Moses was born and grew up in the land of Egypt where his people were slaves. Pharaoh, the wicked king of Egypt, had ordered that all the little boy babies should be thrown in the river Nile. However, Moses’ father and mother placed their tiny son in an ark of bulrushes instead, and placing him on the river, they trusted God to take care of him. And God did take care of him, for when Pharaoh’s daughter found him in the river, he was spared and became her son.
Moses grew up in the king of Egypt’s court and was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. However, his heart was with his brethren groaning under their cruel taskmasters, and the time came when he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. One day he did what God never told him to do; he slew an Egyptian who was smiting one of his brethren. When Pharaoh heard it, he sought to slay Moses, and Moses fled from Egypt into the desert.
Poor Moses was now an exile. How sad and lonely he must have felt, far from home out there in the desert all alone! But God was watching over him, and one day as he sat by a well, some young ladies came to the well to water their father’s flock. They were the daughters of Jethro, the priest of Midian. Other shepherds who also came to water their flocks would drive the young women away so they could water their flocks first. But Moses stood up and protected the young ladies and watered their flocks for them.
Their father was surprised that they got home so early that day, and they told him that a young man, an “Egyptian,” had delivered them out of the hands of the shepherds and watered their flock for them.
“Why is it that ye have left the man?” he said. “Call him.” And so Moses came and dwelt with Jethro and his family. One of the young ladies, Zipporah, became Moses’ wife, and a dear little son was born into their home. They called him Gershom, for Moses said, “I have been a stranger in a strange land.”
For forty years Moses kept his father-in-law’s flock in the desert, and during that time Pharaoh died. Then God sent Moses back to Egypt to lead His people out of the land of their bondage, across the wilderness to their own true homeland, Canaan.
Moses was a faithful servant of God all his life, and there was no one in Israel like unto him, “whom the Lord knew face to face.”
ML-02/26/1978