Exodus 2

The plan of the Anti-Messiah Pharaoh was to use all the people of Egypt as his deputized force against the Hebrews. They were to be the extension of his own hatred against Israel. His order was plain: “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile.”

God begins His redemption by using one of those baby boys. The parents of this one boy did put their little one in the Nile, but not the way that Pharaoh insisted, and not with the result that he anticipated.

These parents, both of the tribe of Levi, first hid their son for three months, and then they prepared a little ark of safety for him. They also sent his older sister, Miriam, to look over him where he floated in the reeds at the river's edge. What an irony that the person who would save the boy, the young woman who would be touched by what she saw and heard, would be the daughter of Pharaoh.

A man like Pharaoh may dream that he rules the world, but his own daughter can be moved by God in the direction that the Lord Himself decrees. Not only is the baby brought up out of the waters that were to be his grave, the baby's sister is nearby to make this helpful suggestion: “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” The boy's true mother will be the baby's happy nurse, and then, in due time, the weaned child will be treated as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. What a deliverance from death! But God will use this boy to lead His people through the waters that will engulf their enemies.

It will be the daughter of the enemy of the Hebrews who will name the child “Moses.” He was drawn out of the water. He will be the one that God will use to lead his people out of Egypt.

This Moses grows up as a son of privilege in a land of oppression. Yet he will identify himself with his real brothers and sisters. One day, after he has acquired the strength of a young man, he will secretly express his calling as a deliverer by murdering an abusive Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. This kind of, take-matters-into-your-own-hands approach would not be the way that God would bring his people out of Egypt. Moses will not be a violent revolutionary. In fact, his deed was not as secret as he supposed. It will not be through his own strength or through his skills of personal persuasion that freedom and righteousness will come. God will bring the best release. He will do it in His time, and He will do it His way. He will use Moses, but not as a commando or as a community organizer. Moses will be a mediator of a solemn covenant between God and His nation.

For now, Moses is afraid that His murder of an Egyptian man will lead to his own death. He runs away from Egypt, settling in the land of Midian for many years. There he takes a wife and has children. But he has not really forgotten his people.

Even in the way that Moses finds a wife in a far-off land, he expresses his calling to come to the aid of the oppressed. Seven daughters of a priest of Midian get into some trouble with some shepherds who would try to use their force to drive these shepherdesses away. Moses rescues them. He is a courageous man who see injustice and stands in the way of approaching trouble. This is what these women need. This is also what Israel needs. And this is what the world needs. We need the right man to come and to stand in the way of danger for us. We need someone to protect us from adversaries and enemies who are far too strong for us.

Their father, Reuel, has an eye for such a man. When he hears what this strange “Egyptian” has done for his girls, he has questions for them. “Then where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.” Exactly. This is the kind of man that we need in a dangerous world. And Reuel gives one of his daughters to this man as a wife. She bears him a son. Will Moses just settle down there and forget his calling? He knows that he cannot entirely run away from his past. He names his boy Gershom based on his own awareness that he is not at home. He says, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.”

Meanwhile, his people, the people of Israel in Egypt, are suffering under the cruel bondage of their enemy. They cry out to God. God hears. He sees. He knows. He will help. And He will choose to use this man whose life was spared by Pharaoh's daughter.

“God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.”

What about now? Does God know about oppression? Does God hear when those who call upon His Name are mocked and abused? More than that, can God do anything about the problem of our own sin, and the swiftly approaching enemy of death? God has appointed a Mediator of a New Covenant. He sent His own Son to accomplish what Moses could never have done. His Son faced the righteous wrath of the Almighty that was against us, and has led us out of the worst bondage imaginable.

Not only has God gathered us in Christ; we are His body, a force for love and good. Pharaoh demanded that all his people join him in his murderous hatred of the Hebrews. Jesus calls us to be his body in love, even commanding us to love those who persecute us. He is patient. And He will win.