February 23, 2024 | Be God's Light
The Prince of Egypt Becomes Fugitive to Midian
Scripture: Exodus 2(NIV)
1 Now a man of the tribe 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. 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.
5 Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave 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.
7 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. So 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.”
11 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 Looking 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?”
14 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.”
15 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. 16 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?” Reuel 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 a foreigner in a foreign land.”
23 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.
Devotional
Pharaoh’s infanticide order was being ignored by the midwives. So Pharaoh extended the order to every Egyptian: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live” (Exodus 1:22). The river was awash with dead babies and refilled with the tears of grieving parents on the shores.
It was fitting that God chose to rescue baby Moses from the same river where so many others were drowned. Pharaoh’s daughter could have held his head underwater until he was lifeless, as her father had ordered. Instead, she chose to make him her own. In an instant he went from being a nameless, worthless baby to being a prince of Egypt.
There in the palace he grew up with the finest of everything imaginable. He was raised with Egyptian royalty, culture and language. But he must have known his Hebrew heritage as well. This conflicted background caused him to intervene for the Hebrews and be rejected by them at the same time. It also caused Pharaoh to turn on him and try to kill him. Moses was forty years old at the time (Acts 7:23).
Moses was a man without a country. He made a new life in yet another culture, marrying a Midianite woman and raising a family with her. His son’s name was a daily reminder that he was a foreigner in a foreign land.
So far, Moses’ story is one of abandonment and estrangement. He was taken away from his Hebrew mother and raised by an Egyptian princess. He ran away when he killed an Egyptian man and was ratted out by a Hebrew man. He became a fugitive in Midian, but felt like a foreigner for the entire forty years he was there. Through all this, God chose him to lead the Hebrews out of harsh bondage into freedom.
The Bible doesn’t gloss over its heroes. Adam and Eve took a bite of the forbidden fruit, yet became the ancestors of all humanity. Abraham lied about his wife’s identity, yet became the patriarch of God’s chosen people. Jacob was a deceiver and manipulator, yet God renamed him Israel. And Moses was a nobody who killed a man and ran for his life, yet the Lord used him in mighty ways.
Are there any dark chapters in your life story? Do you wish things could have been different? Any regrets? Know that God is not done with you. He wants to do great things in you and through you. Psalm 147:3 reminds us that God “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Praise be to God!
Poem
The Levite Woman’s Prayer
Tar pitched ark upon the Nile
Bear now safe my tiny child
Keep him from destruction's curse
This I pray, Dear Abba
Jeweled palace far away
Distant from God's hallowed Way
Do not bar my child's high call
This I pray, Dear Abba
Desert sand of exile scorn
Polish him for why he's born
Blow away his violent streak
This I pray, Dear Abba
Burning bush with calling voice
May you be my child's life choice
Set his feet on freedom's trail
This I pray, Dear Abba
Shepherd's staff, Jehovah's rod
Teach my child to speak for God
Give him strength and courage true
This I pray, Dear Abba
Wilderness and mountain High
Bringing now God's people nigh
To the throne of mercy, save
This I pray, Dear Abba
Fiery pillar, cloud by day
Lead his people in your way
'Til at last he crosses o'er
This I pray, Dear Abba
