A Deliverer Is Born

Exodus 2

In the meantime, Israel has blessed Joseph's two sons and added them to the family line.  He specifically told Joseph that those two sons were brought into the family, but that any other children he had after those would not be included.  Before his death, Israel prophesied/blessed/cursed his sons.  After Israel died, he was mummified by the Egyptian doctors and taken back to the Promised Land for burial.

Later, as Joseph was dying, he made his brothers (family) promise to take his bones to the Promised Land, too, after the people went back to claim the land that God promised for them.   After Joseph's death and the ascension of a new pharaoh, the Hebrews became slaves in Egypt - and then mistreated slaves.

Eventually, the current Pharaoh worries about the exploding population of the Hebrews, and is concerned that they could overpower the Egyptians by force of numbers.  So he gives orders to the doctors and midwives to kill all the Hebrew boys that are born, and to let the girl children live.  However, the nurses believe in God and do not kill the baby boys.  When Pharaoh asks about this, they spin the tale that Hebrew mothers are tougher then Egyptian mothers - and have the babies unassisted, before the nurses arrive.

It is  into this environment that Moses is born.

There was a man [Amram] from the family of Levi who decided to marry a woman [Jochebed, his aunt] from the tribe of Levi. She became pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy. 

The birth of a deliverer.

The mother saw how beautiful the baby was and hid him for three months. She hid him for as long as she could. 

This birth line puts Moses into what will become the high priests for God's temple - the Levites.

After three months she made a basket and covered it with tar so that it would float. Then she put the baby in the basket and put the basket in the river in the tall grass. The baby’s sister [Miriam] stayed and watched to see what would happen to the baby.

This implies the birth order for Moses's family is his sister Miriam, then Moses, then Aaron -- but later we'll see that Aaron is older than Moses.  And that means, once again, God will be using the youngest member of a family for His work, rather than the eldest.

Just then, Pharaoh’s daughter went to the river to bathe. She saw the basket in the tall grass. Her servants were walking beside the river, so she told one of them to go get the basket. 

It seems like Moses's family is familiar with the bathing spot of Pharaoh's daughter -- and put the basket in a spot they would be sure to see.

The king’s daughter opened the basket and saw a baby boy. The baby was crying and she felt sorry for him. Then she noticed that it was one of the Hebrew babies.  

Ah ha!  Peeking under the blankets.

The baby’s sister was still hiding. She stood and asked the king’s daughter, “Do you want me to go find a Hebrew woman who can nurse the baby and help you care for it?” The king’s daughter said, “Yes, please.” So the girl went and brought the baby’s own mother.

That's handy.

The king’s daughter said to the mother, “Take this baby and feed him for me. I’ll pay you to take care of him.”  

That's handy, too.

So the woman took her baby and cared for him. 

The baby grew, and after some time, the woman gave the baby to the king’s daughter. The king’s daughter accepted the baby as her own son. She named him Moses [draw out or pull out] because she had pulled him from the water.

Moses grew and became a man. 

This is reminiscent of the story of Jesus's birth, with a big gap until his adulthood.  Paul extended the story of Moses in Hebrews 11:24-29, through inspiration from God or from traditional stories told during his religious training.  

He saw that his own people, the Hebrews, were forced to work very hard. One day he saw an Egyptian man beating a Hebrew man. Moses looked around and saw that no one was watching, so he killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand.

Avenging a brother or kin is not classified as a crime.  Moses, however, hides the body - due to guilt, or perhaps due to the rank of the dead Egyptian drawing the attention of Pharaoh.

The next day Moses saw two Hebrew men fighting each other. He saw that one man was wrong and said to him, “Why are you hurting your neighbor?”  The man answered, “Did anyone say you could be our ruler and judge? Tell me, will you kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?”

I always find it a bit aggravating when someone answers my question with their own question.  It's like ignoring me while changing the subject at the same time.

But this exchange shows that Moses was not yet ready to be the leader of his people, nor do the people seem ready to leave their bondage.

Then Moses was afraid. He thought to himself, “Now everyone knows what I did.”

Assuming that Moses is the one writing this history book, he would have a good handle on the emotions he was feeling, but Paul claims that Moses was not afraid.

In any case, surely the Hebrews wouldn't go tattle-tale to the Egyptians - their slave-masters.

Pharaoh heard about what Moses did, 

Or -- maybe they would (and don't call me Shirley).

so he decided to kill him. But Moses ran away from Pharaoh and went to the land of Midian.

And we recall from our walk through Genesis that Midian was a son of Abraham, by way of his concubine Keturah. Abraham sent Keturah's six sons east, away from Isaac.They became the Aarabic tribes south and east of Canaan.

The Midianites were the folks who purchased Joseph from his brothers and took him into Egypt.  By the book of Judges, Midian will become an opponent of the Hebrews.

Moses stopped near a well in Midian.  There was a priest there who had seven daughters. These girls came to that well to get water for their father’s sheep. They were trying to fill the water trough with water. But there were some shepherds there who chased the girls away and would not let them get water. So Moses helped the girls and gave water to their animals.

Then they went back to their father, Reuel. [also called Jethro]. He asked them, “Why have you come home early today?”

The girls answered, “The shepherds chased us away, but an Egyptian rescued us. He got water for us and gave it to our animals.”

So Reuel said to his daughters, “Where is this man? Why did you leave him? Go invite him to eat with us.”

This sounds like the beginning of a farmer's daughter joke.

Moses was happy to stay with that man. Reuel let Moses marry his daughter, Zipporah [Little Bird].  Zipporah became pregnant and had a son. 

That sounds like the conclusion of the farmer's daughter joke.

Moses named him Gershom [A Stranger There] because Moses was a stranger in a land that was not his own.

A long time passed and that king of Egypt died. But the Israelites were still forced to work very hard. 

They cried for help, and God heard them.  God heard their painful cries and remembered the agreement he made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  God saw the troubles of the Israelites, and he knew that he would soon help them.

Using temporal terms and descriptions can cause problems when ascribed to an eternal being.  God is described with the phrase, "... he would soon help them."  What does "soon" mean to a timeless God?

It also takes some finesse to describe this attribution within a predestination (versus freewill) framework.  As the story later shows, Moses tarries and does not follow God's schedule for freedom.