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Only a few of you here this morning have lived as many years as are represented in this chapter of Exodus. Imagine writing an autobiography near the end of your life. How would you choose what events to write about? Would you do careful research and put together a comprehensive timeline of your entire life and then start writing about it? Would you try to give equal attention to all your various decades, or would you focus on a few specific experiences?
Imagine you were writing a biography of Moses. I’m confident that you would not approach it like we will find in our text today. Our chapter today will cover Moses’ life from birth until he is eighty years old. The Bible divides Moses’ 120 year life (Deut 34:7) into three periods of 40 years, and our chapter will cover the first two periods. Then, the rest of the Pentateuch will essentially cover the his last 40 years.
Here at the beginning of Exodus we have the closest thing that we’ll get to an autobiographical sketch from Moses about his life. It is important to remember, though, that the purpose for the Book of Exodus is not to be a biography of Moses’ life, but a retelling of Yahweh’s deliverance for his people Israel.
If you were writing an autobiography, how much of it would be centered around God’s deliverance in your life and the lives of others around you? Would it highlight your own amazing deeds, your own goodness, your own success? Or would it make much of God and your dependence upon him?
After God rescued Israel through provision in Egypt by the hand of Joseph, Joseph died. Then we read the following in Exodus 1:7.
Exodus 1:7 (ESV) — But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.
Then Israel encounters increasing governmental persecution, hard toil, and an attempted partial genocide. The future is looking increasingly bleak for Israel.
Exodus 1:22 (ESV) — Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”
This 400 year period for Israel was prophesied many years earlier to Abram.
Genesis 15:13 (ESV) — Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years.
Our circumstances are quite different than the Israelites in bondage in Egypt. Though it is likely that you are experiencing some trial—large or small—which requires you to trust in God today, I would ask that you at least attempt to read and understand this text first through the eyes of an Israelite in slavery in Egypt, longing for the promised deliverance from the Lord.
Imagine yourself as a seventh or eighth generation slave in Egypt. You have heard stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the promised land. You regularly recount the story to yourself about Joseph being sent to Egypt by God ahead of the famine to provide for his family. You have heard promises passed down that God will eventually bring deliverance to his people. You have heard these promises, but you see no improvement. The struggle is getting harder instead of easier. Pharaoh seems determined to keep God’s people subjugated, even to the point of infanticide for all the male children.
Where will you look for deliverance? Whom will God send? How will it happen? Will you live to see it?
Remember that we are embarking on the greatest story of deliverance in the Hebrew Bible. This deliverance shapes the people of God for 1500 years and foreshadows God’s ultimate deliverance through Christ.
This is the context that brings us to Exodus 2. This morning, my goal is that we will:
Trust that Yahweh’s promised deliverance will take place within his often-hard Providence.
To put it in the form of two sermon points:
Despite the oppression of Pharaoh and the Egyptian people, God’s own people are still being fruitful, increasing, and growing very strong. As we saw last week, the Hebrew midwives refused to kill the Hebrew male children, and they were blessed.
As Moses writes his autobiographical sketch in chapter 2, he gives us three scenes that take our confidence off of him, and point us to confidence in God himself. Let’s look at his birth, his attempted deliverance (murder), and his exile.
If you were a Hebrew slave living in Egypt, you likely would hope for a deliverer to be born who would lead God’s people out of Egypt. But, what chance is there with Pharaoh having all the male children drowned in the river? This is a risky hope.
This is where Exodus 2 begins—with the birth of a potential deliverer. This is perhaps one of the most well-known and iconic stories in the Bible. Let’s not read it as being a sweet story about a baby being hidden in the Nile, but consider what terrifying circumstances would drive a mother to place her child into a basket in the river. We have lots of young mothers here at Cornerstone. Imagine if the authorities came to take your neighbor’s son away to murder him. What would you do to protect your own son? I doubt your first thought would be to weave some papyrus reeds together to make a small basket and put your son in the Cape Fear River.
This is what Moses’ mother does once Moses is three months old. When she realizes she will no longer be able to hide him from the authorities, she puts him in a basket and leaves him floating in the Nile river. The ESV doesn’t help us see this connection, but the Hebrew word used for “basket” in vs. 3 is only used a few more times in the Old Testament, and is translated “ark.” This connection would not have been lost on the original readers.
Before you accuse Moses’ mother of reckless abandonment, notice a few more details in the story. First, Moses’ older sister is monitoring the basket from a distance. Second, it appears that the basket might have intentionally been placed near where the royal young women came to wash in the river. Still, this was a risky endeavor. Even if the child were rescued from being drowned in the river, what would happen if he were raised by the Egyptians? How would he be raised to know his true identity?
