“And when (Moses) went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian?” In this bitter taunt against himself, Moses read his rejection by his own brethren.
God’s time had not yet come for Israel to be delivered from Egypt. God would have His own way of bringing it about and that to the glory of His name and the full release of His people. The faith of Moses was precious in the sight of God, but He could not yet use him. Like Peter who had to learn that whatever might be his love for the Lord, he could not follow Him in the energy of nature, Moses must learn that only the power of God could be employed in the deliverance of His people.
Moses’ intentions were good; he loved the Lord’s people, but he went about to set things right in his own way. We are often like this, especially when we are young; we try to set things right in our own way. But let us remember we can never set the world right, and if we try we shall get into trouble like Moses did. Yet there is much we can do; only let us do it in obedience to God and His Word, and not in our own way. We rejoice to see real energy in serving the Lord, but let us be sure we are doing things according to His Word and not just what we think is right.
Perhaps Moses thought that in befriending the abused Hebrew his people would readily understand his sympathies toward them. Surely he had no thought they would spread the news of his slaying the Egyptian. However, when he returned the next day he learned that it had become generally known. “And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known.” Not only was Moses rejected by his brethren, but he was persecuted by the world, for “when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses.” Perhaps for the first time Pharaoh saw in Moses not an adopted heir, but a threat to the land of Egypt. Moses had no choice but to escape; and he “fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian.” This was northeast of the Red Sea — a hundred miles or more from Egypt. Here he was to spend the second forty-year period of his life. Certainly this desert land was not a place of his choosing, except as a way of escape from the wrathful king. How he must have wondered at the sudden turn of events! He who had considered himself the deliverer of his people, was now estranged from them. He who had dwelt in the midst of the influence, dignity and authority of the royal court of Egypt, was now an outcast, a refugee in a strange land.
Yet here it was in the ensuing years that Moses was to learn what it was to enter into a new relationship with God. Here in this back side of the desert, far from the courts of Egypt as indeed from the cries of his own people, God put him through the necessary discipline for the mighty work he was yet to accomplish.
ML 06/09/1968