Exodus 2

CHAPTER 2THEME: The birth of Moses; Moses’ first attempt to help his people; Moses in Midian takes a gentile brideIn this chapter we have before us Moses the deliverer. He is prominent as the deliverer of Israel in the first eleven chapters of Exodus. Exodus is the great book of redemption. Nothing is begun or ended in this book. It is simply a continuation of the story that started in Genesis and continues on into the Books of Leviticus and Numbers.

Exodus 2:1

THE BIRTH OF MOSESThis is the age-old story of the man who sees a woman, falls in love with her, and marries her. She loves him in return, and they have a child. This is what human life is all about, and that is the story we have here. Moses is writing this account of his parents and of his own birth, and it is a modest record. This is why we must turn to other portions of the Bible to give us more information about the events in Exodus. If given the opportunity, most of us would want to tell about our parents in detail, but Moses did not even mention his parents by name. They were ordinary people. They were in slavery. They were members of the tribe of Levi. That is all Moses says at this point. Later on we are given their names as Amram and Jochebed. Verse two tells us only that Moses was a good, healthy child. Moses also seems quite reticent about giving his own record in any detail.

Exodus 2:3

Moses was not only a healthy child, but he also had a good set of lungs. His parents could hide him at first, but the day came when Moses could really scream at the top of his voice. What a contrast this is to several years later when the Lord asks him to be His spokesman to Pharaoh and Moses says that he cannot speak. Many of us are good at crying like babies, but as adults we do not do so well for the Lord. Jochebed had a serious problem. She could no longer hide her child. A lot of pious people would have acted differently from this mother by saying, “Well, we’re just going to trust the Lord.” That is a wonderful statement to make, but do you really trust the Lord when you are playing the fool? Jochebed would have been foolish to keep her child in the house when a guard passing by might have heard his cry. It would have meant instant death for Moses. I can hear someone saying, “You know the child would not cry when the guard passed by.” How do you know? Faith is not a leap in the dark, as I heard a liberal say some years ago. God asks us to believe that which is good and solid. God never asks us to do foolish things. Jochebed did a sensible thing. She made a little ark and put Moses in it.

Exodus 2:4

In addition to fashioning the ark, Jochebed also sent Moses’ sister to watch it and find out what would happen to her brother. Her sensible actions indicated that she was trusting God.

Exodus 2:5

Now the hand of the Lord is revealed. The Lord is going to intervene in this situation. This is what the Lord does when you use common sense, and Jochebed had demonstrated sensibleness. Pharaoh’s daughter came to the Nile River to wash. It was undoubtedly a secluded spot. And there was an ark. She had one of her attendants bring the ark to her.

Exodus 2:6

At that very moment was the right time for the child to cry. In fact, the Lord pinched little Moses and he let out a yelp. And God brought together two things that He has madea baby’s cry and a woman’s heart. Pharaoh’s daughter just could not pass this little baby by.

Exodus 2:7

Miriam, Moses’ sister, made a very helpful suggestion to the princess. And later on she is not going to let her young brother forget it. This is a very human story we are reading, friends. God has something to tell us on every page of His Book.

Exodus 2:8

This is a real turn of events, and it shows how God really moves when we act sensibly and move by faith sensibly. The very mother of the child was called to nurse him and be paid for it! You cannot beat that, friends. You cannot beat God when He is moving in our hearts and lives.

Exodus 2:9

The name Moses means “drawer out” and Pharaoh’s daughter named him this because she had him drawn out of the water. Although the identification of the Pharaoh of the oppression is a controversial subject and a matter of speculation, Pharaoh’s daughter may have been the oldest daughter of Rameses II, or she may have been his sister. According to the Egyptian customs of the day, her firstborn son had the right to the throne. Moses would have been the next Pharaoh had Rameses II and his queen remained childless.

Exodus 2:15

MOSES’ FIRST ATTEMPT TO HELP HIS PEOPLEThe first forty years of Moses’ life were spent in the courts of Pharaoh. He was raised and trained like an Egyptian. He looked like an Egyptian, talked like an Egyptian, and acted like an Egyptian. He was recognized as an Egyptian when he went to Midian, as we shall see later in the Book of Exodus. Moses was educated in the great Temple of the Sun which was the outstanding university of the day. We underrate what the Egyptians knew and accomplished. Their knowledge of astronomy was phenomenal. They knew the exact distance to the sun. They worked on the theory that the earth was round and not flat. They knew a great deal about chemistry which is evidenced by the way they were able to embalm the dead. We have no process to equal it today. Their workmanship and ability with colors were fantastic. Their colors are brighter than any we have today. I am confident that our paint companies would give anything if they knew the formulas used for color by the Egyptians. They are bright, beautiful, and startling after four thousand years. (I have to paint my house about every four years!) In addition to all of their other accomplishments, the Egyptians also had a tremendous library. And Moses, we are told, was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. The one great lack in Moses’ education was that he was not taught how to serve God. But do not underestimate Moses; he was an outstanding man. Stephen, in the Book of Acts, gives us some insight into this period of Moses’ life: “In which time Moses was born, and was exceeding fair, and nourished up in his father’s house three months: And when he was cast out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him up, and nourished him for her own son. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.

