric layers of the inner cuticle, sometimes to the number of twenty to a single plant, were removed. These were afterward joined together with a mixture of flour, paste, and glue; and a similar layer of strips being laid crosswise in order to strengthen the fabric, the whole sheet was subjected to pressure, dried in the sun, beaten with a mallet, and polished with ivory. When completed and written over, the sheets were united into one, and rolled on a slender wooden cylinder. Thus was formed a book, and the description of the process gives the etymology and primal significance of our ownword volume. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Children in need of preserving mercy
The spot is traditionally said to be the Isle of Bodak, near old Cairo. In contrasting the perils which surrounded the infancy of Moses with the security and comfort with which we can rear our own offspring, we have abundant grounds of gratitude. Yet it should not be forgotten that whatever care we may exercise for our little ones, or whatever guardianship we may afford them, they as really require the preserving mercy of heaven when reposing in their cradles or sporting in our parlours as did Moses when enclosed in his ark of bulrushes and exposed to the waves or the ravenous tenants of the Nile. (A. Nevin, D. D.)
Training of children
What if God should place in your hand a diamond, and tell you to inscribe on it a sentence which should be read at the last day, and be shown then as an index of your own thoughts and feelings? What care, what caution, would you exercise in the selection. Now, this is what God has done. He has placed before you the immortal minds of your children, more imperishable than the diamond, on which you are about to inscribe every day and every hour by your instructions, by your spirit, or by your example, something which will remain, and be exhibited for or against you at the judgment day. (Dr. Payson.)
Parental instruction best
Even as a plant will sooner take nourishment and thrive better in the soil where it first grew and sprung up than in any other ground, because it liketh its own soil best; so, likewise, children will sooner take instruction and good nurture from their parents, whom they best like, and from whom they have their being, than from any other. (Cawdray.)
Divine ordering of events
The mother had done her part. The rushes, the slime, and the pitch were her prudent preparations; and the great God has been at the same time preparing His materials, and arranging His instruments. He causes everything to concur, not by miraculous influence, but by the simple and natural operation of second causes, to bring about the issue designed in His counsels from everlasting. (G. Bush, D. D.)
Gods providence in our family life
The phrase special providence, is liable to be misunderstood. The teaching of this book is not that God overrules some things more than others, but that He is in all alike, and is as really in the falling of a sparrow as the revolution of an empire. God was as truly in the removal of the little ones that were taken away as He was in the saving of Amrams son; and there were lessons of love and warning from the one, no less than of love and encouragement from the other. Nay more, God is in the daily events of our households precisely as He was in those of the family of the tribe of Levi long ago. The births and the bereavements; the prosperity and the adversity; the joys and the sorrows of our homes, are all under His supervision. He is guiding us when we know it not; and His plan of our lives, if we will only yield ourselves to His guidance, will one day round itself into completeness and beauty. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
The events of life under a Divine providence
When Druyse, the gunsmith, invented the needle-gun, which decided the battle of Sadowa, was it a mere accident? When a farmers boy showed Blucher a short cut by which he could bring his army up soon enough to decide Waterloo for England, was it a mere accident? When the Protestants were besieged at Bezors, and a drunken drummer came in at midnight and rang the alarm bell, not knowing what he was doing, but; waking up the host in time to fight their enemies that moment arriving, was it an accident? When, in the Irish rebellion, a starving mother, flying with her starving child, sank down and fainted on a rock in the night, and her hand fell on a warm bottle of milk, did that just happen so? God is either in the affairs of men or our religion is worth nothing at all, and you had better take it away from us, and instead of this Bible, which teaches the doctrine, give us a secular book, and leg us, as the famous Mr. Fox, the Member of Parliament, in his last hour, cry out: Read me the eighth book of Virgil. Oh my friends; let us rouse up to an appreciation of the fact that all the affairs of our life are under a Kings command, and under a Fathers watch. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
The minute providence of God
You must have been struck, as you read these opening verses of the biography of the greatest of Old Testament worthies, with their simplicity and truth-likeness. There is no mention of prodigies such as those which were said to attend the birth of Cyrus, and such as mythology delighted to tell concerning Romulus and Remus. It is a plain unvarnished story. There is no word of any miracle. The incidents are such as, allowing for the difference between ancient and modern life, might have happened among ourselves. And yet see how they fit into each other, altogether irrespective of, and indeed independent of, human calculation. Had it been the case of a single fortunate occurrence, we might have talked of chance; but the coalition of so many acts of so many agents indicates design. When you come to a great railway junction, at which trains arrive from north and south and west, in time to be united to another that is just starting for the east, and you see the connection made, nobody talks of a happy coincidence. There was a presiding mind guiding the time of the arrival of the train in each case, so that the junction was reached by all at the required moment. Now, at the birth and preservation of Moses, one feels himself standing at the meeting-place of many separate trains of events, all of which coalesce to save the life of the child, and to put him in the way of securing the very best education which the world could then furnish. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
His sister:
Miriam
I. How she trusted in God. In Heb_11:1-40. we read that by faith Moses was hid of his parents. It was chiefly the doing of his mother and Miriam. Amram probably had little hand in it, as he had to work night and day, making bricks without straw under the lash of ruffian slave-drivers. Now Miriam could not have so shared her mothers confidence, if she had not also shared her mothers faith. And her faith was great, for it outlived great trims. As she was a very quick-witted girl she must have had many a deep thought. The hands of Providence were strangely crossed. But her faith did not fail. Oh girl, great is thy faith, for thou trustest in Jehovah, though He seemeth to be slaying thee and thine. How she condemns many girls who are content to live without God!
II. How she loved her family. She had real daughterly and sisterly feeling; she was true to her family, helping her mother all she could, entering into her plan and making it a success, risking her own life to save her brothers. It is not the cleverness nor the success, but the spirit of her act which you should think upon. What a help and a comfort she must have been to her sorely-tried mother! Faith in God made her thoughtful and feeling-hearted, and great sorrows drew out her sweetest, strongest sympathy with her poor parents. She loved her folk more than she feared Pharaoh. In that level land Pharaohs pyramids and palaces were the only mountains; how very small she must have felt when she stood near them! And how awful and mighty Pharaoh must have seemed to her! Yet she was not afraid of the kings commandment. Hers was the true love which makes the weak strong, the timid brave, and the simple wise; which betters what is best in boy and girl, and works wonders for others good. It made Miriam the saviour of Moses. It gave her great presence of mind, that is, the rare power of doing at once in a moment of danger the very thing that needs to be done. As a pointsman by a single timely jerk puts a whole train on the right line, so she by a single hint turned the sympathy of the princess into the right channel, and moulded it into action before it cooled down. No girl ever did greater service to her family and her kind. And she did it not by aiming at some great thing, but by forgetting self and doing her work at home in the right spirit. Cultivate the heavenly beauty of Miriams conduct. What is true and good is beautiful with an everlasting beauty: disease cannot mar, death cannot destroy it. In girls nothing is uglier than the lack of love at home. It is bad enough in a boy, but it makes a girl simply hideous. For girls have been formed by God to soften and sweeten life, and we are shocked when they poison the fountains at home.
III. How Miriam remained steadfast. We left Miriam with Pharaohs daughter; and we meet her again, about eighty years afterwards, on the shore of the Red Sea (Exo_15:20). Miriam was more than one hundred and twenty years old when she died, yet with only one exception, so far as we know, she stood firm in Gods service.
IV. How she fell at Hazeroth. Oh Miriam, how art thou fallen from heaven, thou beautiful star of the morning! The time came when Miriam must give place to Zipporah, Moses wife, an Ethiopian woman (Num_12:1-16.). Miriam would naturally feel that her share in the saving of Moses gave her special claims upon him. Her envy was stirred, and she spake against Moses. Two things made her sin worse. She pretended that zeal for religion was her motive, and so gained Aaron over to her side (verse 2). And then Moses was the meekest of men; and her anger should have melted at his meekness. You may wonder that I have praised for steadfastness one who had such a sad fall. But a character is fixed not by an act or two, but by the habits of years. I remember standing for the first time on the bridge of a far-famed river. Just under me there was a backward eddy, and a stiff breeze was also rippling the surface backwards. I was quite deceived: I fancied that the stream flowed in the direction of the eddy and the ripples. When I walked along the bank I smiled at my mistake. I should do Miriam a great wrong did I judge her by that act; for it was the one backward eddy, the one backward rippling in the on-rushing current of a good life. Now, what exactly was Miriams sin? Was it not selfishness bursting out into envy and jealousy? Her selfishness took a very common form; for it filled her with ill-will against a new-comer into the family by marriage--that Ethiopian woman! How natural! yet how ugly! If one could see the soul of an envious girl, as the blessed angels see it, it would shock us as much as Miriams leprosy shocked all beholders. Let the love of God in Christ fill and flood your soul; and then it will absorb and change your self-love, as the ocean absorbed and changed the brook; and all your selfish grumblings will disappear in the peace of God that passeth all understanding. (J. Wells.)
