The bible really doesn’t tell us a lot about the early life of the man we call Moses. All we have is a few verses here in Exodus, a few verses in Acts 7 where Stephen gives his recitation of Jewish history before he is stoned by Saul of Tarsus and his buddies, and then a mention in Hebrews 11. But I think if we connect some dots we might come with a picture of what Moses early life was. I think it’s ok with God if we speculate a little bit. I think if we went around the room and told our life stories up to the age of 40, we would be doing a disservice to sum up 40 years of living by a few sentences. Maybe we can fill in some gaps as to who Moses was.
1 Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, 2 and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months.
1. What is significant about his parents being from the tribe of Levi?
Jocabed and Amram were both Levites. I think it’s ironic that The Levites in the future were the tribe who were not allowed to own property or land, they were supported by the tithes of the other tribes and were dedicated to the work of God. They eventually became the priests and temple workers. They gave up all to work for God just as Moses gave up all to work for God.
3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.
2. What’s up with putting the baby Moses an ark of bulrushes and laying it in the reed by the riverbank?
Moses mother was technically obeying the Pharaoh’s edict. Obeying the letter of the law (sorta) but violating the spirit of the law. Have you ever done this? We know we should all drive the speed limit but there are times when we just can’t seem to do it.
Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the river bank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. 6 She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.
3. Isn’t the Pharaoh’s daughter in violation of her father’s own edict?
His order to throw the babies in the river was ridiculous and almost impossible to enforce, even his own daughter ignored it. Sometimes management hands down orders that nobody can or wants to obey. Maybe the Pharaohs daughter didn’t get the memo.
4. How is it that Moses’ own mother ends up being his nurse and ends up get paid for it?
Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” 8 “Yes, go,” she answered. And the girl went and got the baby’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”
A very smart little girl, Moses older sister Miriam.
27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the
world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; 1 Cor. 1
20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Gen 50:20
Isn’t it interesting that Satan’s plan instituted by Pharaoh ends up backfiring on him. Instead of killing the deliverer of God’s people he ends up bringing him into the Palace where he is blessed with all the benefits of the Egyptian royal house.
Satan always loses.
5. According to Stephen in Acts 7:23 “Now when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel.”, the next time we see Moses he is 40 years old. What was he doing in Egypt, for 40 years.
And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. Acts 7:22
Remember this verse words and deeds when Moses is telling God that he isn’t a good speaker.
One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. 12 Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?”
6. With all Moses had to lose, why would he get involved with these wretched Hebrews?
Some bible scholars feel that Moses never lost contact with his Hebrew roots, and that his mother and sister were actively involved in his upbringing, not just as a baby, but also a young man.
They say “you can take the man out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the man.”
When you’re raised as “white trailer park trash” like me, it’s hard to not look at the world through a certain perspective. No matter how educated or sophisticated you are you still identify with your roots, “You can put lipstick on a pig and it’s still a pig”.
By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter,25 choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin,26 considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward.27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen. Heb. 11:24-27
He remembered the faith of his upbringing.
Choosing……He was looking to the reward. These are the operative word here.
7. Have you ever had a time in your life where you had to make a choice as to which direction your life was going to take? I remember several times.
Hall of fame Yankee catcher Yogi Berra says,” when you come to fork in the road, take it.”
8. When Moses kills the Egyptian why didn’t the other Hebrews view him as a hero and follow him as their new leader?
The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.”
It seems like a logical question to me. To the Hebrews he was an Egyptian prince, why should they trust him. If he kills Egyptians, the people he lives with, why wouldn’t he kill us lowly Hebrew slaves? After Paul’s conversion he was not readily accepted into Christian circles. He was distrusted because of his reputation.
The trouble with being a leader today is that you can’t be sure whether people are following you or chasing you.
Moses was not ready “for prime time” and to be the kind of leader that God needed. He needed work.
9. I hear people say, “I’m a good person, at least I haven’t murdered anybody”
Moses was a murderer, David was a murderer, Paul the Apostle had hunted down Christians for execution. How can God use people like this as leaders of his people?
These men all repented of their sin of murder. I think the fact that they had all committed murder, God used that evil to shape their lives. It’s not something you can easily forget. Manifold Wisdom of God. God is good, all the time. He turns all things for good and for his glory.
10. Moses spends 40 years living in “the lap of luxury” and then 40 years living in the wilderness. What does the number 40 represent in the bible? What do you think God is trying to teach Moses?
40 usually represents a period time waiting for judgment or testing. Rained for 40 days and 40 nights, Moses on the mountain top 40 days, Jesus in the wilderness 40 days. God gave Ninivah 40 days to repent.
