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Read Exodus 2

The Birth of Moses

Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, 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. 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. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

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. 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.

Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”

“Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother.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.”

Moses Flees to Midian

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 rememberedhis covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. 25 So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.

Go Deeper

Today’s reading introduces us to Moses, one of the main characters in the Old Testament. He was born an Israelite, but was raised an Egyptian. Moses grew up privileged in Pharaoh’s house but never forgot where he came from. We see that today, as he rushed to defend a fellow Israelite and, in the process, ended up murdering an Egyptian. 

Acts 7:25 says that “Moses thought that his own people would realize God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.” He must’ve seen himself as the rightful savior of the Israelites. After all, he was an Israelite, but with the wealth, power, and resources of the Egyptians. That unique combination made him fit to be the one to rescue the Israelites from slavery, or so he thought. Once he realized the Israelites didn’t see him that way, however, he fled the country in shame. 

While things looked hopeless for Moses and the Israelites, at the end of today’s chapter, we see who the true Savior for the Israelites is. “God heard their groaning and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.” (vv. 24-25) God will use Moses to deliver His people, but don’t overlook who the true Deliverer is–God. He uses people, but He, and He alone, is the One who rescues, delivers, and saves. 

Moses tried to take matters into his own hands and ended up a murderer and a fugitive hundreds of miles away from the people he was trying to save. We end up in similar places when we try to play God. When we try to be the savior for a friend in need, or try to take on a burden not meant for us to carry alone, this leads to nothing more than burnout and more problems. We’ll see Moses learn this lesson and begin to allow God to work through him, and as a result, save an entire group of people. We need to learn that same lesson. Philippians 2:13 says, “It is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose.” Instead of acting out of our own strength, let’s humble ourselves, allow God to work through us, and be amazed at what He does.

Questions
  1. How does Moses’ unique upbringing set the stage for what God has planned for him? How does your unique perspective set the stage for what God might want to do through you?

  2. How have you been tempted to rely on your own strength before? How does that turn out?

  3. Why is it so hard to trust and rely on God’s power rather than our own? Is there an area in your life that you’re relying on yourself and not God? How can you surrender that to God today?

Did You Know?

Scripture and other historical sources give us some insight into Moses’ background. In Acts 7:21-22, Stephen says that Moses was a man of power. Josephus, the ancient historian, claimed that Moses was a general in the Egyptian army that conquered the Ethiopians. While we can’t confirm that for sure, we do know that Moses was influential in Egypt but became an outsider once he arrived in Midian.

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9 thoughts on “Exodus 2”

  1. In Exodus 2:24-25 I’m drawn to the verbs used: heard, remembered, looked to describe the heart of the Father for his own. Even when we don’t see it, he’s very present, powerful and is working his good plan in our lives.

  2. It strikes me that vs. 23 makes it sound like the Israelites didn’t groan or cry out earlier in their slavery. That God only remembered them & His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob at this point and He then became concerned with their condition versus watching over them the whole time. It sounds as if the Israelites felt forgotten by God.
    This too, is a recurring story in the history of the followers of God. Yet another example of how critical it is to work with intentionality to keep one’s faith strong and have ongoing communication (prayer) with the Father.

  3. That makes us the LIGHT!!!! We each have to flip our switch on everyday so God can shine theough us doing his work😁

  4. I don’t usually comment, but this new format, this passage, and this devotional time, just compelled me to share my heart that the words (His Word) brought to me because I am believing more and more that it is our personal stories and interaction with His Word that will magnify our Savior and point to His Story.

    First, I see how God had a plan to save Moses for a long-term mission to fulfill a promise to save His People–and that plan will be played out, in spite of Moses. Next, what follows is Moses’ assumptions and misunderstandings about how God would bring it about. His impulsiveness, but honest anger, set him on a new trajectory to better understand, surrender, and depend more fully on God. It began a new learning space, and a new heart receptivity to surrender to God’s plan. It forced a an uncomfortable patience and introduced a foreign environment into the equation that dashed all preconceived assumptions and expectations.

    Moses was given a new perspective. His rashness, confidence and impulsivity were the very things that God redeemed and redirected during this wilderness time. I know, because I have shared some of these same heart stirrings in my life. No, not any literal murder, but certainly some murderous thoughts and haughty confidences. My wilderness experience was in the form of duplicity—literally living two lives. I recognize in Moses a good heart, but a self-reliant spirit. I am so thankful that the continuing story of Moses helped me better understand my major points of needed surrender and to embrace His interventions–as I see that Moses eventually did– that Holy, Humble Boldness for what God was equipping him personally and uniquely to do.

    Through the wilderness experiences Moses was finally able to grasp and accept His frailties, but then he was also freed to realize and experience the wonderful opportunities for God’s strength and intervention thru him into all the evolving chaos and noise of the time. Moses was real. Moses was broken. Moses was used by God.
    Thank you, God, for including Moses’ story in Your Word!
    —You knew I needed his story to better realize and accept mine.

    You too have a wilderness story that others need to hear. Don’t be afraid to share.
    I am praying you will also step into courageous, humble boldness.

  5. I just asked God to forgive me for all the times I didn’t seek Him first and it didn’t turn out well and thanked Him for His protection through those times.

  6. How does Moses’ unique upbringing set the stage for what God has planned for him? How does your unique perspective set the stage for what God might want to do through you?
    `his upbringing gave him such widely different aspects of who He is, but mostly of who people are and what they’re capable of. He got knowledge and action and understanding in a range of departments, a leader needs.
    As for me, I have known a lot of mental installatie and sickness and that combined with the gift he gave me of compensation and speech, I think he is setting me up to help others in similar situations.

    How have you been tempted to rely on your own strength before? How does that turn out?
    `first thing that comes to mind (voor it’s pretty resend) are my sleeping habits. I would lay awake and spook myself with thoughts like I’m never going to sleep properly again and I’m not capable and so on; Until I would have a panic attack, which would make me so tired and scared of anything to do with sleep and rest. But I did not pray until my energy had 100% gone instead of trusting in God. But I’m thankful for it now because it stirred up my need for God and the awareness of that, which brought forward a new serious relationship and journey with God. So thank you Lord.

    Why is it so hard to trust and rely on God’s power rather than our own? Is there an area in your life that you’re relying on yourself and not God? How can you surrender that to God today?
    `because we think we know our own strength and it is easier to rely on something that you know and feel is always there and have full access to and power over, than to trust is something we do not know the existence of and that can feel not always present and or even foreign. I should give myself over to him and rely on him with all the (little) decisions I make day in day out. Not just with the big ones but also with little things like watching or not watching something or how to react to something, instead of just doing and then later regretting it.

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