Egypt: Moses In Midian, Part 6.
Last month we read that Moses, this “good” child, became the son of the Pharaoh’s daughter. Exodus 2:11-14 goes on to tell us this, “ Now it came about in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his fellow Hebrews and looked at their hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his fellow Hebrews. So he looked this way and that, and when he saw that there was no one around, he struck and killed the Egyptian, and hid his body in the sand. Now he went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews were fighting with each other; and he said to the offender, “Why are you striking your companion?” But he said, “Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and said, “Surely the matter has become known! When Pharaoh heard about this matter, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well.”
Did we not see this with Abraham’s servant? Genesis 24: 11-14, “He made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water when it was evening, the time when women go out to draw water. And he said, “Lord, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. Behold, I am standing by the spring, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water; now may it be that the young woman to whom I say, ‘Please let down your jar so that I may drink,’ and who answers, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels also’—may she be the one whom You have appointed for Your servant Isaac; and by this I will know that You have shown kindness to my master.”
We also saw that Jacob met Rachel by the well in Genesis 29:1-3,9, “Then Jacob set out on his journey, and went to the land of the people of the east. He looked, and saw a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep were lying there beside it, because they watered the flocks from that well. Now the stone on the mouth of the well was large. When all the flocks were gathered there, they would roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep. Then they would put the stone back in its place on the mouth of the well. ‘While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherdess.”
Hebrews 11: 25-27 says, “It was by faith that Moses, when he grew up, refused to be treated as the grandson of the king, but chose to share ill-treatment with God’s people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin. He thought that it was better to suffer for the promised Messiah than to own all the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking forward to the great reward that God would give him. And it was because he trusted God that he left the land of Egypt and wasn’t afraid of the king’s anger.”
Moses knew his heritage and he chose his people over the people of Egypt. This did not just happen, No! Moses had a calling from God, just like Joseph. Joseph told his brother this in Genesis 50:19-20, “Do not be afraid, for am I in God’s place? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to keep many people alive.”
This was so for Moses, for he too saved a people, but first Moses had to leave Egypt for a while.
The writer of Hebrews knew that Moses did not know about the sufferings of Messiah, but he did, and he likened Moses to the Messiah.
Exodus 2:16-22 continues. “Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters; and they came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. Then the shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and helped them and watered their flock. When they came to their father Reuel, he said, “Why have you come back so soon today?” They said, “An Egyptian saved us from the shepherds, and what is more, he even drew water for us and watered the flock.” So he said to his daughters, “Where is he then? Why is it that you have left the man behind? Invite him to have something to eat.” And Moses was willing to live with the man. And he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses. Then she gave birth to a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, “I have been a stranger in a foreign land.”
So let’s look at this closer. Midian was east of the Jordan River. The Midianites were descended from Midian, a son of Abraham through his concubine Keturah (Genesis 25:1-6). Remember it was the Midianites who pulled Joseph out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites who took him to Egypt.
In the book of Judges it seems to support the idea that the Midianites merged with Israel, especially the Kenites. The Kenites were the descendants of Jethro, the Midianite priest. According to Judges 1:16, The descendants of Moses’ father-in-law, the Kenite, went up from the City of Palms (Jericho) with the men of Judah to live among the people of the Desert of Judah in the Negev near Arad.
Later, the wife of a man named Heber the Kenite played a major role in the Israelite victory commemorated in the “Song of Deborah.” Heber’s wife Jael lured the Canaanite commander Sisera into her tent and assassinated him in his sleep. The Bible preserves a lengthy poem describing the event, which declares: “Most blessed of women be Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, most blessed of tent-dwelling women” (Judges 5:24). Later, when King Saul is commanded by God to destroy the Amalekites, among whom some of the Kenites dwell, the Kenites are spared by being given a warning to move away from the Amalekites before the slaughter begins (1 Samuel 15:6).
So now that we know about the Midianites let’s consider Moses. Like Joseph, Moses also dressed and looked like an Egyptian, and he also spoke their language, and like Joseph, Moses married a girl whose father was a priest. Reuel’s name means “friend of God” and when he took in Moses, he surely was a friend of God. But there seems to be a conflict in Scriptures for in one place they call him Reuel (Exodus 2) and in another place they call him Jethro (Exodus 18:1-18) and still in another place they call him Hobab (Judges 4:11). Some believe that Reuel was the grandfather to the girls, and that Hobab was Reuel’s son.
According to Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld, there are also those who suggest that Reuel was not Moses’s father-in-law but his grandfather-in-law, Jethro’s father – as implied by “Hobab son of Reuel” of Numbers 10:29. Although when Moses first arrived and helped water the family flocks the Torah states that the girls returned to “Reuel their father,” that might be because young children will often call their grandfather “abba” which is father (Sifri Numbers 10:29).
Exodus 2:23-25, “Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage ascended to God. So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them.”
Because this took place in the Prehistoric Era, it is hard to determine the timeline of all of these events. Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg, a Senior Fellow at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, published an article in the Jerusalem Post in 2015 suggesting that the Hebrews were enslaved for a wave of building projects instituted by Akhenaten, an iconoclastic but unpopular ruler. Upon his death, the crown passed to his son-in-law Tutankhaten, later called Tutankhamun. In about 1325 BCE Tutankhamun was forcibly succeeded by his general Horemheb. This also fits in well with the fall of the walls of Jericho, which its British excavator Kathleen Kenyon placed during the fourteenth century BCE. David Rohl‘s 1995 A Test of Time revised Egyptian history by shortening the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt by almost 300 years. As a result, the synchronisms with the Biblical narrative results in the Second Intermediate Period when King Dedumose II, who died in 1690 BCE, as the pharaoh of the Exodus.
Whomever he was, this Pharaoh died and God is about to send Moses back to Egypt.
Next month we will continue with the story of Moses.
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