Moses – 1

Over the next few blog posts I will be looking at this great man Moses, a man that is mentioned more times in the Bible than anyone else.

Moses means “Drawn Out”. In Exodus 2 we can read the familiar story of “Moses in the bullrushes” and where we learn how he got his name, Exodus 2:10,

In Exodus 2:15 we read “Moses Fled from the face of Pharaoh” why did he have to flee from the household that he had been raised in?

Moses was a man who stood up for injustice. He was a man raised under the Pharaoh, found by Pharaoh’s daughter floating among bullrushes on the Nile in a basket, hidden by his mother, a Hebrew slave girl in the land of Egypt, at a time when the Pharoah had ordered all the male Hebrew babies to be killed, for fear that the Hebrew slaves were going to overrun the Egyptians because their number was increasing at a faster pace than the Egyptians.

Despite the privileged upbringing that Moses had received, education, defence, good food etc, he was a man with compassion and was prepared to stand up for the oppressed. Moses fled from Egypt and Pharaoh’s wrath because he had killed an Egyptian who had been mistreating a fellow Hebrew and buried the body thinking no one had seen, how wrong could he have been? The deed done out of compassion, resulting in over zealous anger and ultimately murder, changed the whole course of Moses’ life. Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh in fear of his life and ended up in the land of Midian, an area of land on the east banks of the Gulf of Aqaba on the Sinai Peninsula.

Here Moses sat down by a well, probably exhausted, yet relieved that he had escaped from Pharaoh’s wrath, Exodus 2:15, it is worth noting here in this verse that the tenses used for the word FLED in the Hebrew text are indicating a permanency in the past. This demonstrates and shows us that we all have a past and in most cases we are running from that past and just like Moses are exhausted. 

We all need to come to terms with our past before God can use us in His future. If we allow God to deal and forgive us of our past then invariably our life’s experiences can be used for His good.

So here we are with Moses, sat down by a well, exhausted, thirsty and hungry, but who now thought that he was in a place where he felt safe by a well, an object of refreshment and relief.

Yet we find that this man Moses still had something of the fight for justice left in him because we read in Exodus 2:16-17 that the daughters of Reuel, a Midianite priest, came down to water their father’s sheep but were driven away by the shepherds. Up jumps Moses who helps the daughters of Reuel to complete their task of watering their father’s sheep.

Moses still stood up for injustice even after his escape from Egypt.

Our story of Moses’ early life ends with Reuel, the Midianite priest, welcoming Moses into his family, giving Zipporah his daughter to Moses as his wife, they had children and I guess Moses thought that this was his life, no more confrontation, no more fleeing, just me, my family and sheep. How wrong could he have been, God had other plans. God always has “other” plans for the men or women who have a heart for justice. The question is do we want to get involved in God’s plans?

It is said of Moses

40 Years being a somebody

40 Years being a nobody

40 Years of what God can do when somebody becomes a nobody.

So who is this Moses, a somebody who became a nobody who God rebuilt into a somebody for Him? 

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