The watching sister
Society needs watchers as well as workers. Had we been passing the spot at which the sister of Moses took up her position of observation, we might have condemned her as an idler standing there and doing nothing! We should be careful of our condemnation, seeing how little we know of the reality of any case. In doing nothing, the girl was in reality doing everything. If she had done more, she would have done less. There is a silent ministry as well as a ministry of thunder. Mark the cunning of love! The watcher stood afar off. Had she stood quite close at hand, she would have defeated the very object of her watching. She was to do her work without the slightest appearance of doing it. Truly there is a great art in love, and in all good ministry. There are wise master-builders, and also builders who are very foolish. Sometimes we must look without staring; we must speak without making a noise; we must be artful without dissimulation, and hide under the calmest exterior the most urgent and tumultuous emotion. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Miriams tact
Stood afar off! Mark that. There is tact in everything. Had she gone too near, she might have been suspected. Eagerness would have defeated itself. Our watching must not be obtrusive, officious, demonstrative, and formal. We are not policemen, but friends. We are not spies, but brothers and sisters. We must watch as though we were not watching. We must serve as though we were not serving. There is a way of giving a gift which makes it heavy and burdensome to the receiver; there is a way of doing it which makes the simplest offering a treasure. Sometimes we increase each others sorrow in the very act of attempting to diminish it. (J. Parker, D. D.)
A devoted sister
Caroline Herschel was the devoted helper of her brother, Sir Wm. Herschel. Her only joy was to share in his labours and help to his successes. She lived for years in the radiance of genius; sharing its toils and privileges. After her brothers death she was honoured by various scientific societies in many ways. But these she regarded as tributes to her brother, rather than the reward of her own efforts. (H. O. Mackey.)
Sisters and brothers
Go home, some one might have said to Miriam. Why risk yourself out there alone on the banks of the Nile, breathing the miasma and in danger of being attacked of wild beast or ruffian; go home! No; Miriam, the sister, most lovingly watched and bravely defended Moses, the brother. Is he worthy her care and courage? Oh, yes; the sixty centuries of the worlds history have never had so much involved in the arrival of any ship at any port as in the landing of that papyrus boat caulked with bitumen. Its one passenger was to be a none-such in history. Lawyer, statesman, politician, legislator, organiser, conqueror, deliverer. Oh, was not Miriam, the sister of Moses, doing a good thing, an important thing, a glorious thing, when she watched the boat woven of river plants and made watertight with asphaltum, carrying its one passenger? Did she not put all the ages of time and of a coming eternity under obligation, when she defended her helpless brother from the perils aquatic, reptilian, and ravenous? What a garland for faithful sisterhood! For how many a lawgiver, hero, deliverer, and saint are the world and the Church indebted to a watchful, loving, faithful, godly sister? God knows how many of our Greek lexicons and how much of our schooling was paid for by money that would otherwise have gone for the replenishing of a sisters wardrobe. While the brother sailed off for a resounding sphere, the sister watched him from the banks of self-denial. Miriam was the oldest of the family, Moses and Aaron, her brothers, are younger. Oh, the power of the elder sister to help decide the brothers character for usefulness and for heaven! She can keep off from her brother more evils than Miriam could have driven back water-fowl or crocodile from the ark of bulrushes. The older sister decides the direction in which the cradle-boat shall sail. By gentleness, by good sense, by Christian principle she can turn it towards the palace, not of a wicked Pharaoh, but of a holy God; and a brighter princess than Thermutis shall lift him out of peril, even religion, whose ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. Let sisters not begrudge the time and care bestowed on a brother. It is hard to believe that any boy that you know so well as your brother can ever turn out anything very useful. Well, he may not be a Moses. There is only one of that kind needed for six thousand years. But I tell you what your brother will be--either a blessing or a curse to society, and a candidate for happiness or wretchedness. Whatever you do for your brother will come back to you again. If you set him an ill-natured, censorious, unaccomodating example, it will recoil upon you from his own irritated and despoiled nature. If you, by patience with all his infirmities and by nobility of character, dwell with him in the few years of your companionship, you will have your counsels reflected back upon you some day by his splendour of behaviour in some crisis where he would have failed but for you. (Dr. Talmage.)
Weak links useful
And you, again, the weak and little ones, will you still fancy you may well be quite passed by, when Miriams case proclaims to you how needful even the weak link is to join the other links into one chain, and how God can avail Himself even of a child deemed insignificant in the promotion of our human bliss and joy? (J. J. Van Oosterzee, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1
CHAPTER II.
THE RESCUE OF MOSES.
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Exo_2:1-10.
We have said that the Old Testament history teems with political wisdom, lessons of permanent instruction for mankind, on the level of this life, yet godly, as all true lessons must be, in a world of which Christ is King. These our religion must learn to recognise and proclaim, if it is ever to win the respect of men of affairs, and "leaven the whole lump" of human life with sacred influence.
Such a lesson is the importance of the individual in the history of nations. History, as read in Scripture, is indeed a long relation of heroic resistance or of base compliance in the presence of influences which are at work to debase modern peoples as well as those of old. The holiness of Samuel, the gallant faith of David, the splendour and wisdom of Solomon, the fervid zeal of Elijah, the self-respecting righteousness of Nehemiah,--ignore these, and the whole course of affairs becomes vague and unintelligible. Most of all this is true of Moses, whose appearance is now related.
In profane history it is the same. Alexander, Mahomet, Luther, William the Silent, Napoleon,--will any one pretend that Europe uninfluenced by these personalities would have become the Europe that we know?
And this truth is not at all a speculative, unpractical theory: it is vital. For now there is a fashion of speaking about the tendency of the age, the time-spirit, as an irresistible force which moulds men like potters' clay, crowning those who discern and help it, but grinding to powder all who resist its course. In reality there are always a hundred time-spirits and tendencies competing for the mastery--some of them violent, selfish, atheistic, or luxurious (as we see with our own eyes today)--and the shrewdest judges are continually at fault as to which of them is to be victorious, and recognised hereafter as the spirit of the age.
This modern pretence that men are nothing, and streams of tendency are all, is plainly a gospel of capitulations, of falsehood to one's private convictions, and of servile obedience to the majority and the popular cry. For, if individual men are nothing, what am I? If we are all bubbles floating down a stream, it is folly to strive to breast the current. Much practical baseness and servility is due to this base and servile creed. And the cure for it is belief in another spirit than that of the present age, trust in an inspiring God, who rescued a herd of slaves and their fading convictions from the greatest nation upon earth by matching one man, shrinking and reluctant yet obedient to his mission, against Pharaoh and all the tendencies of the age.
And it is always so. God turns the scale of events by the vast weight of a man, faithful and true, and sufficiently aware of Him to refuse, to universal clamour, the surrender of his liberty or his religion. In small matters, as in great, there is no man, faithful to a lonely duty or conviction, understanding that to have discerned it is a gift and a vocation, but makes the world better and stronger, and works out part of the answer to that great prayer "Thy will be done."
We have seen already that the religion of the Hebrews in Egypt was corrupted and in danger of being lost. To this process, however, there must have been bright exceptions; and the mother of Moses bore witness, by her very name, to her fathers' God. The first syllable of Jochebed is proof that the name of God, which became the keynote of the new revelation, was not entirely new.
As yet the parents of Moses are not named; nor is there any allusion to the close relationship which would have forbidden their union at a later period (Exo_6:20). And throughout all the story of his youth and early manhood there is no mention whatever of God or of religion. Elsewhere it is not so. The Epistle to the Hebrews declares that through faith the babe was hidden, and through faith the man refused Egyptian rank. Stephen tells us that he expected his brethren to know that God by his hand was giving them deliverance. But the narrative in Exodus is wholly untheological. If Moses were the author, we can see why he avoided reflections which directly tended to glorify himself. But if the story were a subsequent invention, why is the tone so cold, the light so colourless?
