Exodus 2:10-25

Moses In Midian

Exo 2:10

There seems to be a considerable gap between the ninth verse and the tenth. We parted with Moses when he was three months old, and we know nothing more of him until he became the son of Pharaoh's daughter. We wish to know something of his home training. We would fain pry into the mother's methods of dealing with such a child. What truths did she inculcate upon him? How did she explain the condition of the children of Israel to her son? Did she seek to prejudice his sympathies? Whilst he was being nurtured upon Pharaoh's bread, did she instil into him teaching that would upset Pharaoh's throne? Upon all these points we are left uninformed, though our interest is excited to the highest pitch. We like to know something of the home training of the men who have written the most famous chapters in history. There is a special pleasure in watching the growth of the sapling. The boyhood of the giant must be unlike the boyhood of ordinary men. We would see the giant in his teens, and watch him eagerly in the daily accretion of his strength. In this instance we are disappointed. Moses was trained in secret, and no tittle of his mother's ministry is put on record. Is it true, however, that we have no means of learning the principles upon which Moses was trained? Are we so totally in the dark as we have supposed ourselves to be? Let us from the history of the man gather what we can concerning the tuition of the child.

"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" ( Exo 2:11 ).

A good deal of his mother's training is visible in this verse. Moses was the son of Pharaoh's daughter, yet he claimed the Hebrews as his brethren. The signature written in blood was not to be washed out by all the waters of the Nile. Nature asserted herself under circumstances which might have attempered the severity of her demands. Moses was not ashamed to recognise the Hebrews as his brethren. He himself had had a day of wondrous luck so called; he might have sunned himself in the beams of his radiant fortunes, and left his brethren to do as they could; he might, indeed, in self-excuse, and in order to quiet the monitions of any little unsophisticated nature which his seductive circumstances had left within him, have actually taken part against the Hebrews, and made his censures the bitterer by the fact of his alienated kinship. It was not so that Moses acted. And is no credit to be given to Jochebed, his mother, for this fine fraternal chivalry? Is it not the mother who is speaking in the boy when he calls the Hebrews his brethren? Observe, too, Moses looked upon the burdens of the Hebrews. Alas! some of us can go up and down society, and never see the burdens which our brethren are called to bear. It is something in a world like this to have an eye for the burdens of other men. We look upon difficulties without sympathy, we regard the burden-bearer as fulfilling but an ordinary vocation; Moses looked upon burdens as having moral significance, and so regarding them his deepest sympathies were drawn towards the oppressed. "Bear ye one another's burdens." A friendly recognition of the fact that a man is bearing a burden may itself help to lessen the load. It ought to have been something to the Hebrews to know that a man had risen amongst them who looked upon their burdens. Such a looking might be the beginning of a new state of affairs. There are some looks which have in them reform, revolution, and regeneration! Is there no trace of the mother of Moses in all this? Would he have known what a "burden" was, but for the explanations of his mother? Would not the Hebrew have been to him but a beast of labour, had not his mother revealed to his young eyes the man that lay silently within the slave?

"And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand" ( Exo 2:12 ).

This is one of the first recorded acts of the meekest of men! Do not let us be hard upon him. The impulse was right There must be men in society who can strike, and who need to strike but once. Let it be understood that this, after all, was but the lowest form of heroism, it was a boy's resentment, it was a youth's untempered chivalry. One can imagine a boy reading this story, and feeling himself called upon to strike everybody who is doing something which displeases him. There is a raw heroism; an animal courage; a rude, barbaric idea of righteousness. We applaud Moses, but it is his impulse rather than his method which is approved. Every man should burn with indignation when he sees oppression. In this instance it must be clearly understood that the case was one of oppressive strength as against down-trodden weakness. This was not a fight between one man and another; the Egyptian and the Hebrew were not fairly pitted in battle: the Egyptian was smiting the Hebrew, the Hebrew in all probability bending over his labour, doing the best in his power, and yet suffering the lash of the tyrant It was under such circumstances as these that Moses struck in the cause of human justice. Was there nothing of his mother in that fine impulse? Are we now as ignorant of his home training as we supposed ourselves to be a moment ago? In this fiery protest against wrong, in this blow of ungoverned temper against a hoary and pitiless despotism, see somewhat of the tender sympathy that was in Jochebed embodied in a form natural to the impetuosity of youth. Little did Moses know what he did when he smote the nameless Egyptian. In smiting that one man, in reality he struck Pharaoh himself, and every succeeding tyrant!

