Exodus 2

Chap. II. Ver. 1—25. Moses born, and saved by Pharaoh’s daughter.—We have here a very striking instance of the wisdom of Divine Providence, in counteracting the craft and cruelty of man. There seems nothing very remarkable in the means taken to preserve the life of Moses; they were the natural observe and pity the child, whom her father’s cruelty had doomed to death, must strike us as a very providential circumstance; as, by that means, the very man who was destined to deliver Israel, was nourished and educated in the king’s palace, and obtained r; that eminence of Egyptian learning, which was highly important in his future office; and which, as the son of Amram, he was not otherwise likely to obtain.

The personal beauty also of the child, which attracted the admiration of the Egyptian princess, no less than his forlorn condition excited her pity, must be solely ascribed to Providence; for St. Stephen tells us he was exceeding fair. ((Acts 7:20-22).) Josephus, who corroborates this circumstance, adds an anecdote, which seems worth preserving, though founded only on tradition. The Jewish historian tells us, that the princess had adopted Moses as her heir, and so introduced him to the king her father, who, being charmed with his appearance, placed a diadem on his head, which, in a childish pet, he threw down and trampled on. This led the sacred scribe, who was present, very naturally to predict the ruin of the empire, if he were not destroyed; and from this fate it was with difficulty that he was rescued by the princess.

(Josephus, Antiq. book i. Chap. 10.) Another circumstance occurred, after he had attained maturity, which afresh endangered his life, and obliged him to leave Egypt. Though educated in the palace, “he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter;” his heart yearned over the miseries of his brethren; he visited the house of Israel and “looked upon” their misery. Here he saw an Egyptian, probably a taskmaster, smiting, or scourging, one of his brethren; and conceiving this a proper opportunity to give them an intimation of his design and character, he rescued the sufferer, and slew the oppressor. On the following day he saw strife even among his brethren, and undertook the part of a mediator, but they rejected him.

By these actions he expected that “his brethren would have known that God by his hand would deliver them;” but they understood not his design, and rejected his interference. In consequence of these circumstances becoming known, however, he was obliged to flee to the land of Midian, where an act of gallantry (if we may use a term so much abused) towards the daughters of the priest and prince of Midian (similar to that of Jacob to Rachel, (Genesis 29:10).) procured him an asylum and employment, which afforded him the opportunity of much study and reflection during the time he there resided—an advantage not always duly appreciated by young persons intended for public life. During this time he married Zipporah, his master’s daughter, who appears to have been a Cushite and had a son by her, called Gershom, “a desolate stranger,” as Pierre in the margin.

God, however, had not forgotten Israel. Their cruel oppressor, the king of Egypt, died, and they now sighed by reason of their bondage, and cried to heaven for mercy; the burden of their prayer being, perhaps, not so much for deliverance as for a milder prince, and an easier yoke, neither of which were granted; for the next king, (probably Amenophis, son of Miamun) being educated in the same despotic principles, pursued the same course of tyranny; and having reduced the children of Israel to a state the most abject which can be well conceived, he was determined to keep them in that condition. But “God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant; and God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them;” or (as the margin reads) knew them, and owned them.—Yes, though they had rejected the deliverer whom he had sent, and occasioned his banishment to a strange land, even there he was in a course of preparation to be their deliverer and legislator. The same eye which watched and pitied them in their affliction, guided him to prepare for their deliverance, and the time was now at hand.

Chap. III. Ver. 1—22. Moses commissioned to deliver Israel.—It was while Moses was tending his flock that he was favoured with this sacred call. Bishop Hall here remarks, “God never graces the idle with his visions. When he finds us in our callings, we find him in the tokens of his mercy.” But what does Moses see? A bush burning, and not consumed!

What does he hear? A voice from the middle of the burning bush. Let us, then, turn aside with him. “When I look upon this burning bush with Moses,” says the author just quoted, “methinks I can never see a worthier and more lively emblem of the Church, (which is ever) in the furnace, yet wasteth not. Since then, (when Israel was in Egypt) how often hath it been flaming, (yet) never consumed? The same power that enlightens, preserves it; and to none but his enemies, is God a consuming fire.” Moses hears a voice ordering him to approach, but not too near. “We come to God when we meditate on the great mysteries of his word; we come too near him when we search into his counsels. The sun and the fire say of themselves, Come not too near: how much more the light, which no man can attain unto?”

“Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.” The Lord, however, condescends to talk and reason with him: “Come now, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh.” “But who am I,” (says Moses,) “that I should go to Pharaoh, or deliver Israel?” An humble sense of our own deficiency is the best preparation for usefulness in the work of God. “Certainly I will be with thee,” saith the Lord. “But what shall I say to them?” rejoins Moses. If I say, “the God of your fathers hath sent me,” alas! they are sunk in ignorance and vice, through the slavery to which they have been reduced: they have forgotten the God of their fathers; and if they ask me what his name is, what shall I say? “Say that I am, the God Jehovah, hath sent thee” unto them.

And to Pharaoh, say, “The Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go (we beseech thee) three days into the wilderness, (as far as mount Horeb,) that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.” This was to be their first request; and it was to be made, not with the expectation of its being granted, (for God knew the heart of Pharaoh,) but that it might open a way for displaying the divine glory: “and after that,” says the Almighty, “he will let you go; and ye shall not go empty.” Here we may remark, that the secret plans of Divine Providence interfere not with his commands. That the Lord foresaw the obduracy of Pharaoh, was no reason that he should forbear his commands. Wo be to the world, if masters forfeited their right of obedience, whenever servants proved rebellious and perverse. The authority of God is not lost even in hell; nor is the sin of disobedience lessened.

Notes on the verses

Chap. II. Ver. 2. Bare a son.—This was not her first child, for Aaron, his brother, was three years older, ((Exodus 7:7).) and his sister Miriam, who stood by to watch what became of him, (ver. 4.) must have been still older.—A goodly child.—The Hebrew reads sisopl7, “She saw him, that he was good.” The LXX. read asteion, handsome, beautiful; to which St. Stephen adds, toward God; which our translators render, “exceeding fair;” but Dr. Doddridge thinks it might not, unfitly be rendered “divinely beautiful.” and Philo speak much of his beauty; and many of the Rabbins say, he had the form of “an angel.” It also appears by Justin, that the fame of his beauty spread even among the heathen.

Ver. 3. An ark of bulrushes.—Gome, is the papyrus, so famous in all antiquity. It grows on the banks of the Nile, and in marshy grounds; the stalk rises to the height of six or seven cubits above the water, is triangular, and terminates in a crown of small filaments, resembling hair. ‘This reed was of the greatest use to the Egyptians, the pith serving them for food, and the woody part to build vessels with; which vessels frequently appear on various monuments of Egyptian antiquity. ‘That boats were made of this reed is also attested by Pliny, Theophrastus, Plutarch, Herodotus, and Lucan, who says, the Memphian boat is constructed from the soaking papyrus;” where the epithet bibwila exactly corresponds to the Hebrew gome, which, as a verb, is to soak, drink up.—Bagster.

Bruce says, the Abyssinians employ these rushes for the same purpose, to the present day.

Ver. 5. Came down to wash.—The Egyptians, especially females, express their veneration for the Nile by bathing in it when it begins to rise; not naked, but in bathing dresses. Irwin saw a band of damsels go down, with singing and dancing, for that purpose.—Harmer. [As the word herself is not in the original, Dr. A. Clarke is of opinion, that it was for the purpose of washing, not her person, but her clothes, that Pharaoh’s daughter came to the river; which was an employment not beneath even many daughters in those primitive times. Homer represents Nausicaa, daughter of Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians, in company with her maidens, employed at the sea side in washing her own clothes and those of her five brothers, when they find Ulysses driven ashore after being shipwrecked.

The whole scene is so perfectly like that before us, that they appear to be parallels.]—Bagster.

Ver. 12. He slew the Egyptian.—(If the Egyptian killed the Hebrew, Moses only acted agreeably to the divine law ((Genesis 9:6).) in thus slaying the Egyptian, nor did he violate the law of Egypt; for, according to Diodorus Siculus, he who saw a man killed, or violently assaulted on the highway, and did not endeavour to rescue him, if he could, was punished with death.) Moses, therefore, in this transaction, acted as a brave and good man; especially as at this time there was little probability of obtaining justice on an Egyptian murderer.

Ver. 16. The priest (or prince) of Midian.—The priest of every district was, no doubt, in general, the most considerable man in it, and therefore esteemed a prince among them.

There is no proof that he was an idolater; but if he were, it is clear that he renounced idolatry. See (Exodus 18:10-12).

Ver. 18. Reuel their father.—In (Numbers 10:29). he is called Raguel, which is only a different pronunciation. In (Exodus 3:1). he is supposed to be called Jethro; in (Judges 4:11). Hobab; and in (Judges 1:16). Kenyi, or the Kenite. Dr. Clarke thinks it most probable that Reuel (as he pronounces it) was father to Hobab, who was Jethro; and Moses having now been forty years in Midian it is probable that Reuel was now dead.