Now, it is well that we are invited to look at all these things from their human side, observing the play of human affection, innocent subtlety, and pity. God commonly works through the heart and brain which He has given us, and we do not glorify Him at all by ignoring these. If in this case there were visible a desire to suppress the human agents, in favour of the Divine Preserver, we might suppose that a different historian would have given a less wonderful account of the plagues, the crossing of the Sea, and the revelation from Sinai. But since full weight is allowed to second causes in the early life of Moses, the story is entitled to the greater credit when it tells of the burning bush and the flaming mountain.
Let us, however, put together the various narratives and their lessons. At the outset we read of a marriage celebrated between kinsfolk, when the storm of persecution was rising. And hence we infer that courage or strong affection made the parents worthy of him through whom God should show mercy unto thousands. The first child was a girl, and therefore safe; but we may suppose, although silence in Scripture proves little, that Aaron, three years before the birth of Moses, had not come into equal peril with him. Moses was therefore born just when the last atrocity was devised, when trouble was at its height.
"At this time Moses was born," said Stephen. Edifying inferences have been drawn from the statement in Exodus that "the woman ... hid him." Perhaps the stronger man quailed, but the maternal instinct was not at fault, and it was rewarded abundantly. From which we only learn, in reality, not to overstrain the words of Scripture; since the Epistle to the Hebrews distinctly says that he "was hid three months by his parents"--both of them, while naturally the mother is the active agent.
All the accounts agree that he was thus hidden, "because they saw that he was a goodly child" (Heb_11:23). It is a pathetic phrase. We see them, before the crisis, vaguely submitting in theory to an unrealised atrocity, ignorant how imperiously their nature would forbid the crime, not planning disobedience in advance, nor led to it by any reasoning process. All is changed when the little one gazes at them with that marvellous appeal in its unconscious eyes, which is known to every parent, and helps him to be a better man. There is a great difference between one's thought about an infant, and one's feeling towards the actual baby. He was their child, their beautiful child; and this it was that turned the scale. For him they would now dare anything, "because they saw he was a goodly child, and they were not afraid of the king's commandment." Now, impulse is often a great power for evil, as when appetite or fear, suddenly taking visible shape, overwhelms the judgment and plunges men into guilt. But good impulses may be the very voice of God, stirring whatever is noble and generous within us. Nor are they accidental: loving and brave emotions belong to warm and courageous hearts; they come of themselves, like song birds, but they come surely where sunshine and still groves invite them, not into clamour and foul air. Thus arose in their bosoms the sublime thought of God as an active power to be reckoned upon. For as certainly as every bad passion that we harbour preaches atheism, so does all goodness tend to sustain itself by the consciousness of a supreme Goodness in reserve. God had sent them their beautiful child, and who was Pharaoh to forbid the gift? And so religion and natural pity joined hands, their supreme convictions and their yearning for their infant. "By faith Moses was hid ... because they saw he was a goodly child, and they were not afraid of the king's commandment."
Such, if we desire a real and actual salvation, is always the faith which saves. Postpone salvation to an indefinite future; make it no more than the escape from vaguely realised penalties for sins which do not seem very hateful; and you may suppose that faith in theories can obtain this indulgence; an opinion may weigh against a misgiving. But feel that sin is not only likely to entail damnation, but is really and in itself damnable meanwhile, and then there will be no deliverance possible, but from the hand of a divine Friend, strong to sustain and willing to guide the life. We read that Amram lived a hundred and thirty and seven years, and of all that period we only know that he helped to save the deliverer of his race, by practical faith which made him not afraid, and did not paralyse but stimulate his energies.
When the mother could no longer hide the child, she devised the plan which has made her for ever famous. She placed him in a covered ark, or casket,[3] plaited (after what we know to have been the Egyptian fashion) of the papyrus reed, and rendered watertight with bitumen, and this she laid among the rushes--a lower vegetation, which would not, like the tall papyrus, hide her treasure--in the well-known and secluded place where the daughter of Pharaoh used to bathe. Something in the known character of the princess may have inspired this ingenious device to move her pity; but it is more likely that the woman's heart, in her extremity, prompted a simple appeal to the woman who could help her if she would. For an Egyptian princess was an important personage, with an establishment of her own, and often possessed of much political influence. The most sanguinary agent of a tyrant would be likely to respect the client of such a patron.
The heart of every woman was in a plot against the cruelty of Pharaoh. Once already the midwives had defeated him; and now, when his own daughter[4] unexpectedly found, in the water at her very feet, a beautiful child sobbing silently (for she knew not what was there until the ark was opened), her indignation is audible enough in the words, "This is one of the Hebrews' children." She means to say "This is only one specimen of the outrages that are going on."
This was the chance for his sister, who had been set in ambush, not prepared with the exquisite device which follows, but simply "to know what would be done to him." Clearly the mother had reckoned upon his being found, and neglected nothing, although unable herself to endure the agony of watching, or less easily hidden in that guarded spot. And her prudence had a rich reward. Hitherto Miriam's duty had been to remain passive--that hard task so often imposed upon the affection, especially of women, by sick-beds, and also in many a more stirring hazard, and many a spiritual crisis, where none can fight his brother's battle. It is a trying time, when love can only hold its breath, and pray. But let not love suppose that to watch is to do nothing. Often there comes a moment when its word, made wise by the teaching of the heart, is the all-important consideration in deciding mighty issues.
This girl sees the princess at once pitiful and embarrassed, for how can she dispose of her strange charge? Let the moment pass, and the movement of her heart subside, and all may be lost; but Miriam is prompt and bold, and asks "Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?" It is a daring stroke, for the princess must have understood the position thoroughly, the moment the eager Hebrew girl stepped forward. The disguise was very thin. And at least the heart which pitied the infant must have known the mother when she saw her face, pale with longing. It is therefore only as a form, exacted by circumstances, but well enough though tacitly understood upon both sides, that she bids her nurse the child for her, and promises wages. What reward could equal that of clasping her child to her own agitated bosom in safety, while the destroyers were around?
This incident teaches us that good is never to be despaired of, since this kindly woman grew up in the family of the persecutor.
And the promptitude and success of Miriam suggest a reflection. Men do pity, when it is brought home to them, the privation, suffering, and wrong, which lie around. Magnificent sums are contributed yearly for their relief by the generous instincts of the world. The misfortune is that sentiment is evoked only by visible and pathetic griefs, and that it will not labour as readily as it will subscribe. It is a harder task to investigate, to devise appeals, to invent and work the machinery by which misery may be relieved. Mere compassion will accomplish little, unless painstaking affection supplement it. Who supplies that? Who enables common humanity to relieve itself by simply paying "wages," and confiding the wretched to a painstaking, laborious, loving guardian? The streets would never have known Hospital Saturday, but for Hospital Sunday in the churches. The orphanage is wholly a Christian institution. And so is the lady nurse. The old-fashioned phrase has almost sunk into a party cry, but in a large and noble sense it will continue to be true to nature as long as bereavement, pain or penitence requires a tender bosom and soothing touch, which speaks of Mother Church.
Thus did God fulfil His mysterious plans. And according to a sad but noble law, which operates widely, what was best in Egypt worked with Him for the punishment of its own evil race. The daughter of Pharaoh adopted the perilous foundling, and educated him in the wisdom of Egypt.
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.
MOSES IN MIDIAN.
Exo_2:16-22
The interference of Moses on behalf of the daughters of the priest of Midian is a pleasant trait, courteous, and expressive of a refined nature. With this remark, and reflecting that, like many courtesies, it brought its reward, we are often content to pass it by. And yet it deserves a closer examination.
1. For it expresses great energy of character. He might well have been in a state of collapse. He had smitten the Egyptian for Israel's sake: he had appealed to his own people to make common cause, like brethren, against the common foe; and he had offered himself to them as their destined leader in the struggle. But they had refused him the command, and he was rudely awakened to the consciousness that his life was in danger through the garrulous ingratitude of the man he rescued. Now he was a ruined man and an exile, marked for destruction by the greatest of earthly monarchs, with the habits and tastes of a great noble, but homeless among wild races.