"And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?" ( Exo 2:13 ).

In the first instance we might have thought that in taking part with the Hebrew against the Egyptian, Moses was but yielding to a clannish feeling. It was race against race, not right against wrong. In the second instance, however, that conclusion is shown to be incorrect. We now come to a strife between two Hebrews, both of whom were suffering under the same galling bondage. How did the youthful Moses deport himself under such circumstances? Did he take part with the strong against the weak? Did he even take part with the weak against the strong? Distinctly the case was not one determined by the mere disparity of the combatants. To the mind of Moses the question was altogether a moral one. When he spoke, he addressed the man who did the wrong; that man might have been either the weaker or the stronger. The one question with Moses turned upon injustice and dishonourableness. Do we not here once more see traces of his mother's training? yet we thought that the home life of Moses was a life unrecorded! Read the mother in the boy; discover the home training in the public life. Men's behaviour is but the outcome of the nurture they have received at home. Moses did not say, You are both Hebrews, and therefore you may fight out your own quarrel: nor did he say, The controversies of other men are nothing to me; they who began the quarrel must end it. Moses saw that the conditions of life had a moral basis; in every quarrel as between right and wrong he had a share, because every honourable-minded man is a trustee of social justice and common fair play. We have nothing to do with the petty quarrels which fret society, but we certainly have to do with every controversy, social, imperial, or international, which violates human right, and impairs the claims of Divine honour. We must all fight for the right: we feel safer by so much as we know that there are amongst us men who will not be silent in the presence of wrong, and will lift up a testimony in the name of righteousness, though there be none to cheer them with one word of encouragement.

"And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known" ( Exo 2:14 ).

So it is evermore! Even his own brethren did not understand Moses. Though only yesterday he had killed an Egyptian, yet to-day he is snapped at and abused as if he had been an enemy rather than a friend. But when did a man's own brethren ever fully understand and appreciate him? Jesus "came unto his own, and his own received him not." A man's foes are often those of his own household. One would have supposed that upon seeing Moses both the Hebrews would have forgotten their own quarrel, and hailed him with expressions of gratitude and trust. The heroic interposition of yesterday ought not to have been so soon forgotten. Forgotten? Nay, it was surely remembered, but that which might have been considered an honour was held over the head of Moses as a sword of vengeance. Men are often discouraged in attempting to serve their brethren; generally speaking, it is a thankless task. Good offices are resented, kind words are perverted, and the valiant man is hunted to death.

"But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a 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. And the shepherds came and drove them away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock" ( Exo 2:15-17 ).

We find Moses in early life upon the river's brink, now we find him sitting alone by a well. It will be quite easy to interpret the feelings which govern him as he sits in a strange land. Let us overhear him: "Never so long as I live will I interfere in another quarrel: I have had experience of two interpositions, and my heart is sad. When men are fighting again, I shall let them finish as they please; not one word will I say either on the one side or the other: from this day forth I shut my eyes in the presence of wrong, and hold my peace when righteousness is going to the wall." What a wonderful speech to be delivered by such a man! He has fully made up his mind too! Nevermore can he be tempted to go with the weak against the strong! Watch him as he looks about, not knowing which way to turn. He hears sounds in the near distance. Presently he notices seven women coming to the well, and presently, too, he observes shepherds driving them away. Gloriously the late rough heroism reasserts itself! He had promised nevermore to interfere; but the moment that he sees another act of oppression, his mother's training makes itself felt, and he springs to his feet to resist a cowardly tyranny. The wretches, who for many a day had driven the women from the well, had never heard a man speak to them before! The voice quite startled them, and they fell back unable to confront the face of an honest and determined man. So may all bad resolutions perish! We must interfere. The cause of righteousness is entrusted to us, and woe be to us if we take counsel with ourselves to save our own quiet at the expense of justice and honour!