1. Patience. Moses at one time was a hot head, killing a man who did something he didn’t like. He was going to have to learn how to deal with a Pharaoh who seemed impossible to move. He was going to have to deal with a stiff-necked Hebrew people of over 2 million whiners and complainers.
He was going to have to be very patient
- Loneliness. Years of solitude taught him to understand that the man at the top is isolated and has to depend completely on God.
- Leadership. You can’t be a great leader by bullying and beating people into submission, people follow leaders because they want to.
- Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Allied commander and President of the United States said:
In order to be a leader a man must have followers. And to have followers, a man must have their confidence. Hence the supreme quality of a leader is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, on a football field, in an army, or in an office. If a man’s associates find him guilty of phoniness, if they find that he lacks forthright integrity, he will fail. His teachings and actions must square with each other. The first great need, therefore, is integrity and high purpose. General Dwight Eisenhower
When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.
11. Where was the land of Midian?
The land of Midian was across the Sinai Peninsula, around the gulf of Aqaba and along the west coast of present day Saudi Arabia. A long way to travel on foot through the wilderness. It is a desolate, deserted, and dangerous area filled with scorpions, snakes and wild animals. Something like our own death valley.
The bible calls it the “back side of the desert”. When something is called the “backside”
it probably not the best part.
The Midianites were the decedents of Abraham through one the sons of his second wife who he married after Sarah died.
Now Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah.2 She bore to him Zimran and Jokshan and Medan and Midian and Ishbak and Shuah.3 Jokshan became the father of Sheba and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were Asshurim and Letushim and Leummim.4 The sons of Midian were Ephah and Epher and Hanoch and Abida and Eldaah. All these were the sons of Keturah.5 Now Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac;6 but to the sons of his concubines, Abraham gave gifts while he was still living, and sent them away from his son Isaac eastward, to the land of the east. Gen. 25:1-6
These sons intermarried with the Ishmaelite and become nomads in the Saudi Arabian area and eventually became what we call “the Arabs”.
Through most Israelite history these people were enemies to God’s people. And still are.
Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. 17 Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock. 18 When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?” 19 They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.” 20 “And where is he?” he asked his daughters. “Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.” 21 Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. 22 Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, “I have become an alien in a foreign land.”
12. What kind of priest was Reuel?
The Scripture does not indicate what god he served. It may indeed have been Jehovah, as some claim, but the words of Jethro in Ex 18:11 sound more like the testimony of a convert. There is absolutely no reason to suppose, as some writers have done, that Moses learned of Jehovah from the Midianites—WBC
The priest of Midian — or, “prince of Midian.” As the officers were usually conjoined, he was the ruler also of the people called Cushites or Ethiopians, and like many other chiefs of pastoral people in that early age, he still retained the faith and worship of the true God.—JFB
13. The story of Moses helping the daughters tells us what about Moses?
During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. 24 God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. 25 So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.
14. Do you really think that God had forgotten about the Hebrews and needed to remember?
“In the fullness of time” is an expression the bible uses to highlight the fact that God has a plan and there are multiple components to it which have to be worked out in a timely and structured manner. God was not only concerned for the Hebrews but He was also concerned for the Amorites who still occupied the land and who God was letting build up judgment against themselves as a result of their evil ways.
16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. Gen 15:16 (KJV)
ESVN……………..….ESV
Study Bible Notes
MSBN……………….MacArthur
NASB Study Notes
NIVSN……………….NIV
Study Notes.
JVM
………………….J Vernon McGee’s Commentary
BN
……………………Barnes Notes
WBC………….…….Wycliffe
Bible Commentary
CN
……….…………..Constables Notes
IC……………….…….Ironside
Commentary
NET…………….…….Net
Bible Study Notes.
JFB……………………Jamieson
Fausset Brown Commentary
VWS………………….Vincent
Word Studies
CMM………………..Commentary
on Matthew and Mark
BDB……………..….Barclay’s
Daily Study Bible (NT)
Darby……………….John
Darby’s Synopsis of the OT and NT
Johnson……………Johnson’s
Notes on the New Testament
NTCMM…………..The
New Testament Commentary: Matthew and
Mark.
EHS………………….Expositions
of the Holy Scriptures
CPP…………………The
Complete Pulpit Commentary
SBC…………………..Sermon
Bible Commentary
K&D…………………Keil
and Deilitzsch Commentary on the OT
EBC……………….…Expositors
Bible Commentary
CBSC……………….Cambridge
Bible for Schools and College
GC……………………Guzik
Commentary
RD…………………..Robert Deffinbaugh
NSB
…………………The Nelson Study Bible
MHC…………………Matthew
Henry Commentary
CSTTB………Chuck
Smith Through The Bible
LESB…………….Life
Essentials Study Bible.
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