It was no common nature which was alert and energetic at such a time. The greatest men have known a period of prostration in calamity: it was enough for honour that they should rally and re-collect their forces. Thinking of Frederick, after Kunersdorf, resigning the command ("I have no resources more, and will not survive the destruction of my country"), and of his subsequent despatch, "I am now recovered from my illness"; and of Napoleon, trembling and weeping on the road to Elba, one turns with fresh admiration to the fallen prince, the baffled liberator, sitting exhausted by the well, but as keen on behalf of liberty as when Pharaoh trampled Israel, though now the oppressors are a group of rude herdsmen, and the oppressed are Midianite women, driven from the troughs which they have toiled to fill. One remembers Another, sitting also exhausted by the well, defying social usage on behalf of a despised woman, and thereby inspired and invigorated as with meat to eat which His followers knew not of.
2. Moreover there is disinterested bravery in the act, since he hazards the opposition of the men of the land, among whom he seeks refuge, on behalf of a group from which he can have expected nothing. And here it is worth while to notice the characteristic variations in three stories which have certain points of contact. The servant of Abraham, servant-like, was well content that Rebekah should draw for all his camels, while he stood still. The prudent Jacob, anxious to introduce himself to his cousin, rolled away the stone and watered her camels. Moses sat by the well, but did not interfere while the troughs were being filled: it was only the overt wrong which kindled him. But as in great things, so it is in small: our actions never stand alone; having once befriended them, he will do it thoroughly, "and moreover he drew water for us, and watered the flock." Such details could hardly have been thought out by a fabricator; a legend would not have allowed Moses to be slower in courtesy than Jacob;[5] but the story fits the case exactly: his eyes were with his heart, and that was far away, until the injustice of the shepherds roused him.
And why was Moses thus energetic, fearless, and chivalrous? Because he was sustained by the presence of the Unseen: he endured as seeing Him who is invisible; and having, despite of panic, by faith forsaken Egypt, he was free from the absorbing anxieties which prevent men from caring for their fellows, free also from the cynical misgivings which suspect that violence is more than justice, that to be righteous over-much is to destroy oneself, and that perhaps, after all, one may see a good deal of wrong without being called upon to interfere. It would be a different world today, if all who claim to be "the salt of the earth" were as eager to repress injustice in its smaller and meaner forms as to make money or influential friends. If all petty and cowardly oppression were sternly trodden down, we should soon have a state of public opinion in which gross and large tyranny would be almost impossible. And it is very doubtful whether the flagrant wrongs, which must be comparatively rare, cause as much real mental suffering as the frequent small ones. Does mankind suffer more from wild beasts than from insects? But how few that aspire to emancipate oppressed nations would be content, in the hour of their overthrow, to assert the rights of a handful of women against a trifling fraud, to which indeed they were so well accustomed that its omission surprised their father!
Is it only because we are reading a history, and not a biography, that we find no touch of tenderness, like the love of Jacob for Rachel, in the domestic relations of Moses?
Joseph also married in a strange land, yet he called the name of his first son Manasseh, because God had made him to forget his sorrows: but Moses remembered his. Neither wife nor child could charm away his home sickness; he called his firstborn Gershom, because he was a sojourner in a strange land. In truth, his whole life seems to have been a lonely one. Miriam is called "the sister of Aaron" even when joining in the song of Moses (xv. 20), and with Aaron she made common cause against their greater brother (Num_12:1-2). Zipporah endangered his life rather than obey the covenant of circumcision; she complied at last with a taunt (Exo_4:24-26), and did not again join him until his victory over Amalek raised his position to the utmost height (Exo_18:2).
His children are of no account, and his grandson is the founder of a dangerous and enduring schism (Jdg_18:30, R.V.).
There is much reason to see here the earliest example of the sad rule that a prophet is not without honour save in his own house; that the law of compensations reaches farther into life than men suppose; and high position and great powers are too often counterbalanced by the isolation of the heart.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] The same word is used for Noah's ark, but not elsewhere; not, for example, of the ark in the Temple, the name of which occurs elsewhere in Scripture only of the "coffin" of Joseph, and the "chest" for the Temple revenues (Gen_1:26; 2Ch_24:8, 2Ch_24:10-11.)
[4] Or his sister, the daughter of a former Pharaoh.
[5] Nor would it have made the women call their deliverer "an Egyptian," for the Hebrew cast of features is very dissimilar. But Moses wore Egyptian dress, and the Egyptians worked mines in the peninsula, so that he was naturally taken for one of them.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 Exo_2:3. Bulrushes] The well-known Eg. papyrus or paper-reed.
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Exo_2:3. Bulrushes] The well-known Eg. papyrus or paper-reed.
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Exo_2:4. Stood] “Stationed herself.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Exo_2:1-4
THE BIRTH OF MOSES
I. As occurring of noble parentage.
1. They were of moderate social position. Amram, the father of Moses, was the son of Kohath, who was the son of Levi. He espoused Jochebed, who was also of the tribe of Levi. They had three children, Aaron, Miriam, and Moses. Josephus says that Amram was of noble family. Not much is known about him. The social position of a child has a great influence upon its life—education—habits—and associates. Many sons rise higher in social grade than those who gave them birth—either through fortune—Providence—or industry. Moses was taken to be the son of a monarch’s daughter. He was to become the supreme Lawgiver and Ruler, not merely of a vast nation, but of the moral life of the world. 2 They were of strong parental affection. They took great notice of their children, especially of Moses. The mother thought him a goodly child. This was mother-like. She was anxious for the safety of her infant. Hence she tried to evade the cruel edict of the king. She concealed him in the house. Then she hid him on the waters of the Nile. She may have had a strange presentiment that her young child was destined to be connected with the fortunes of Israel. This made her solicitous for his preservation. Few mothers but would have acted likewise. Would that mothers were as anxious for the moral preservation of their offspring as for the physical. Many mothers will hide their children from a tyrant king, who would not conceal them from a wicked companionship. There are many edicts for the moral slaughter of the young—the edict of a wicked press. Parents should hide their children therefrom.
3. They were of good religious character. “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents.” (Heb_11:23.) Thus the parents of Moses were truly pious. They had faith in the unseen Jehovah—not weak—lifeless—inoperative—but powerful—so that it influenced their life—in its most tender sphere—in its most sacred relations—in its brightest hopes—in its truest joys—it made them willing to give up their child to the guardianship of the Nile—nay—to the guardianship of God. Here is a pattern for parents. Have such faith in God that you can trust—even your children—in the most perilous circumstances of life—to His care. Such trust on your part may enhance their temporal good—it may put them in the way of a monarch’s daughter. Many a child has obtained social position through the piety of his mother. Happy the infancy that is linked to the providence of God by a mother’s faith. We cannot tell how much the faith of the parents had to do with the future of their child. Faith in God is the preserving influence of a threatened life—physically—morally—eternally.
II. As happening in perilous times.
1. When his nation was in a condition of servitude. That this servitude was severe—exacting—grievous—disastrous—murderous—is evident from the last chapter. Thus Moses was not born to freedom—to comfort—but to unrewarded toil—and unmitigated sorrow. His earliest experiences would be of cruelty and degradation. It seems a pity, and an injustice, that young children should be born to slavery.
2. When a cruel edict was in force against the young. How were the parents of Moses enabled to conceal him from the officers of Pharaoh? Given a loving mother—a kindly providence—we cannot wonder at the result.
III. As involving momentous issues.
1. Issues relating to the lives of individuals. The birth of Moses made Miriam a watcher—gave her an introduction to a king’s daughter—and has given immortality to her name. It brought Aaron into historical prominence in relation to the Exodus of Israel, inasmuch as Moses lacked the eloquent tongue possessed by his brother. The life of Moses touched these names into fame, gave them an impulse, invested them with a greater meaning than otherwise they would have had—they derive lustre from his work.
2. Issues involving the freedom of an enslaved people. That ark upon the Nile waters contains a power that shall break the fetters of Israel—and lead the nation to a land of promise. Infant lives are linked much more to the interests of freedom than of serfdom. People are little conscious of the instrumentalities that are to give them liberty. The freedom of a kingdom may be involved in the birth of a child. We know not the influence one infant life may have upon a nation.
3. Issues relating to the destiny of a proud nation. That child—the object of a mother’s care—of a sister’s vigilance—will one day be the occasion of a monarch’s fear—torment—overthrow. Now the Nile carries on its tranquil waters a power that shall defeat the Pharaohs. The edict is vain. The slaughter of the young is useless—One has escaped the horrid massacre; that is enough! Egypt is in peril. Israel may strike her first note of freedom. In the life of one child there may be wrapped up the destinies of an Empire. The potentiality of infant life!
