Thursday, we wrote about Egypt’s culture of death. Today we see that Moses, God’s future deliverer, didn’t escape it. First, God has a sense of humor. Recall from Exodus 1 that all male Hebrew babies were to be thrown into the Nile.

Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him. When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.” (Exodus 2.1 – 10, ESV)

Moses’ mother is paid to raise her own child, probably for 2 – 3 years! Long enough to teach him about God and his heritage. Moses grows up in Pharaoh’s palace, and there, apparently, he picks up some of the culture of death:

One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. (Exodus 2.11, 12, ESV)

Have you ever killed anyone? I haven’t. I’m not sure I would know how unless I had a gun in my hand. Moses didn’t have a weapon unless, perhaps, he carried a knife. But, boom!, there’s a problem. “Someone is beating ‘my people.’ What to do? I know…kill the dastardly dude.” Moses is a product of a culture of death, especially as it concerns being in Pharaoh’s family. I’m sure he observed many times that when Pharaoh has a problem with someone, he killed him. (Compare Genesis 40.20 – 23.)

In fact, the text says that’s Pharaoh’s go-to solution:

When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. (Exodus 2.15, ESV)

Off to a rocky start. Moses meant well, but there was one basic problem: after he killed the Egyptian, he challenged a Hebrew:

When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?” He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us…?” (Exodus 2.13, 14, ESV)

The problem was that Moses is the one who made himself “a prince and judge over us,” not God. So Moses flees to Midian, the desert, and takes up sheep-herding – the profession of his ancestors. God salvages the operation, of course. Good stuff to come…

By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. (Hebrews 11.23 – 25, ESV)