Exodus

So Abraham and all his family, flocks, cattle, menservants and maidservants and everything they had, all went down to Egypt to live off the fat of the land. They were indeed fruitful and did indeed multiply.

Eventually Israel, Joseph, all his brothers, and that whole generation died off.

Well, Pharaohs come and Pharaohs go and about 250-300 years down the road a new Pharaoh was in charge. This Pharaoh never knew Joseph and didn’t care that he had saved the country or anything like that. That was a long time ago.

All he knew was these Israelites had become so numerous he was afraid they might try to take over or conspire against him in some way. So he did what any good absolute ruler would do; first he enslaved them and made their lives miserable; then he tried to outright eliminate them. But he found it was harder than he’d figured.

Finally, in his frustration, he ordered every newborn Hebrew male be thrown in the Nile River to drown. That should do it.

MOSES

 

This is the climate into which Moses was born.

According to Pharaoh, he should have been thrown into the Nile and drowned. But somehow Moses’ mother was able to hide him for three months. But when she couldn’t do it anymore she put him in a little basket and placed him in the water among the reeds in the Nile. What she expected to happen isn’t said but, as luck would have it, Pharaoh’s daughter came down to the river to take a bath.

Pharaoh’s daughter found the basket with the baby and immediately surmised it was a Hebrew baby. Rather than throw him in the river like she was supposed to, she decided to take him home and keep him as her own1 But first she needed someone to nurse him. Well, wouldn’t you know it, Moses’ real mother just happened to be nearby so she got the job.2

Eventually Moses was brought into the house of Pharaoh and raised as his daughter’s own son. How they were able to pull this off is one of the great mysteries of the Old Testament. Shouldn’t he have just been thrown in the river with all the rest of the male babies? How did Pharaoh’s daughter get away with going against her father’s direct orders? How did Pharaoh not notice his daughter had a brand new baby son? How did a Hebrew grow up in Pharaoh’s own household and nobody notice? None of this is explained.

The next thing we know, Moses is all grown up and one day he went out to “his people” and saw their oppression. How did Moses even know he was a Hebrew? He’d been brought up in the royal court, son of Pharaoh’s daughter, grandson of Pharaoh. He was totally immersed in the royal family. Again, there’s no clue but, if we’re going to be literalists, we won’t question any of this, we’ll just take the story at its word.

So Moses was out wandering around one day and saw an Egyptian beating on one of the Hebrew slaves, one of “his people”. Moses looked around, and when he thought nobody was looking, he killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand.

But it turned out somebody did see him and when Pharaoh heard about it he was out for blood. Moses hightailed it and escaped to the land of Midian, about 300 miles away, on the east side of the Gulf of Arabia, better known as the Red Sea.

On the way, Moses helped some girls, saving them from some shepherds with bad intent. As it turned out these girls were the daughters of Jethro, the priest of Midian. Being a grateful father, Jethro gave Moses one of his daughters for a wife and she bore him a son named Gershom.

During his time in Midian, Pharaoh and the people who were looking for Moses all died off.

1 And hide him from her dad

2 Nobody put 2 and 2 together and wondered why a lactating Jew would just happen to be right where abandoned Jewish baby was found

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