IV. As exhibiting the inventiveness of maternal love.
1. In that she devised a scheme for the safety of her child. The mother was more clever than the tyrant king and his accomplices. Tyranny is too calculating to be clever. Maternal love is quick, and spontaneous in its thought, and sees a refuge where tyrants never suspect. The refuge chosen was unlikely—carefully selected—vigilantly guarded—evidently sufficient. She was amply repaid. Only a mother would have thought of it.
V. As eluding the edict of a cruel king. The mother of Moses was justified in eluding this edict—because it was unjust—murderous—it did violence to family affection—to the laws of citizenship—and to the joyful anticipations of men.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Exo_2:1. Providence is preparing good, while wickedness is working evil to the Church—Times, tribes, and persons are appointed by God, by whom He will work good to His people.
In the desolations of the Church’s seed, God will have His to marry and continue it.
Tribes cursed for their desert, may be made instrumental of good by grace.
Marriages are always to be accounted lawful by God’s will revealed about them.
The greatest instruments of the Church’s good, God ordereth to bring in the common way of man.
The Divine Being orders instruments of salvation to be born in times of affliction.
Exo_2:2. No policies, or cruelties of man, can hinder God from sending saviours to the Church.
God uses instrumentalities in accomplishing the freedom of the slave, and the welfare of the Church.
God maketh sight serviceable to faith for preserving His own. “She saw.”
That infant life sometimes contains the prophecy of its future. Faith hides the child it wishes to save—
1. As evidence of a holy courage.
2. As using means to secure its end.
3. As manifesting a sacred skill.
4. As embodying the germ of a brilliant hope.… Discretion is not cowardice.
Pharaoh’s laws were against all the laws of nature, or, more properly speaking, against the laws of God; and nature was slowly working against Pharaoh; he had made God his enemy. Against these laws of Pharaoh a mother’s heart revolted [F. W. Robertson.]
In many cases in the scriptures you find the enemy seeking by death to interrupt the current of divine action. But, blessed be God, there is something beyond death. The entire sphere of divine action, as connected with redemption, lies beyond the limits of death’s domain. When Satan has exhausted his power, then God begins to show Himself. The grave is the limit of Satan’s activity; but there it is that divine activity begins. This is a glorious truth. Satan has the power of death; but God is the God of the living; and He gives life beyond the reach and power of death—a life which Satan cannot touch [C.H.M.]
Death is often the edict of man, when life is the promise and ordination of God.
Exo_2:3. That the loving ingenuity of a mother has its limit; “She could no longer hide him.”
The divine Providence is the refuge of a good, but perplexed parent.
In times of extreme difficulty it is well to venture upon the providence of God [Henry and Scott].
God teaches the good the best way of saving those by whom He intends to deliver His Church.
Tyrants use the river for a grave; God uses it as a cradle for infant life.
Reed and slime, and pitch and flags, shall preserve God’s darlings at His pleasure.
The mother of Moses laid the ark in the flags by the river’s brink. Ay, but before doing so she laid it on the heart of God! She could not have laid it so courageously upon the Nile, if she had not first devoutly laid it upon the care and love of God. We are often surprised at the outward calmness of men who are called upon to do unpleasant and most trying deeds; but had we seen them in secret we should have known the moral preparation which they underwent before coming out to be seen of men [City Temple].
Exo_2:4. An entire family moving within the circle of an infant’s life.
Faith always waits to see the issue of events.
Society needs watchers as well as workers. Had we been passing the spot at which the sister of Moses took up her position of observation we might have condemned her as an idler standing there and doing nothing. We should be careful of our condemnation, seeing how little we know of the reality of the case. In doing nothing, the girl was, in reality, doing everything. Mark the cunning of love. The watcher stood afar off. Had she stood quite close at hand, she would have defeated the very object of her watching. She was to do her work without the slightest appearance of doing it. (City Temple.)
The beautiful ministry of a youthful life—
1. Loving.
2. Cautious.
3. Obedient.
4. Reflective.
5. Courteous.
6. Successful.
The mother remained at home, shewing—
1. The dignity of her faith—she could wait away from the scene of trial.
2. Her supreme hope in God—the issue was to be divine.
3. Her happy confidence in her little daughter—children do their work better when they feel that they are trusted with it entirely.
How many brothers would be kept from moral injury and peril if they were thus guarded by a loving sister.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Exo_2:1-10 Stronger far than education—going on before education can commence, possibly from the very first moments of consciousness, parents begin to impress themselves on their children. Our character, voice, features, qualities—modified, no doubt, by entering into a new being, and ruling a different organization—are impressed upon our children. Not the inculcation of opinions, but much rather the formation of principles, and of the tone of character, the derivation of qualities. Physiologists tell us of the derivation of the mental qualities from the father, and of the moral from the mother. But, be this as it may, there is scarcely one here who cannot trace back his present religious character to some impression in early life, from one or other of his parents—a tone, a look, a word, a habit, or even, it may be, a bitter exclamation of remorse [F. W. Robertson].
What if God should place in your hand a diamond, and tell you to inscribe on it a sentence which should be read at the last day, and be shown then as an index of your own thoughts and feelings? What care—what caution would you exercise in the selection. Now, this is what God has done. He has placed before you the immortal minds of your children, more imperishable than the diamond, on which you are about to inscribe every day and every hours by your instructions, by your spirit, or by your example, something which will remain, and be exhibited for or against you at the judgment day [Dr. Payson].
Even as a plant will sooner take nourishment and thrive better in the soil where it first grew and sprung up than in any other ground, because it liketh its own soil best: so, likewise, children will sooner take instruction and good nurture from their parents, whom they best like, and from whom they had their being, than from any other [Cawdray].
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. To none is God’s commendation vouchsafed more fully…
Exo 2:9
I. To none is God’s commendation vouchsafed more fully than to those who love children for Christ’s sake. The presence of childhood represents and brings back our own. It is then that our Divine Master seems to repeat His words in our ears, "Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." Children confide in those around them with a sweet and simple faith. They obey from affection, and not from fear. And so our Father, which is in heaven, would have His children trust Him, casting all our care upon Him, for He careth for us.
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II. Children teach us reverence as well as faith. They listen to us with a solemn awe when we talk to them of God. They tread softly, they speak with bated breath, in His holy place. Our age has need to learn from them that we cannot serve God acceptably without reverence and godly fear.
III. Children teach us to be kind, pitiful, and tender-hearted. They cannot bear to witness pain. They do all they can to soothe. Have we these sorrowful sympathies? Do we "keep the child’s heart in the brave man’s breast"?
IV. If the love of Christ is in our hearts, it should constrain us to do our very best, thoughtfully, prayerfully, generously, to preserve in the children and to restore in ourselves that which made them so precious in His sight, and makes them so like Him now—like Him in their innocence, their sweet humility, their love.
S. R. Hole, The Family Churchman, Jan. 12th, 1887.
References: Exo 2:9.—J. Van Dyke, The Christian at Work, June 17th, 1880; see also Old Testament Outlines, p. 24; S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. ii., p. 274; J. Sherman, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 193; J.Weils, Bible Children, pp. 81, 95. Exo 2:11-15.—W. M. Taylor, Moses the Lawgiver, p. 24. Exo 2:12.—J. Reid Howatt, The Churchette, p. 245. 2:16-4:17.—W. M. Taylor, Moses the Lawgiver, p. 41. Exo 2:23.—W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 113. 2-4.—J. Monro Gibson, The Mosaic Era, p. 17. 3—W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 129. Exo 3:1-2.—J. Hamilton, Works, vol. v., p. 70. Exo 3:1-4.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xvi., p. 97. Exo 3:1-5.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. xi., p. 302. Exo 3:1-6.—W. Jay, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 127.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 Section 2. (Exo 2:1-25.)
Section 2. (Exo 2:1-25.)
The humiliation and rejection of the deliverer.
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We now are introduced to the deliverer, raised up of God to fulfill His gracious purposes as to the people of His choice. That he is of Levi, third son of Israel, has a significance which we shall find dwelt on afterward. It speaks of the Mediator, "joined" to God and to the people, as Christ in His own person joins them -Son of God and Son of man. It speaks also of resurrection, typically fulfilled in Moses delivered up to death and brought out of it. The overruling hand of God is seen in his preservation, the power of the world serving one whom it knows not, and who is not of it, whom when revealed in his true character it rejects. Moses is still in all this a type of Christ.
