Bible Commentaries

Over 75 Online Commentaries

Preparation of Moses (2:1-25)

Moses was the person God chose to save his people and lead them out of Egypt. He was born of godly Hebrew parents, who no doubt taught him that the true and living God was the only legitimate object of human worship, and this God had chosen Israel to be his people. At the same time Moses grew up in the Egyptian palace, where he was trained in the best learning and culture available at that time (2:1-10; see Acts 7:22; Hebrews 11:23).

By the time he was forty years of age, Moses believed that God had chosen him to deliver Israel from oppression in Egypt. But when in a burst of anger he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew, he showed that he was not yet ready for the task God had for him. Neither were his people ready to recognize him as their deliverer. To save his life Moses fled Egypt, and in so doing he rejected, willingly and decisively, his Egyptian status (11-15; see Acts 7:23-29; Hebrews 11:24-25).

Midian, the place to which Moses escaped, was a semi-desert region to the east, believed to be somewhere in the Sinai peninsular. (The Midianites were descended from Abraham through one of his lesser wives, Keturah, and so were distant relatives of the Hebrews; Genesis 25:2-4.) Moses lived for many years in the house of a Midianite chief, Jethro (also known as Reuel), whose daughter Moses married. Here Moses no doubt learnt much about desert life and tribal administration, experience that later proved useful in his leadership of Israel on the journey to Canaan (16-22).

For forty years Moses remained in Midian (Acts 7:30). During this time the Hebrews back in Egypt were suffering increasingly cruel persecution, but at the same time God was preparing Moses to save them. God was teaching Moses those qualities of discipline, toughness, obedience and trust that were necessary if Moses was to rescue God's people from slavery in Egypt and bring them safely to their new homeland (23-25).