So Moses fled to Midian, in which country God had deeper mysteries to teach him than could be acquired by all the wisdom of the Egyptians.
Little is known of the land of Midian. It formed part of the mountainous peninsula of Horeb. In former years much of the district between Horeb and Canaan was well cultivated, and many a valley now waste and desolate was fruitful and full of life. The Midianites, like the Israelites, were descended from Abraham, and they had attained some degree of civilization. They traded with Egypt, and there was a caravan route through Canaan to their country some centuries older than the time we are now considering (Gen. 37:2525And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmeelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. (Genesis 37:25)).
Having reached Midian, Moses sat down by a well situated in a place of pasture. This well was used by the shepherds for watering the flocks, and presently seven shepherdesses drew near. The shepherds drove them away from the coveted water, whereupon Moses stood up, held back the shepherds, and then drew water for these daughters of Jethro.
To this day the daughters of wealthy chiefs take the part of shepherdesses, or perform similar duties, and the people are hospitable as they were in the days of old. We are not, therefore, surprised that Jethro sent for the Egyptian who had so valiantly assisted his daughters. And in his house Moses found a home. In Midian, as we have said, he learned deep lessons, one of which was to distrust his own right arm, and to know, at the close of forty years of sojourn, by divine teaching who was Jehovah.
Strange indeed it is, that the chief record of the forty long years spent by Moses in Midian, is the fact that he called his son by the Egyptian name Gershom, which means banishment, “for,” said he, “I have been a stranger in a strange land.” Even the name of his second son, born in Midian, is not mentioned in the book of Exodus until Moses had led Israel out of Egypt. Forty long years of schooling, and yet hardly a word said about this one-third of Moses’ life! At the close of the forty years, as the summer’s heat parched the herbage of the lower valleys, the shepherd of Midian sought in the higher parts of Horeb food and water for his flock, and thus Moses led Jethro’s sheep to the mountain slopes for food, then, it is supposed, rich in pasture. This region still affords a scanty pasturage, and a shrubby acacia still grows here and there, so that some of the smaller details, as well as the broad features of the country, are the same now as they were in the time of Moses.
Names cling to localities in a most remarkable manner in the East – there is a valley above which Sinai towers, which is still called Wady Sho’eib, or Jethro’s Valley, and it lies close to the mass called Jebel Musa, or Moses’ Mountain! But a nobler name belongs to that mountain – Horeb, the Mount of God.
In the solitudes of Horeb a sight greater than mountains met the eye of Moses – a bush burned with fire, and yet was not consumed. “I will now turn aside and see this great sight,” said he, “why the bush is not burned.” What meant the miracle? An insignificant bush burning, and yet not consumed. It is a sight few turn aside to see, yet in all ages, the tried and afflicted people of God are like that acacia bush, burning, but not consumed! And it was the wood of the acacia which the divine architect of the Tabernacle of the wilderness selected to portray in symbol the human nature of His Christ. For “in all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them: in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bare them, and carried them all the days of old” (Isa. 63:99In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old. (Isaiah 63:9)).
When the Lord saw that Moses turned aside, He called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses.” This familiar repetition of name, found in both New Testament and Old, enables us to recognize in the Speaker, Jehovah-Jesus. The first lesson Moses learned was the holiness of the Speaker: “Take thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.”
Moses could now know why the bush was not consumed God was in the midst of the flame. God was in and with Israel in their furnace of affliction; He May we not think that when Moses heard the word “broad,” his mind reverted to the narrow strip of cultivated land on the borders of which, forty years previously, his right hand had been lifted up to deliver Israel, and his hopes had been broken?
Jehovah’s arm would gain the desired freedom, but when Moses was told he should be the deliverer, and was bidden of the Lord to visit Pharaoh, and bring Israel up out of Egypt, he replied, “Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?” He had not yet learned to find in Jehovah’s arm the power of deliverance.
“Certainly I will be with thee,” was the divine answer, and the assurance was given, “When thou hast brought the people out of Egypt, thou shalt serve God upon this mountain.”