But he is rejected also by the people of his choice -the brethren for whom he humbles himself. There was a true desire for them, and presentiment in his mind that God had chosen him to be their deliverer; but they do not recognize him as such. No doubt there was failure on Moses’ part, and a work needed to be done in him as well as in them, before he could be to them really what his heart desired. But none the less distinctly did they reject one whose love, at all cost to itself, would be their servant. "Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?" is the answer of unbelief, and Moses flees into Midian at that saying. It is as rejected by His brethren, it hardly needs to say, that we have to do with the Lord Jesus now.
We find him, then, in Midian; and soon with a Gentile bride, to whom also he has been, first of all, a deliverer. But his son’s name tells us that he has yet found no real home. He names him "Gershom," "a stranger there;" for he says, "I have been a sojourner in a foreign land." Beautifully in the son is expressed the thought of the father’s heart, as our character and position in the world is to reflect and manifest the thoughts of His heart to whom in endeared relationship we belong.
But the days of Israel’s bondage are coming to an end. God has heard their groaning, and it is to be seen that He remembers His covenant with their fathers -that in which He is Himself revealed. The next section brings us to this revelation.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v1 Exo 2:1 - - Exo 2:10.
Exodus
THE ARK AMONG THE FLAGS
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Exo 2:1 - - Exo 2:10.
I. It is remarkable that all the persons in this narrative are anonymous. We know that the names of ‘the man of the house of Levi’ and his wife were Amram and Jochebed. Miriam was probably the anxious sister who watched what became of the little coffer. The daughter of Pharaoh has two names in Jewish tradition, one of which corresponds to that which Brugsch has found to have been borne by one of Rameses’ very numerous daughters. One likes to think that the name of the gentle-hearted woman has come down to us; but, whether she was called ‘Meri’ or not, she and the others have no name here. The reason can scarcely have been ignorance. But they are, as it were, kept in shadow, because the historian saw, and wished us to see, that a higher Hand was at work, and that over all the events recorded in these verses there brooded the informing, guiding Spirit of God Himself, the sole actor.
‘Each only as God wills Can work-God’s puppets, best and worst, Are we: there is no last nor first.’
II. The mother’s motive in braving the danger to herself involved in keeping the child is remarkably put. ‘When she saw that he was a goodly child, she hid him.’ It was not only a mother’s love that emboldened her, as it does all weak creatures, to shelter her offspring at her own peril, but something in the look of the infant, as it lay on her bosom, touched her with a dim hope. According to the Septuagint translation, both parents shared in this. And so the Epistle to the Hebrews unites them in that which is here attributed to the mother only. Stephen, too, speaks of Moses as ‘fair in God’s sight.’ As if the prescient eyes of the parents were not blinded by love, but rather cleared to see some token of divine benediction resting on him. The writer of the Hebrews lifts the deed out of the category of instinctive maternal affection up to the higher level of faith. So we may believe that the aspect of her child woke some prophetic vision in the mother’s soul, and that she and her husband were of those who cherished the hopes naturally born from the promise to Abraham, nurtured by Jacob’s and Joseph’s dying wish to be buried in Canaan, and matured by the tyranny of Pharaoh. Their faith, at all events, grasped the unseen God as their helper, and made Jochebed bold to break the terrible law, as a hen will fly in the face of a mastiff to shield her brood. Their faith perhaps also grasped the future deliverance, and linked it in some way with their child. We may learn how transfiguring and ennobling to the gentlest and weakest is faith in God, especially when it is allied with unselfish human love. These two are the strongest powers. If they are at war, the struggle is terrible: if they are united, ‘the weakest is as David, and David as an angel of God.’ Let us seek ever to blend their united strength in our own lives.
Will it be thought too fanciful if we suggest that we are taught another lesson,-namely, that the faith which surrenders its earthly treasures to God, in confidence of His care, is generally rewarded and vindicated by receiving them back again, glorified and sanctified by the altar on which they have been laid? Jochebed clasped her recovered darling to her bosom with a deeper gladness, and held him by a surer title, when Miriam brought him back as the princess’s charge, than ever before. We never feel the preciousness of dear ones so much, nor are so calm in the joy of possession, as when we have laid them in God’s hands, and have learned how wise and wonderful His care is.
III. How much of the world’s history that tiny coffer among the reeds held! How different that history would have been if, as might easily have happened, it had floated away, or if the feeble life within it had wailed itself dead unheard! The solemn possibilities folded and slumbering in an infant are always awful to a thoughtful mind. But, except the manger at Bethlehem, did ever cradle hold the seed of so much as did that papyrus chest? The set of opinion at present minimises the importance of the individual, and exalts the spirit of the period, as a factor in history. Standing beside Miriam, we may learn a truer view, and see that great epochs require great men, and that, without such for leaders, no solid advance in the world’s progress is achieved. Think of the strange cradle floating on the Nile; then think of the strange grave among the mountains of Moab, and of all between, and ponder the same lesson as is taught in yet higher fashion by Bethlehem and Calvary, that God’s way of blessing the world is to fill men with His message, and let others draw from them. Whether it be ‘law,’ or ‘grace and truth,’ a man is needed through whom it may fructify to all.
IV. The sweet picture of womanly compassion in Pharaoh’s daughter is full of suggestions. We have already noticed that her name is handed down by one tradition as ‘Merris,’ and that ‘Meri’ has been found as the appellation of a princess of the period. A rabbinical authority calls her ‘Bithiah,’ that is, ‘Daughter of Jehovah’; by which was, no doubt, intended to imply that she became in some sense a proselyte. This may have been only an inference from her protection of Moses. There is a singular and very obscure passage in 1Ch 4:17 - 1Ch 4:18, relating the genealogy of a certain Mered, who seems to have had two wives, one ‘the Jewess,’ the other ‘Bithiah, the daughter of Pharaoh.’ We know no more about him or her, but Keil thinks that Mered probably ‘lived before the exodus’; but it can scarcely be that the ‘daughter of Pharaoh,’ his wife, is our princess, and that she actually became a ‘daughter of Jehovah,’ and, like her adopted child, refused royal dignity and preferred reproach. In any case, the legend of her name is a tender and beautiful way of putting the belief that in her ‘there was some good thing towards the God of Israel.’
But, passing from that, how the true woman’s heart changes languid curiosity into tenderness, and how compassion conquers pride of race and station, as well as regard for her father’s edict, as soon as the infant’s cry, which touches every good woman’s feelings, falls on her ear! ‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.’ All the centuries are as nothing; the strange garb and the stranger mental and spiritual dress fade, and we have here a mere woman, affected, as every true sister of hers to-day would be, by the helpless wailing. God has put that instinct there. Alas that it ever should be choked by frivolity or pride, and frozen by indifference and self-indulgence! Gentle souls spring up in unfavourable soil. Rameses was a strange father for such a daughter. How came this dove in the vulture’s cage? Her sweet pity beside his cold craft and cruelty is like the lamb couching by the lion. Note, too, that gentlest pity makes the gentlest brave. She sees the child is a Hebrew. Her quick wit understands why it has been exposed, and she takes its part, and the part of the poor weeping parents, whom she can fancy, against the savage law. No doubt, as Egyptologists tell us, the princesses of the royal house had separate households and abundant liberty of action. Still, it was bold to override the strict commands of such a monarch. But it was not a self-willed sense of power, but the beautiful daring of a compassionate woman, to which God committed the execution of His purposes.
And that is a force which has much like work trusted to it in modern society too. Our great cities swarm with children exposed to a worse fate than the baby among the flags. Legislation and official charity have far too rough hands and too clumsy ways to lift the little life out of the coffer, and to dry the tears. We must look to Christian women to take a leaf out of ‘Bithiah’ s’ book. First, they should use their eyes to see the facts, and not be so busy about their own luxury and comfort that they pass the poor pitch-covered box unnoticed. Then they should let the pitiful call touch their heart, and not steel themselves in indifference or ease. Then they should conquer prejudices of race, pride of station, fear of lowering themselves, loathing, or contempt. And then they should yield to the impulses of their compassion, and never mind what difficulties or opponents may stand in the way of their saving the children. If Christian women knew their obligations and their power, and lived up to them as bravely as this Egyptian princess, there would be fewer little ones flung out to be eaten by crocodiles, and many a poor child, who is now abandoned from infancy to the Devil, would be rescued to grow up a servant of God. She, there by the Nile waters, in her gracious pity and prompt wisdom, is the type of what Christian womanhood, and, indeed, the whole Christian community, should be in relation to child life.
