Moses: His Search for Identity

KEY VERSE: “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” —Hebrews 11:24,25

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Exodus 2:11-22

IN THE New Testament, Stephen informs us that when Moses was “full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel.” (Acts 7:23) Paul states the matter more dramatically in our text. The Lord had revealed to Moses before he presented himself to his brethren the first time that he was to be their deliverer from bondage. It was then that he slew one of the Egyptian taskmasters, because, “he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them; but they understood not.”—Acts 7:25; Exod. 2:11,12

It was when Moses went out among his brethren, the Israelites, the next day, and intervened in a quarrel between two of them, that he learned that his slaying of the Egyptian slave master was known to others. Indeed, it soon became known to Pharaoh, and because of it Moses was obliged to flee from Egypt. It had all come about because he had decided to cast in his lot with his brethren.

He had confidence in the promises of God, the God of his fathers. He believed that a great Deliverer, the Messiah, the promised seed, would eventually come. Because of this, as Paul explains, he esteemed “the reproach of Christ [the reproach, that is, associated with belief in the messianic promises] greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.”

Moses believed the promises of God; he was determined to be loyal to them no matter what the cost. However he did not realize what a strange turn the providences of God would take. God had revealed to him that he would be the deliverer of his people; but because he went about to accomplish it in his own way he was forced to flee from the country, and he lived as a refugee in the land of Midian for forty years.

As a result of his kindness in assisting the daughters of Jethro, the priest (margin, prince) of Midian, Moses was taken into his home, and later married one of his daughters, Zipporah. To him was born a son, whom he named Gershon, which means, ‘a stranger here’. Moses gave his son this name because, as he said, “I have been a stranger in a strange land.”—Exod. 2:11-22; 3:1

During those forty years in Midian, doubtless many times Moses thought of his people in Egypt and perhaps wondered when and how God would fulfill his promise to them. They were not unprofitable years for Moses, because he was learning to wait on the Lord, and to realize that by his own strength, and in his own way, he could do nothing for his brethren.

“It came to pass in process of time,” the record states, “that the king of Egypt died.” (Exod 2:23) This was the king, or Pharaoh, whose daughter adopted Moses, and from whom Moses fled after killing the Egyptian overseer. His death is noted to indicate that the way was now open for Moses to return to accomplish the task which God had designed for him.

Meanwhile the burdens of the Israelites were being increased, and they “sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.”—vss. 23-25

In Midian, Moses “kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, … and he had led the flock to the back side of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.” (Exod. 3:1) Here “the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.”—vss. 2,3

Then the Lord spoke to Moses out of the burning bush, saying, “Moses, Moses,” and he answered, “Here am I.” (vs. 4) Moses was instructed to remove his shoes, for the place whereon he stood was holy ground—made holy for the time being by the presence of the Lord, who, through the angel, was to give Moses his initial instructions regarding the deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage.

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