Ver. 21. Zipporah his daughter.—The Targum calls her his “grand-daughter,” for she was the daughter of Jethro. (See last note.) It is certain the Hebrews were not particular in distinguishing the different shades of relationship.

Thus Nebuchadnezzar is termed Belshazzar’s father, though Belshazzar was his grandson.—Cruden.

Ver. 22. In a strange land.—[The LXX. in the Complutensian Polyglott, and several MSS., Vulgate, Syriac, Coptic, and Arabic, add, “And the name of the second he called Eliezer; for the God of my father has been my help, and delivered me from the hand of Pharaoh.”]—Bagster.

Ver. 23. The king of Egypt died.—That is, Rameses Miamun, who was succeeded by his son Amenophis II.—Dr. Clarke.

Chap. III. Ver. 1. The flock of Jethro, his father-in-law.—The Hebrew choten, here rendered father, Dr. Clarke would render brother-in-law. He remarks, “It seems to be a general term for a (any) relative by marriage.”

The mountain of God, Horeb.—At other times called Sinai. The mountain of one was called Horeb, the other Sinai; the latter name originated from the bush (Seneh,) in which the flame appeared.—Dr. Clarke.

Ver. 5. Put off thy shoes, or sandals.—This is a very ancient practice in worship; not Moses only, but Pythagoras enjoins it. Among the Greeks, no person was admitted to the temple of Diana, in Crete, with shoes on. All Mahometans, Brahmins, and Parsees, worship barefooted to the present day.

Ver. 6. God of thy father.—Though the word avicha, “thy father,” is here used in the singular, yet St. Stephen, quoting this place, ((Acts 7:32).) uses the plural, “the God of our fathers,” and that this is the meaning, the following words prove.

This reading is confirmed by the Samaritan and Coptic.

Ver. 8. A large land.—Canaan was so, compared to Goshen.—Milk and honey.—These were the chief dainties of the ancients, as they are now among the Arabs, particularly the Bedouins, who express the happiness of a rich man by this proverb; “he sleeps with his mouth upon a honey-comb.”—Oriental.

Ver. 14. I am that I am.—More literally, “I will be (Ekeyeh) what I will be.” Dr. Boothroyd renders it, “I Am because I AM.” In every way it implies self-existence and independence; and is equivalent to the name JEHOVAH, which follows in the next verse. Diodorus Siculus says, Moses received his laws from the God Jao, which seems to be from JHVE, the tetragrammaton, or name of four letters, which is no other than the Hebrew of Jehovah without points, from whence they derived the name of Jove.

See Dr. Clarke. I am, because God is independent, uncreated, immutable, eternal, always, and every where the same, and therefore HE only can be said absolutely TO BE.

Ver. 15. My name for ever.—The name here referred to is that which immediately precedes, JEHOVAH, which we translate Lord, the name by which God had been known from the creation of the world, ((Genesis 2:2).) and by which He is known to the present day. Even the heathen knew this name of the true God, and from it formed their Jao, Jeve, Jove, and Jupiter, i.e. Jovis pater, father Jove. Jehovah, from hawah, to be, subsist, signifies He who is, or SUBSISTS, i.e. eminently and in a manner superior to all other beings; and is essentially the same with eheyeh, I AM, in the preceding verse.

Ver. 16. Gather the elders of Israel.—There is no doubt but Joseph established a regular government among them, some trace of which remained among the elders of each tribe and family.

Ver. 19. No, not by a mighty hand.—Margin, “But by a mighty hand.” The Hebrew particle wo, though literally “and not,” means sometimes if not, except, or unless, and is so translated by the Vulgate, LXX., and Coptic.

Ver. 22. Every woman shall borrow.—This last word is a most unhappy translation; and has occasioned infidel writers (as Voltaire, Paine, and others) to say, the Israelites were commanded to borrow, with a view of never paying. The Hebrew word shaal, means simply to ask, or demand, and is here so rendered by the LXX. and Vulgate. The Syriac, Chaldee, Samaritan, Coptic, and Persian, all agree with the Hebrew. So Ainsworth and all the more modern versions. See (Joshua 15:18). (Judges 5:25). It is even applied to the demands of God, (Deuteronomy 10:12). Jewels of silver, &c.—The Hebrew keley is of very large import, and might be rendered (as by Dr. Boothroyd) “articles,” including vessels, instruments, &c. And that the word rendered spoil, in the close of the verse, implies neither robbery nor injustice, is abundantly evident in its use—daughters. (Genesis 31:16).