V. The great lesson of this incident, as of so much before, is the presence of God’s wonderful providence, working out its designs by all the play of human motives. In accordance with a law, often seen in His dealings, it was needful that the deliverer should come from the heart of the system from which he was to set his brethren free. The same principle which sent Saul of Tarsus to be trained at the feet of Gamaliel, and made Luther a monk in the Augustinian convent at Erfurt, planted Moses in Pharaoh’s palace and taught him the wisdom of Egypt, against which he was to contend. It was a strange irony of Providence that put him so close to the throne which he was to shake. For his future work he needed to be lifted above his people, and to be familiar with the Egyptian court as well as with Egyptian learning. If he was to hate and to war against idolatry, and to rescue an unwilling people from it, he must know the rottenness of the system, and must have lived close enough to it to know what went on behind the scenes, and how foully it smelled when near. He would gain influence over his countrymen by his connection with Pharaoh, whilst his very separation from them would at once prevent his spirit from being broken by oppression, and would give him a keener sympathy with his people than if he had himself been crushed by slavery. His culture, heathen as it was, supplied the material on which the divine Spirit worked. God fashioned the vessel, and then filled it. Education is not the antagonist of inspiration. For the most part, the men whom God has used for His highest service have been trained in all the wisdom of their age. When it has been piled up into an altar, then ‘the fire of the Lord’ falls.
Our story teaches us that God’s chosen instruments are immortal till their work is done. No matter how forlorn may seem their outlook, how small the probabilities in their favour, how divergent from the goal may seem the road He leads them, He watches them. Around that frail ark, half lost among the reeds, is cast the impregnable shield of His purpose. All things serve that Will. The current in the full river, the lie of the flags that stop it from being borne down, the hour of the princess’s bath, the direction of her idle glance, the cry of the child at the right moment, the impulse welling up in her heart, the swift resolve, the innocent diplomacy of the sister, the shelter of the happy mother’s breast, the safety of the palace,-all these and a hundred more trivial and unrelated things are spun into the strong cable wherewith God draws slowly but surely His secret purpose into act. So ever His children are secure as long as He has work for them, and His mighty plan strides on to its accomplishment over all the barriers that men can raise.
How deeply this story had impressed on devout minds the truth of the divine protection for all who serve Him, is shown by the fact that the word employed in the last verse of our lesson, and there translated ‘drawn,’ of which the name ‘Moses’ is a form, is used on the only occasion of its occurrence in the Old Testament {namely Psa 18:16, and in the duplicate in 2Sa 22:17} with plain reference to our narrative. The Psalmist describes his own deliverance, in answer to his cry, by a grand manifestation of God’s majesty; and this is the climax and the purpose of the earthquake and the lightning, the darkness and the storm: ‘He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters.’ So that scene by the margin of the Nile, so many years ago, is but one transient instance of the working of the power which secures deliverance from encompassing perils, and for strenuous, though it may be undistinguished, service to all who call upon Him. God, who put the compassion into the heart of Pharaoh’s dusky daughter, is not less tender of heart than she, and when He hears us, though our cry be but as of an infant, ‘with no language but a cry,’ He will come in His majesty and draw us from encompassing dangers and impending death. We cannot all be lawgivers and deliverers; but we may all appeal to His great pity, and partake of deliverance like that of Moses and of David.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Birth and Early Life of Moses
Birth and Early Life of Moses
1. The names of the father and mother of Moses were Amram and Jochebed respectively (see Exo_6:20). Two children were born to them before Moses. The oldest was a daughter called Miriam (i.e. Mary), who was a young woman at the time when Moses was born (see Exo_2:8); and the second was a son, Aaron, who was born three years before Moses (see Exo_7:7) and presumably before Pharaoh's exterminating edict: cp. Num_26:59.
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2. Hid him three months] This defiance of the king's edict is called an act of faith in Heb_11:23.
3. Ark of bulrushes] a chest made of the stalks of the papyrus reed which grew at the side of the Nile and in marshy places. The stalks and leaves of papyrus were employed in the manufacture of various articles, such as boats (Isa_18:2), sails, mats, ropes, and paper. This last, which gets its name from the papyrus, was made of thin strips of the inner bark pasted together, and compressed. The slime used as a watertight coating for the ark was bitumen, imported into Egypt from Mesopotamia and the vicinity of the Dead Sea; it was employed as mortar in building and as a preservative in the process of embalming.
5. Daughter of Pharaoh] Josephus calls her Thermutis, but Eusebius calls her Merris. The Nile was regarded as a sacred river, and bathing in its waters was part of a religious ceremony: cp. Exo_7:15.
10. The mother kept the child probably till he was weaned, which would be two or perhaps three years. He was then adopted by Pharaoh's daughter and would receive the education of an Egyptian prince. St. Stephen says that 'Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in words and in deeds.' Josephus says that Moses became general of the Egyptian army and defeated the Ethiopians, also that Pharaoh's daughter, having no child of her own, intended to make him her father's successor. The name Moses, which she gave him, is an Egyptian, not a Hebrew word, and means 'child' or 'son.' It appears in names like Rameses, Thothmes, etc. It is only therefore by a play upon words that it is connected with the Hebrew word mashah, 'to draw out.'
11. In those days] According to Act_7:23; Moses was at this time 'full forty years old.' This incident shows that the patriotism of Moses had not been destroyed by his Egyptian upbringing, also that he was by nature possessed of an impatient and ardent spirit which required the long discipline of the sojourn in Midian to school him into that strength and forbearance necessary in a leader of men: see on Exo_3:11. At the same time, it is made clear that his countrymen were not yet ready for emancipation.
15. Land of Midian] The south-eastern part of the peninsula of Sinai. There is reason to believe, however, that the home, or headquarters, of the Midianites, who were probably a nomadic tribe, lay outside the peninsula on the E. side of the Gulf of Akaba: see Gen_37:25 and on Num_22:4.
16. The priest or prince of Midian. In early times, before the multiplication of ritual necessitated a separate religious order, the head or chief of the clan performed priestly functions: see on Exo_19:22. He is called Reuel in Exo_2:18 and Jethro in Exodus 18, while in Jdg_4:11, and perhaps also in Num_10:29, he is called Hobab. On this apparent confusion see the note there.
17. In the East wells are of great importance, and frequent disputes arise over rights of watering: see e.g. Gen_26:20-22.
21. Moses stayed in Midian forty years (cp. Exo_7:7), so that his life falls into three equal portions. The first forty years he spent in Egypt (Act_7:23), the second forty in Midian, and the last forty in the wilderness (cp. Deu_34:7). it may be observed, however, that in Scripture forty is frequently used as a round number. Here the forty years signify a generation: so that Moses simply waited in Midian till a new set of people arose in Egypt: see e.g. Gen_7:4; Exo_24:18; Exo_34:28; Num_13:25; Num_14:33; 1Sa_17:16; 1Ki_19:8. With the preparatory sojourn of Moses in Midian may be compared that of the Baptist in the wilderness (Luk_1:80) and of St. Paul in Arabia (Gal_1:17). Zipporah] see on Num_12:1.
22. Gershom] The name is derived either from the Heb. ger, 'a sojourner,' and sham, 'there,' or from the verb garash, 'to expel.' In either case it shows that the heart of Moses was with his countrymen in Egypt. Another son, Eliezer, is mentioned in Exo_18:4 cp. 1Ch_23:16, 1Ch_23:17.
23. The king of Egypt] see on Exo_1:8.
24. His covenant] see Gen_12:7; Gen_15:18; Gen_17:1-14; Gen_26:3-4; Gen_28:13-15. When it is said here, as elsewhere, that God remembered His covenant, it is not implied that He had previously forgotten it, but that the opportunity had now come of fulfilling His merciful purpose.
25. Had respect unto] RV 'took knowledge of.'
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v2 Moses, type of Christ the Deliverer Isa 61:1; Luk…
son
Moses, type of Christ the Deliverer Isa 61:1; Luk 4:18; 2Co 1:10; 1Th 1:10.
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(1) A divinely chosen deliverer Exo 3:7-10; Act 7:25; Joh 3:16.
(2) Rejected by Israel he turns to the Gentiles Exo 2:11-15; Act 7:25; Act 18:5; Act 18:6; Act 28:17-28.