Enter in the brave audacity of two daughters—Pharaoh’s and Moses’ parents’. There is an irony that Pharaoh allowed Hebrew girls to live, and Moses was rescued by a series of females. It is particularly ironic that it was Pharaoh’s own daughter that undermined his own plan.
Apart from the bravery of Moses’ sister, one wonders of Moses would have ever known his true identity. She speaks up when Moses is discovered and offers to go and find a Hebrew nurse to care for the child, which of course ends up being Moses’ own mother—who not only is allowed to raise her own son for a time, but gets paid to do it and is able to raise him under the protection of Pharaoh’s daughter. Now when an Egyptian soldier comes up to take him away, she can simply say that she is simply caring for the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter.
What could have ended in tragedy for God’s deliver ends up succeeding. Not only is Moses rescued from death, he is also raised with the best education Egypt could offer.
Acts 7:22 (ESV) — And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds.
At the outset of this epic narrative of God’s deliverance of Israel, we see God deliver Moses from the death on the Nile.
Now, let’s turn to our second scene of Moses’ life.
This is a fascinating next scene for Moses’ life. We have so many more questions about his childhood that he doesn’t tell us. What was his childhood like? Did Pharaoh’s daughter marry? Did Moses keep in touch with his biological family? We don’t know. We simply get, “One day, when Moses had grown up.” Maybe, you’re thinking this might have been when he turned 18 (old enough to vote). Nope. Again, Stephen’s speech in the book of Acts tells us more.
Acts 7:23 (ESV) — “When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel.
What can we learn from this vignette of Moses’ life? First, we see that he identifies the Israelites as “his people” in verse 11. Then, we see that he understands that the Egyptians are treating the Israelites badly. He sees—and is bothered by—the injustice toward his own people. Third, we see that Moses takes some amount of responsibility to deliver the Israelites from their oppression. I’m not sure how Moses thought he might deliver the Israelites in this fashion, though. Was he going to take out the oppressors one by one? But it is significant that Moses identified with his own people and their suffering.
Hebrews 11:24–26 (ESV) — By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.
There is some debate whether or not Moses’ actions were just. Certainly he had a right sense of justice about the oppression, but there are clues in the text that Moses knew his actions were suspect. Exodus 2:12 (ESV) — “He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.”
Moses possibly could have claimed some authority for his actions as a member of Pharaoh’s household and not hidden them, but his attempted secrecy betrays that he knew his actions were morally suspect. In the end, he was found out and rejected by both his own people and the Egyptians. Instead of rising to the place as a deliverer for God’s people, Moses is driven into exile.
Consider the reality of this exile for those enslaved in Egypt. We know the rest of the story. We know that Moses will return decades later. But, the Israelite under bondage didn’t know this. Put yourself in his place. There was finally an Israelite in a position of power to influence Pharaoh or at least work toward the deliverance of his people. Now he blew that chance and is gone.
The Moses who burst with such triumphalism on to the scene of oppression as would-be deliverer is now a self-exiled resident alien.
- Alec Motyer, The Message of Exodus, The Bible Speaks Today (Inter-Varsity Press, 2005), 42.
However, just as God delivered Moses from the Nile, now God delivered Moses from the wrath of Pharaoh.
Our trust and confidence must not be in our circumstances, but in God’s sovereign providence.
Now let’s turn to the final scene from Moses autobiographical sketch. As Moses fled from Pharaoh, verse 15 states that he stayed in the land of Midian near a well. This takes us to the season of his exile.
This brief scene will serve as in introduction to the next 40 years of Moses’ life. Unable to deliver Israel from Egypt, Moses is able to deliver a few shepherdesses from a group of shepherds. And, it appears he was able to do this without murdering them.
This act of protection brought Moses into the house of Reuel. We might know him better by his other name, Jethro. We don’t know exactly where Midian was, but it seems to be an area southeast of Israel settled by the descendants of Midian, a son of Abraham (Gen 25:2).
Based on verse 22, it seems Moses has given up any ambitions for delivering Israel from Egypt. He is simply a sojourner in a foreign land—away from the house of Pharaoh and away from his own people.
If you were one oppressed in Egypt, Moses seems to be completely out of the picture. His error in killing the Egyptian seems to have postponed God’s deliverance for another generation.
We get one more clue in the text that there was one more human hope for deliverance. Maybe with a new administration in Egypt things would get better.
Exodus 2:23 (ESV) — During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.
“During those many days…” This appears to be another 40 years. Again, we look to Stephen’s account in Acts 7.