But Moses, once so eager to free Israel, was hesitating and halting. He had learned to distrust himself; he had not learned to trust God. He made objections founded partly on his former failure. How should Israel know that he was indeed their deliverer? They had not recognized him as such forty years previously; he had not been received when of the royal palace, why should he be accepted when but a shepherd of Midian?
The answer was remarkable. In no sense because he was Moses, but altogether because God is what He is. The reason lay in God’s attributes and character; “I AM THAT I AM.” What He had promised He would surely perform. Forty, nay, eighty, years before, God the Unchangeable and the Almighty had marked out Moses for the deliverer of Israel, and the lapse of time cannot affect Him who ever is I Am. The gods and the very kings of ancient Egypt had usurped the name of “the doer of all things,” which is remarkably like that of almighty. Kings died and gods changed, but our God is Most High, above all gods; almighty; absolute in power; and from everlasting to everlasting ever the same. He acts from Himself because He is what He is, and thus does He take up His people and redeem them.
But Moses was not satisfied. Then Jehovah gave him three signs as his credentials to Israel. The first, his rod cast down upon the ground became a serpent, and the serpent being grasped by its tail reverted again into a rod. The second, his hand thrust into his bosom became leprous, and when returned to his bosom again became clean. The third, the water of the Nile being poured upon the dry ground should become blood – this sign could only be wrought in Egypt.
The rod in the East is emblematic of authority and power. Indeed, even in our country this significance still lingers in connection with it, the rod of office not having altogether died out. The old monuments of Egypt in hundreds of cases have gods and men with scepter-like rods in their hands. But we can have no doubt that the particular instruction relative to the rod referred to the deity’s possession of it. Perhaps every god is portrayed as holding the peculiar rod of the deity in the Egyptian monuments. Satan had the power and the authority, and Jehovah would commit these to Moses as His servant, and frequently, as the story proceeds, Moses is said to have the rod of God. Upon the temples of Egypt the serpent was everywhere portrayed. The first divine sign was manifest, the rod of God in the hand of the deliverer should obtain the victory. The serpent’s power should be nullified before Jehovah.
When Moses cast his rod upon the ground up rose the form of the cobra, the uraeus, the specific serpent adopted in Egypt as the emblem of majesty, and, as it reared itself and hissed against him, Moses fled before it! On the one hand, the bush burned with fire, and yet was not consumed – Israel still held its own though in the furnace of affliction, for Jehovah was with them; on the other hand, the majesty of Egypt had the mastery, and Israel fled before it. But when Moses, at Jehovah’s bidding, took hold of the serpent by its tail, and held within his grasp the rod of God, the symbols on Horeb proclaimed not only divine care for Israel in their affliction, but divine power to deliver them.
The second token was also of apparent signification. Leprosy figures sin. Man’s hand is unclean, and as placed upon the breast at the divine bidding symbolizes actions and secret thoughts as sinful. But God, who discovers to man his uncleanness, is able also to cleanse. He gave to Moses a hand arid heart clean and pure, and wherewith to use His rod, wherewith to fulfill the trust committed to him.
As for the third token, the Nile was the very life of Egypt; this, by the sign of God, should become death. The life of Egypt as in Moses’ own case, Pharaoh had willed should be the death of Jehovah’s Israel; now God would turn that life into death in His judgment upon the land of Israel’s bondage.
Satan’s power vanquished, the leprosy of the flesh cleansed, the true character of the world manifested; Satan, the flesh, and the world are to be seen in these three signs.
But Moses halted still. God’s Name, and God’s signs were not what he wanted exactly; he expected something in himself which should witness to his fitness for his work. “O my Lord,” he said, “I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant!” “O my Lord, send, I pray Thee, by the hand of him whom Thou wilt send.”
Thus did one of the very greatest of God’s servants grieve God. He was angry at the unbelief, but mercifully stooped to the weakness of His servant, and joined Aaron with him to effect the deliverance He had designed for Israel.