20. “In which time Moses was born, and was exceeding fair, and nourished up in his father’s house three months.”
Moses was the deliverer God would use to bring His beloved people out of Egypt’s slavery. How fair (or, lovely [JND]) he was to God. Amram and Jocabed’s faith shone brightly. Seeing Moses as God saw him, they diligently and lovingly nourished him for those three critically important months.
Christian parents have very little time with their precious lambs before the world begins to exert its influence—attempting to claim them for its own selfish, godless purposes. May each Christian family see to it that their home is a place of nourishment for their beloved children.
21. “And when he was cast out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him up, and nourished him for her own son.”
In his father’s house, Moses was nourished for God’s glory and the blessing of His people. In the palace of Pharaoh’s daughter, he was nourished according to her desires and for the good of Egypt. For which world are we seeking to nourish our children and our younger brethren?
22. “And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.”
Moses had two natural abilities most valued by the world—eloquence and courage. Added to this, Egypt taught him its special wisdom—a wisdom so advanced that it engineered and constructed the great pyramids. Moses had gained every quality necessary to become a “productive member of society.” One possessing such abilities as he might go far, making a great name for himself in this world.
23. “And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel.”
Here we find the faith of Moses’s parents rewarded. When the time of testing came—full forty years old—Moses visits his brethren. With all of Egypt’s wisdom and advantages, his heart had been attached to God’s people—his people. Moses desires to leave Egypt’s fair courts to visit a poor, enslaved people.
24. “And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian.”
All too often, we, like Moses, seek to do a right thing in a wrong way. Love for his brethren caused Moses to seek to deliver the oppressed from his persecutor. But he had not God’s guidance in the way he sought to deliver his brother.
25. “For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not.”
The people of God rejected Moses, when he would have delivered them, not understanding the desire of his heart for their good. The Jewish leaders, rather than believing Stephen’s words and finding true deliverance, through hardness of heart didn’t understand God’s desire to deliver them from a bondage far worse than Israel experienced in Egypt.
26. “And the next day he showed himself unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?”
Not only did Moses desire to see his brethren delivered from slavery, but he desired their happy oneness. “How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity” (Psa. 133:11<<A Song of degrees of David.>> Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! (Psalm 133:1)). The desire for liberty and unity for the people of God ought to animate each servant of Christ.
27. “But he that did his neighbor wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?”
The guilty seeks to justify himself, even as the guilty leaders of Israel sought to justify their horrible sin against the Lord Jesus by seeking to silence Stephen. The blinded eyes of the Israelite slave were an apt picture of the blinded eyes of the nation of Israel. Rather than seeing in Moses and in Christ deliverers who would have freed them from bondage, they only see a ruler and a judge.
28. “Wilt thou kill me, as thou didst the Egyptian yesterday?”
A bad conscience and a hardened heart accuse the blesser with bringing death rather than deliverance. But it is the wages of sin which bring death. And the nation of Israel had sinned in the most horrible way possible—slaying the Lord of glory—the Messiah—who came to deliver His people from their sins. Rather than repenting, the nation, as did the Israelite in Moses’s day, rejected the only One who could deliver them from their bondage.
29-30. “Then fled Moses at this saying, and was a stranger in the land of Madian, where he begat two sons. And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sina an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush.”
If the blindness of the nation of Israel was so great that it did not allow the Lord to do many mighty works—did not allow Him to bring them into blessing at that time—there still would be fruit. Christ, the perfect antitype of Joseph was that true “fruitful bough . . . whose branches run over the wall.” Thus the Gentiles are brought into blessing through His rejection by Israel.
But God was still working with His beloved earthly people: The bush was burning but not consumed.
31-32. “When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight: and as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came unto him, saying, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Then Moses trembled, and durst not behold.”
The God of the Patriarchs was sustaining Israel through its trials and suffering in Egypt. The bush which burned but was not consumed was a picture of the fiery trials through which they passed.
Moses showed an appropriate fear of God. When God, in the person of the Son, walked among His beloved people, the nation collectively showed no such fear of God in their blinded hatred and rejection of the Lord Jesus. Those who looked with the eye of faith saw who it was that stood in their midst.
33. “Then said the Lord to him, Put off thy shoes from thy feet: for the place where thou standest is holy ground.”
Nothing from within himself could ever provide man with the ability to stand in God’s holy presence. If Moses were to stand there and if he were to serve God acceptably, he must learn that his shoes (man’s ability to serve) were of no value—rather they were an offense to the presence of holy God.
Ed.