And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel. And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian: For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not. And the next day he shewed himself unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another? But he that did his neighbour wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? Wilt thou kill me, as thou diddest the Egyptian yesterday? Then fled Moses at this saying …” (Act_7:20-29). In other words, all of his training in Egypt did not prepare Moses to deliver the children of Israel. One day when he was out he saw one of his brethren being persecuted and beaten by one of the slave drivers, and Moses killed the guard. Moses looked around him to see if his deed had been seenbut, he did not look up. He should have looked up to God who would have forbidden him to do a thing like this because Moses is forty years ahead of God in delivering the children of Israel. Therefore God is going to put him out on the back side of the desert.

Exodus 2:16

MOSES IN MIDIAN TAKES A GENTILE BRIDEMoses had spent forty years in Egypt but it did not prepare him for what was to come. Zipporah is given to Moses, and he takes a bride. It is interesting that many of the men in the Old Testament are figures of Christ. Although not all details of their lives typify Christthey couldn’tthey certainly picture Christ in some way. Moses was a murderer in sharp contrast to Christ our Savior. However, Moses was a type of Christ in that he was God’s chosen deliverer; he was rejected by Israel and turned to the Gentiles, taking a gentile bride; afterward he again appears as Israel’s deliverer and is accepted. And so we find Moses in the land of Midian. For the next forty years it will be his home. Two sons are born to him. In the desert he will begin his preparation to be the deliverer of Israel from their Egyptian bondage. There has always been a question relative to Moses’ marital state. I am sure he must have loved his wife, but the record we have does not reveal a wonderful relationship. This part of his life is one of the things that Moses more or less passes over. The name Zipporah means “sparrow” which may indicate a small, nervous person.

Exodus 2:22

God is getting ready to deliver the children of Israel. Moses has been trained to be that deliverer. God did not choose to deliver the Israelites because they were superior to the Egyptians, or because they had been true and faithful to Him, or because they had not gone into idolatry. These people had been most unfaithful to God. They served idols rather than Him. You will recall that, after they had been delivered from Egypt and Moses had led them into the wilderness, the Israelites could not wait to make a golden calf to worship. God’s desire was to deliver them because they were in a helpless, hopeless position in slavery. Unless someone intervened in their behalf, they would have perished. God gives two reasons for delivering Israel:

1. He heard their groanings.
2. He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The desperate, hopeless condition of Israel appealed to the heart of God. And His promise to bring Abraham’s offspring back into the land after 400 years caused God to devise a plan to deliver them. Why do you think God has redeemed you (that is, if you are redeemed)? God saved us for the same reason He saved Israel. He found nothing in us that called for His salvation. He makes it quite clear that we are not saved because of any merit we possess. Paul explains it in Rom_3:23-24, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” The word freely means “without a cause.” We have been saved from our sins without a cause. It is the same word our Lord used when He said that He was hated without a cause (Joh_15:25).

God did not look at me and say, “My, you are white and Protestant, honest and hardworking, and I’m going to redeem you.” The fact of the matter is that God saw us in the blackness and darkness of sin and ignorance. He saw that we were hopelessly lost and not able to save ourselves. God’s love provided a Savior. God so loved us that He gave His only begotten Son, Joh_3:16 tells us. However, it was not His love that saved us; it was His grace. We are saved without a cause by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Many people believe God saw something in them worthy of salvation. They believe God saved them as sinners, but it was because He saw what lovely people they would become. May I say that this idea is entirely erroneous. We will never become lovely. Each of us has the old nature in which no good dwells. In Rom_7:18 Paul says, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing …” It is a shoe that really pinches to be told that there is no good in man at all. There never has been and never will be anything good in us. This is why we cannot produce anything good. This is why God gives us a new nature when we are saved, and why the old nature eventually must be destroyed. God saw no good in Israel. But He heard Israel’s cry in bondage and redeemed them. God saw our desperate condition and saved us. God had a plan, but He did not ask the human race what they thought about it. God did not say, “This is my plan for your salvation. If it pleases you, I will go through with it.” No sir! God the Father so loved the world that He sent His Son to die for the sins of the world. The Son agreed to come, and the Father agreed to save anyone who trusted Jesus Christ for salvation. God says to us, “This is the salvation I offer you. Take it or leave it.” He wants us to take it but leaves the choice up to each individual. There was a little Scottish lady who worked hard taking in washing in order to send her son to the university. When he came home for vacation, his mind was filled with doubts about God from the liberal teaching he had received. He did not want his mother to know about the change in his thinking. She kept telling him how wonderful it was of God to save her and how she knew she was saved. Finally he could not listen to more of her talk and said, “Mother, you do not seem to realize how small you are in this universe. If you lost your soul, God would not miss it at all.

It would not amount to anything.” She did not reply right away but kept putting dinner on the table. Finally she said, “I’ve been thinking about what you said. You are right. My little soul does not amount to much; I would not lose much and God would not lose much. But if He does not save me, He will lose more than I will. He promised that if I would trust Jesus He would save me.

If He breaks His word, He will lose His reputation and mar His character.” This is what God is saying to mankind. There was nothing attractive about the children of Israel but He heard their cry. There is nothing lovely about us either that would cause Him to save us. God made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that promised the redemption of Israel. He also agreed to save anyone that trusts Jesus Christ as Savior. Grace is love in action. He saves us by His grace, and His great love has provided redemption.