# 17 Moses, The First Forty Years

Exodus begins with a description of God’s blessing on the children of Israel. An echo of Genesis two is found in Exodus 1:7 where we are told that they were fruitful and multiplied and filled the land. This blessing of fruitfulness sets the stage for the drama that follows. Time has elapsed since Joseph proved such a valuable ruler in Egypt and as men will do, Joseph and all he did was forgotten. The new Pharaoh was what we would call today, a practical politician. He rightly recognizes Israel as a threat to Egyptian national security. Having a sizable foreign people living inside the boarders of your country could certainly prove disastrous if an enemy should attack from without, and they were to attack from within. Pharaoh’s conceives a “shrewd plan” for dealing with the problem. Here is a man who is worldly wise. A man of action. A man determined to protect his nation from disaster.

The plan was simple enough. All the male babies were to be killed by the midwives at birth. When this plan fails because the midwives feared God more than Pharaoh, the king was not deterred. He passed down a law through the appropriate channels and the order went out that all the male Hebrew babies were to be thrown into the Nile. Undoubtedly, a religious significance was attached to this as the god of the Nile was an important deity to the Egyptians and such a sacrifice could be thought of as an expression of piety and necessary to insure the proper flooding and receding of the Nile, which was essential to Egyptian agriculture. In addition to the infanticide, the Hebrews were made slaves and forced to build cities for the Egyptians.

When Moses was born, his parents hid him until they could no longer keep him from being discovered. In faith, they placed him in an ark (do not let the imagery of Noah’s ark escape you). The baby floated by the place where Pharaoh’s daughter (just happened) to be bathing. She took pity on the child and decided to keep him. Moses' older sister (just happened) to walk by at that moment and offer to bring a wet nurse in to care for the child. The offer was accepted and Pharaoh’s daughter paid Moses' mother to be his nurse.

Moses grew up in the royal family and received a royal education. Stephen tells us that he was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. This wisdom was considerable and would certainly prove valuable in governing the children of Israel. Forty years pass until the day that Moses, who knew his Hebrew heritage, came out to visit (the word may imply deliver) his Hebrew brethren. He killed an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew slave. The next day, Moses came out to the Hebrews again and intervened in a squabble between to slaves. One of the slaves asked sarcastically if Moses would kill him like he had the Egyptian the day before. My understanding of this is that Moses had wanted to deliver the Hebrews, but this comment revealed that they were not interested in having him do so. With his slaying of the Egyptian exposed and his rejection by the Hebrews as their deliverer, Moses was suddenly a man without a land or people and so he fled to Midian.

The usual view is that Moses was a hotheaded young man who needed forty years in the desert to learn humility. I think there is something to this. Moses was certainly humble by the time he reached eighty, but there is probably another factor that we should consider. The Jews were being brutally treated by the Egyptians and Moses comes and offers them relief from their oppressors. Because they rejected him, they are forced to continue as slaves for another forty years. Perhaps the judgment is not so much on Moses as it is on the Hebrew slaves.