Acts 7:30 (ESV) — “Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush.
Moses also gives the account in Exodus 7.
Exodus 7:7 (ESV) — Now Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh.
From the perspective of God’s people in Egypt, it seems that Moses is completely off the scene. What then is their hope? The King of Egypt who was seeking the life of Moses died.
But, no relief came. “The people of Israel groaned because of their slavery” (Ex 2:23).
We must not put our confidence in our circumstances for our deliverance.
Do you look to your circumstances to determine God’s favor toward you?
We have no experiential category for waiting 400 years for deliverance. We typically measure our circumstances in years, weeks, or days of difficulty. If we are not to find our confidence in our circumstances, where shall we look?
After Moses failed in his attempt at deliverance and his fleeing to Midian, what did the people of God do?
Exodus 2:23 (ESV) — During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.
I don’t doubt that individuals throughout Israel’s slavery in Egypt made their complaints known to God, but something seemed to happen in this moment to galvanize their prayers. The circumstances got bad enough. Or, their hope in circumstances and human deliverers gave way enough. However it happened, now the people of God looked to Yahweh.
The decisive moment came, however, when the inarticulate moaning and crying-out became a prayer and their cry for help … went up to God. Where time brought no relief and political change brought no improvement, prayer made the difference.
- Alec Motyer, The Message of Exodus, The Bible Speaks Today (Inter-Varsity Press, 2005), 43.
Can you relate to that inarticulate moaning? I can. It seems easier to stay in the state of moaning and groaning about our circumstances than it does to turn those moans into actual cries for help to God. It takes faith to turn our moans of complaint to actual prayers for help. The Psalmist even presents this as a sacrifice.
Psalm 141:2 (ESV) — Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!
Turning our groaning into prayers takes faith, in part, because when we turn our troubles into actual requests, we may have to wrestle with what to do if God doesn’t answer quickly and clearly.
It was prayer that made all the difference, even though there was no immediate change. That horrible dark curtain of suffering still hung over the people of God, Moses was still in Midian, and there was no gleam of heavenly light or discernible declaration from God that their prayer had been heard. The Israelites in Egypt had no public declaration from God that their prayer had been heard, they were still walking in darkness and seeing no light (cf. Isa. 50:10).
Alec Motyer, The Message of Exodus, The Bible Speaks Today (Inter-Varsity Press, 2005), 44.
Can you relate to Motyer’s observation? Even after prayer, there is often no immediate change. Our final hope is not ultimately in the change itself, but in the God who is over all things and that hears us.
Let’s see how God responded to the prayers of his people.
What an amazing four responses. God heard, remembered, saw, and knew.
God heard their groans, not just their cries for help.
Deuteronomy 4:7 (ESV) — For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is to us, whenever we call upon him?
Our confidence is that God is near enough to hear us, but this is connected to us ultimately receiving God’s best for us.
1 John 5:14–15 (ESV) — And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
This idea of “hearing” in scripture often includes the idea of hearing and responding or hearing and obeying.
Romans 8:26–27 (ESV) — Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
God remembers. Did he forget? No. He is remembering his promises. He is bringing to mind his covenant relationship to us.
We see other examples of this:
Genesis 8:1 (ESV) — But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.
God also remembered Hannah and her prayers in 1 Samual 1:19.
Specifically for our passage, God remembered his promises to Abram in Genesis 15.
Genesis 15:13–14 (ESV) — Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.
God is not unacquainted with our suffering. In the midst of human suffering, we are tempted to think that God doesn’t hear, that he doesn’t see, that we are beyond his vision, or even worse, that he doesn’t care.
This goes beyond our prayers. God not only hears us, but sees what no one else sees. Nothing is hidden from him. And he cares.
The final statement is perhaps the most comprehensive and comforting. It is ultimately what we are tempted not to believe. Look at vers 25 again.
Exodus 2:25 (ESV) — God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.
The ESV rightly doesn’t put an object after “knew.”
While two of these, hearing and seeing, underline that God is aware of what is happening to the Israelites—he is neither deaf nor blind to their plight—the others, remembering and knowing, indicate the basis upon which God will intervene on behalf of the Israelites. He acts because of his prior commitment to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and his present knowledge of the Israelites’ suffering.1
- T. Desmond Alexander, Exodus, Apollos Old Testament Commentary (InterVarsity Press, 2017), 72.
Psalm 146:3–5 (ESV) — Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God,
Jeremiah 17:5–8 (ESV) — Thus says the LORD: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
Psalm 118:8–9 (ESV) — It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes.
Trust that Yahweh’s promised deliverance will take place within his often-hard Providence.
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