Exodus 2:11-15

"And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown up, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he saw an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he smote the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. And he went out the second day, and, behold, two men of the Hebrews were striving together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? thinkest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known. Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well"

"He went out unto his brethren ..." At this point, the key decision had already been made. Moses had already determined to take the part of the enslaved and oppressed. His action in killing an Egyptian was, of course, sinful. He had no right whatever to enforce his unilateral judgment in such a capital decision. Nevertheless, we must admire the boldness and courage with which he took on the behalf of his brethren. In his mind, Moses was ready then to deliver God's people, but it was necessary for him to learn that it would not be by his hand that deliverance would be achieved, but by the hand of God! He needed the long and humiliating discipline by which God would school him for the eventual rescue of the Chosen race. Although one of the great types of the Christ, it appeared quite early that only Christ was without sin, and that in this one great particular, at least, Moses could not stand as a type of the Lord.

"Pharaoh sought to slay him ...." It was impossible for Pharaoh to do this immediately, because of Moses' position. It would have been a major event in royal life if Pharaoh had been able to do it. Moses took no further chances but fled to Midian. "No Egyptian king would have left such an offence unpunished, but the position of Moses as the adopted son of a princess made it necessary for even a despotic sovereign to take unusual precautions.[24]

"In the land of Midian ..." This area was located in the southeast portion of the Arabian peninsula at some distance not too far from Mount Horeb, because Jethro's sheep were driven to that location, or near there, a fact impossible to reconcile with any other location. It is a fact that this was not the land often cited as that of the "Midianites," but it should be remembered that they were nomadic people and often migrated to areas far removed from their normal habitat. Racially, they were akin to the Hebrews through Abraham's secondary wife Keturah.

Moses' act in slaying the Egyptian placed him in open rebellion against Pharaoh. "He thus renounced his adoptive state, but his concern was not immediately obvious to the chosen people ... Moses was not yet ready for the task."[25] It would require forty years of God's discipline to prepare him fully for the task.

"And he sat down by a well ..." The actual meaning of this is, that, "He dwelt by a well,"[26] he took up a temporary residence there. This portion of the land of Midian was an offshoot of the greater Midian beyond the gulf, but God was with Moses in this choice of a place to rest from the wrath of Pharaoh. Reuel (Jethro), a true believer in the One God, lived in that vicinity. "The attempt to confine the Midianites to one area and to locate Mount Sinai east of Aqaba does not agree with Scripture,"[27] and is therefore untenable.

"Who made thee a prince and a judge over us ...?" Just as the true Saviour, of whom Moses was a type, would be rejected by his brethren, so Moses was also rejected by his. This is one of many typical events in Moses' life. (See the note on this at end of this chapter.) Stephen referred to this in Acts 7:27.