(3) During his rejection he gains a Gentile bride Exo 2:16-21; Mat 12:14-21; 2Co 11:2; Eph 5:30-32.
(4) Afterward he again appears as Israel’s deliverer, and is accepted Exo 4:29-31; Rom 11:14-26; Act 15:14-17.
(5) Officially, Moses typifies Christ as Prophet Act 3:22; Act 3:23. Advocate; Exo 32:31-35; 1Jn 2:1; 1Jn 2:2 Intercessor; Exo 17:1-6; Heb 7:25 and Leader, or King; Deu 33:4; Deu 33:5; Isa 55:4; Heb 2:10 while, in relation to the house of God, he is in contrast with Christ. Moses was faithful as a servant over another’s house; Christ as a Son over His own house Heb 3:5; Heb 3:6.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 2. Moses the Chosen Deliverer
2. Moses the Chosen Deliverer
CHAPTER 2 Moses: His Birth, Education, Choice, and Exile
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1. His birth and concealment (Exo 2:1-4)
2. His rescue and education (Exo 2:5-10)
3. His choice and failure (Exo 2:11-14)
4. His exile (Exo 2:15-20)
5. His marriage (Exo 2:21-22)
6. The answered cry (Exo 2:23-24)
The history of the chosen deliverer, recorded by himself under the guidance of the Spirit, follows the dark picture of Israel ‘s suffering. He was the offspring of a son and daughter of Levi. His name was Amram (Exo 6:20 and Num 26:59). His wife’s name Jochebed. As we saw in Genesis, Levi means “joined,” and Levi was the third son of Jacob (Gen 29:32-35). Here we have a typical hint of the true Mediator, joined to God and man. Levi was Jacob’s third son, and Moses the third child of a son of Levi. The number “three” is the number of resurrection. It all foreshadows Christ. Pharaoh’s command had been to cast the male children into the river. The river is the type of death (Jordan , for instance). By death Satan tried to oppose God’s purposes. The babe was in danger of death; Satan’s hatred through Pharaoh was directed against this child as Herod through Satan’s instigation tried to kill the newborn King in Bethlehem .
The child was beautiful. Act 7:20 states he was (literally) “beautiful to God.” For three months he was hid and then his own mother prepared the ark of bulrushes and laid him in the reeds at the river’s brink, in the place of death. The word “ark” is the same as in Gen 6:14 and the pitch with which it was daubed reminds us likewise of Noah’s ark. The dark waters were kept out. It was not alone the natural love of the mother which acted, but faith. “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful; and they were not afraid of the King’s commandment” (Heb 11:23). What faith this was! First they saved the child by faith for three months and then the mother’s faith prepared the little casket, the place of safety, and in faith committed the ark of bulrushes to the river’s brink. But while faith depends on God’s power and trust in God’s Word, it also fears nothing. They were not afraid of the king’s commandment. And God acted as He always will in answer to faith. He guided Pharaoh’s daughter to the very spot where the child rested with his sister standing afar off. Her faith did not fully measure up to the faith of the mother; but even this was God’s leading. According to Jewish tradition the name of Pharaoh’s daughter was Thermoutis. The weeping babe stirred her compassion. And what these tears accomplished! Not the smiling face, but the tear-stained countenance of sorrow, lead to the far-reaching results of deliverance. How it reminds us of Him who was the Man of Sorrows, who wept and went into the dark waters of death and judgment.
The mother receives her child again, whom she gave up in faith, and then the child becomes the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, who gave him the Egyptian name “Moses,” which means “saved from the water.” The beautiful faith of Moses’ mother here meets its full rewards; Satan is confounded; and the marvelous wisdom of God is displayed. Who would have thought that the one who had said, “if it be a son, then ye shall kill him,” and, again, “Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river,” should have in his court one of those very sons, and such a son. The devil was foiled by his own weapon, inasmuch as Pharaoh, whom he was using to frustrate the purpose of God, is used of God to nourish and bring up Moses, who was to be His instrument in confounding the power of Satan. Remarkable providence! Admirable wisdom! Truly, Jehovah is “wonderful in counsel and excellent in working.” May we learn to trust Him with more artless simplicity, and thus our path shall be more brilliant, and our testimony more effective. (C.H. Mackintush, Exodus)
In Egypt Moses received his instruction and education. What followed is more freely revealed by Stephen in his Spirit-given message.
And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel . And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian: For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them; but they understood not. And the next day he shewed himself unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another? But he that did his neighbor wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? Wilt thou kill me, as thou didst the Egyptian yesterday? (Act 7:22-28).
He had learned the wisdom of Egypt , but not yet the wisdom of God. He manifested zeal for his brethren, but it was not according to knowledge. He attempted a deliverance before the time. Yet it was an action of faith.
By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt : for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt , not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing Him who is invisible (Heb 11:24-26).
He acted in self will, assuming the office of a judge and leader, without having received the divine call. It was faith, nevertheless, which led Moses into this path and to make this remarkable choice. His heart was filled with deep sympathy for his suffering kinsmen and he yearned for their salvation. He was, however, not received by them; they rejected him. He left the palace and, perhaps, the throne, and came to his own to take up their cause. It all points to Him, who left the glory and came to His own and they received Him not. When Moses came the first time to his brethren to deliver them, “they understood not” (Act 7:25). But they understood when he came the second time, as Israel will understand, when He, who is greater than Moses, comes the second time.
He became an exile in Midian and met Reuel. His name also is Jethro (Exo 3:1). Reuel means “friend of God.” He also was a priest, no doubt a true worshipper of God. Moses received a daughter of the Midianite, Zipporah, for his wife. Rejected by his own people, he entered into union with a Gentile. All this is typical. Christ after His first coming, rejected by His own, receives her, who shares His rejection and who will come with Him, when He comes the second time. The church is here indicated.
The forty years spent by Moses in Midian were, as we express it, the best years of his life. He had forty years’ training in Egypt , and then the Lord took him aside into His school to train him for the great work for which he had been chosen. In the obscurity of the desert he was prepared to be “a vessel fit for the Master’s use.” How blessed must have been his experience, away from man, away from Egypt ‘s pleasures, alone with God. Thus the Lord has dealt with all His servants. Elijah came forth out of the wilderness and went back to Cherith, Ezekiel was alone at the river Chebar. Paul spent his schooling days in Arabia . Blessed are His servants who follow His leading into the desert place, to find their never-failing source of strength in communion with their Lord, who receive their service from Himself, and then go forth to serve.
We give a little diagram of the genealogy of Moses and his brother Aaron.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The birth of Moses
The birth of Moses
v. 1. And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. Amram, a grandson of Levi, married his aunt Jochebed, the daughter of Levi; in spite of the troublous times he had dared to enter into the state of marriage, and the marriage, as the later history shows, had been blessed with a daughter and a son. The special reference is here to the time when the cruel mandate of Pharaoh went into effect.
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v. 2. And the woman conceived, and bare a son; and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, a handsome, well-proportioned baby, that also gave promise of fine development, she hid him three months, in the hope of saving his life somehow, Act 7:20; Heb 11:23.
v. 3. And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink. When it became increasingly difficult to hide the boy from the eyes and ears of prying Egyptians, the mother constructed for him a small chest, or ark, out of the papyrus reeds that grew on the banks of the Nile, making it water-tight by means of asphalt and pitch, and placed this in the rushes on the brink of the river.
v. 4. And his sister stood afar off to wit what would be done with him. Miriam had thus reached an age at which she could volunteer to watch over the baby, to find out what would happen to him. The place chosen by the anxious mother was one frequented by the daughter of Pharaoh for bathing, and this fact entered into her plans. She trusted in the Lord that He would take care of her son, for faith will dare many things for the sake of a thing which has the approval of God.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3 This word is used here to mark a break…
Now
This word is used here to mark a break in the main event. Here the author starts to tell a new part of the narrative. If you have a way of doing this in your language, consider using it here. (See: Introduction of a New Event)
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translationWords
tribe
Levi
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1–3 2:1-25 Chapter 1 established the need for rescue; ch…
2:1-25 Chapter 1 established the need for rescue; ch 2 describes the preparation of Moses, the rescuer. God used the destruction of the Hebrew boy babies to ensure that the rescuer would be trained (see study note on 2:10) for his task.
2:1 The man and woman were named Amram and Jochebed (6:20). • Levi was Jacob’s third son by his wife Leah (Gen 29:34).
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