Exodus 1-2

1. Exodus 1-2 Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer

2. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • Moses intended this block of narrative to function as: • transitional introduction to the entire book of Exodus • provides a sense of continuity to some of the main themes of his first book • These Hebrews were a people who had spent hundreds of years in pagan surroundings, most of whom probably needed reintroduction even to the very identity of Yahweh (the Lord) himself. • We should remember that a considerable proportion of the people who actually arrived at Mount Sinai, after fleeing Egypt to meet with the only true and living God, were not originally Israelites at all. • They had seen the plagues, had come to believe that the Israelites were indeed a people to join with, and had taken advantage of the discomfiture of the Egyptians on the night of the Passover to join the Israelite ranks and seek freedom.

3. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • Opening Genealogy: Connecting the Story with Genesis (1:1–6) • These opening verses provide an obvious connection to what Moses said in the latter chapters of Genesis • they contain a brief recapitulation of the story of how Jacob and his sons entered Egypt and were reunited with Joseph (esp. Gen 46) • the death of Joseph in the context of his association with his brothers. • Exodus is not strictly a self-contained narrative but a segment of a narrative on a grander scale, that is, the full Pentateuch. In other words, the story continues smoothly from Genesis into Exodus.

4. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 1:1 The book begins by introducing to the reader a list of names. • Accordingly, following the common incipit naming system of ancient times, the name of the book of Exodus in Hebrew is “These are the Names” (ʾēllehšĕmôt).    • The fact that several biblical books begin with a genealogy (e.g., 1 Chr 1–9) or end with one (e.g., Ruth) is a reflection of the importance ancient Israelites placed on being able to trace their lineage, as part of understanding who they were and what their purpose was on earth. • The next stage also is anticipated in the use of yiśrāʾēl here as “sons of [the man] Israel” in contrast to its next usage in 1:7, where the same phrase, bĕnêyiśrāʾēl, will have its usual post-Genesis meaning, “Israelites,” that is, the nation, not merely an extended family. • It would be a mistake to make too much of their order. There appears to have been no established order for the names in Israelite tradition. Likewise, the way they are grouped is of no special importance. • The verse divisions are medieval so irrelevant to Moses’ original purpose.

5. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 1:5 Here the Hebrew literally says, “Thus the full offspring of the loins of Jacob was seventy souls in all,” • The first readers of the book were people who belonged to the huge exodus nation, for whom Moses composed the narrative. This little detail was a reminder of the faithfulness of God to his promises. The background of this great host was traceable to a single man’s family. • It leads nicely to the next point, made by the next verse, that is, that the special influence of Joseph that had made Jacob’s family privileged guests in Egypt was linked to Joseph’s person and position and would not continue after his death.

6. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 1:6 The book of Genesis ends (50:26) with the death of Joseph. The summary in this verse of how the Israelites settled in Egypt ends likewise. • Genesis 50:26 also notes that Joseph died at age 110, suggesting that he might have been the last of all the brothers to die. He was the next to youngest son, and 110 years is a very long life, presenting the likelihood that he outlived his brothers.

7. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • How Israel Came Under Egyptian Bondage (1:7–14) • These eight verses function as a unit in the narrative by reason of their common topic: a summary of how the Israelites went from favor to disgrace, from a protected people with government connections at the highest level to a gang of slaves laboring under severe oppression. The common reason throughout this explanatory section is their numerical growth. • Moses does not word it as might be expected, that is, that as their growth increased, they naturally experienced more oppression; rather, it was as they experienced more oppression that their growth increased. • That divine intervention would be the result is also heightened by the careful avoidance of any mention of God in these verses and, indeed, in the narrative so far. • This helps convey the sense that presumably prevailed among the Israelites in those days: it seemed as though God wasn’t around and that unless he showed up, things were not going to get better.

8. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 1:7 Most of the vocabulary of this verse hearkens to the Genesis creation story, showing that Israel was in itself a fulfillment of the creation commands (“Be fruitful … increase [multiply] … fill,” Gen 1:22, 28). • The Hebrew literally reads, “As for the Israelites, they grew, they were fruitful, they swarmed, they increased, they got powerful more and more, and the land was filled with them.” • 1:8 In this brief sentence is contained reference to a vast political and ideological shift in Egypt. • Joseph almost certainly rose to power (Gen 41–42) during the time of the Hyksos pharaohs, outsiders who had invaded and conquered Egypt. • After the expulsion of the Hyksos, an accomplishment much celebrated in Egyptian history, it is quite understandable that feeling against foreigners would run high.

9. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 1:9 It is possible that Moses heard these words when they were first spoken, since as an Egyptian princeling during his first forty years of life he presumably attended at least some of the royal court sessions. • 1:10 Here the pharaoh’s proposal for action is summarized. He called for population control of the Israelites. • The shrewd dealing he suggested is intended to prevent their becoming “more numerous.” • That became the centerpiece of all further Egyptian strategy with regard to the Israelites. It was their further growth that was portrayed as the threat, one that could not be tolerated. • This sort of propaganda has worked countless times in history. If a regime wishes to be given freedom to oppress a given group within a nation, it defines that group as an undermining force, a real danger, and potentially the agent of overthrow of the established order. The pharaoh was spouting ethnic hate propaganda of the sort still widely employed in the modern world to justify ethnic persecution and eventually genocide.

10. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 1:11 Moses’ wording of this verse implies that the pharaoh’s proposal was accepted and its implementation begun fairly rapidly—at least rapidly enough that Moses felt no need to describe any intervening developments between the proposal and its implementation. • The first step was to reorder the Israelites’ position in Egyptian society. • No longer would they be an independent people but would instead be a slave caste under the control of slave masters, and their main purpose in life would be to perform forced labor assigned to them by the Egyptians. • Their original identity had been as shepherds and contract herders in the grazing lands of northeast Egypt (Gen 46:34; 47:4–6, 27) with official recognition by the government in this role (Gen 47:6). • Next would come, gradually, a reduction also in numbers. • This would be the expected natural result of the combination of poverty and extremely hard work the Israelites were forced to endure.  

11. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • Moses mentioned the fact that during this time the Israelites were the group used to build two entire cities, Pithom and Rameses, which he described as “store cities.” • Pithomhas been commonly identified with Egyptian prtm, that is, “house of ʿTum” [= house of the god Atum], a city known to have been located somewhere to the east of WadiTumilat and thus likely where either Tel el-Maskutah or Tel er-Ratabah are known today, and possibly at or near Heliopolis. • The city of Rameses, on the other hand, is commonly thought to bear in its name the Hebrew reflex of Egyptian “house of Ramses,” but it may in fact have derived originally from riʿamsēs, meaning “Re created it/him.” It was a royal city the pharaohs of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties occupied, that is, the royal residence of the Ramessides in the delta region from about 1300 to about 1100 bc. In Gen 47:11 “Rameses” seems to function as a metonymy for the entire land of Goshen. • It is reasonable to speculate that they were built near the land of Goshen, that is, in the eastern Delta, close to the Sinai peninsula, since this was the heart of the Israelite territory and the place where the largest concentration of Israelite slave workers could be found.   • This took individual Hebrews away from their families for long periods of time

12. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 1:12–13 The oppression policy backfired. Instead of a reduced Israelite population, the Egyptians saw an Israelite population growth parallel to the intensity of the persecution. • This implies that as the early years of the attrition program went by and the population of the Israelites did not decline, the Egyptians stepped up the oppression, assuming that it needed to be more severe in order to work effectively. But the results were the opposite of what common sense expected. Over the generations the greater the oppression, the greater the growth. • Population growth virtually always results in spatial spread, and the note that “they multiplied and spread” (v. 12) confirms this. • What remedy did they have? To work the Israelites even harder (v. 13)

13. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 1:14 Moses made sure the reader cannot miss Israel’s desperate need for deliverance. • “Lives bitter,” “hard labor,” “all kinds of work,” “hard labor,” and “used them ruthlessly” follow after “worked them ruthlessly” at the end of v. 13 to hammer home the point that the situation was intolerable.   • This verse contains an important repetition of the Hebrew verbal root ʿābad, the significance of which the English reader will simply miss unless it is pointed. This word has a range of meaning in Hebrew much broader than the range of meaning of any word in English available to translate it. In its verb usages it can mean, depending on the context, “work, serve, labor” and also “perform, do, make” and also “worship, live for, be under the control of.” In its noun usages it can mean, depending on the context, “work, service, labor,” “performance, effort, accomplishment, task” and “worship, obligation, ministry.” • Later in Exodus, Moses will use the word frequently to refer to Israel’s desire to “worship/live for/be under the control of” Yahweh. • They needed to get out from under an oppressive leader so as to be under a beneficent one, no longer “serving” [ʿābad] Pharaoh but “serving” [ʿābad] God.

14. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • A New Pharaoh’s Initiative: Genocide as Population Control (1:15–22) • Now begins the penultimate stage of the forced population control program—directly killing Israelites. • It is not quite the ultimate stage because the pharaoh was at this point trying to get Israelites themselves (i.e., midwives) to kill Israelites (i.e., male newborns) subtly, whereas the ultimate state comes with v. 22, where children are killed openly by Egyptians themselves. • much time has elapsed, it is obvious the Egyptians concluded that mere oppressive labor would not reduce the Israelites’ numbers.   • The story of the midwives is a story of heroic resistance. So noteworthy was their courage that their personal names are recorded, in contrast to any of the elders of Israel (3:16, 18; 4:29) and even the pharaoh. • But again, the Egyptian plan backfires. This strategy also yielded nothing but more Israelite population growth—even within the families of the midwives, where it would not have been expected.

15. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 1:15 The Hebrew is not just mentioning the women’s names in passing but actually focusing on them. It could even be said that Moses virtually stretched out the wording employed in identification of their names for emphasis. • Why name them so overtly? The answer would appear to be that they were to be regarded as heroes in Israel’s early history—so noteworthy for their bravery in choosing to obey God rather than Pharaoh that they deserved to be remembered so that others might follow their example. • The honor thus given is all the more evident when one realizes that neither Pharaoh nor his magicians nor the elders of Israel nor any other characters save those in Jacob’s and Moses’ families are named in the first five chapters of Exodus. • Are their names symbolic? The answer is almost surely no. They are typical feminine personal names from the second half of the second millennium bc with no indication of symbolic value in the story. “Shiphrah” means something like “Dawn” or “Fair” and appears on a list of Semitic slaves in Egyptian possession as sp-ra. “Puah” means something like “Fragrant” or, perhaps, “Splendid.”70 • Both meanings connect in no way with the events described in the context. The women were named because of the power of their example in what they did for Israel in faithfulness to God, not what their names symbolize. • Shiphrah and Puah were almost surely the senior midwives, functioning as the leaders, or administrators, over an indefinite number of others.

16. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 1:16 Here we find the announcement of the penultimate stage in the murderous population control plan. Male Israelite children are to be killed at birth and, indeed, by their own midwives. • Did the pharaoh think this would be agreed to? Apparently he did, being used to obedience without question and presumably being experienced enough to know that in most circles there is no sort of evil that people will not do if there is adequate personal gain for doing it • There is nothing about delivery stools (or birth stones or birth stools or the like) in this verse. What the Hebrew says is probably quite simple: “When you help the Hebrew women to give birth, look at the genitals.” “If it is a boy, put him to death. If a girl, let her live.” • Here and in v. 15 Moses used the term “Hebrew” instead of “Israelite” to refer to the midwives. This is consistent with the general pattern in the Old Testament when Israelites are dealing with non-Israelites: people of other cultures tended to lump the Israelites together with other, related ethnic groups and refer to them via the more broadly generic term “Hebrew.” • Just as someone from Nebraska probably would not say when introducing himself in Uganda, “I’m a Nebraskan” but rather, “I’m an American,” so ancient Israelites often politely referred to themselves as “Hebrews,” in accordance with the terminology others were best acquainted with.

17. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • But why kill only the boys? • Would that not deprive the pharaoh of a workforce? • Not if the pharaoh’s plan had any level of sophistication to It • there had to be a simple criterion for killing children, and the obvious choice was between males and females. • Males are those who fight in wars, and the fear of losing in a war was the official public reason for the population control policy, so it could hardly be girls who were killed. • If enough boys were killed, women, who were dependent on men in Bible times for survival, would eventually decline in numbers. • In agrarian societies people are used to the idea of killing the male animals and keeping alive the females, whereas killing females is simply not a normal practice. • “Feared God” does not imply “believed in the true God, the God of Israel.” It also does not carry the connotation of the New Testament language in which “feared God” had come to mean “was a Gentile convert to Judaism.” In the Pentateuch “fear God” tends to mean “to be honest, faithful, trustworthy, upright, and, above all, religious.”

18. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 1:18 The king’s question was surely not dispassionate. • His clearly stated will had been defied, and he wanted an answer as to why he had not been obeyed, presumably as a prelude to executing the midwives. • 1:19 The midwives had years to prepare their answer, since they certainly knew from the start of their defiance of the pharaoh’s command that he might eventually demand an explanation • (the other option being that he would simply kill them without even giving them a chance to explain). • A theological issue is raised by the midwives’ answer: Was it a lie that God then rewarded (v. 20)

19. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 1:20–21 These verses complete the story of the midwives; and, more importantly for the overall story, they contain once again the report that nothing could stop the divinely ordained growth of the people of Israel. • Did Israelite midwives normally not have children? Apparently they did not. The evidence from the ancient world is sketchy, but these verses are worded in such a way as to suggest strongly that most midwives were women who had not been blessed with children of their own, thus enabling them to spend the required long hours out of the house both day and night that would otherwise have been difficult for women with children.

20. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 1:22 At this point the Pharaoh’s plan reached its final stage. • There was no more subterfuge, no limitation on involvement: all Egyptians were expected to join in killing all Israelite newborn boys. • The process of persecution that had begun modestly and had escalated in steps had reached its zenith, a full-blown, open, national policy of large-scale genocide against a particular ethnic group. • Why throw the boys into the Nile? Why not just kill them with knives or rocks or by dashing them on the ground or the like? • First, it was a convenient and “clean” sort of way to kill infants. It was convenient in that virtually the entire population of Egypt lived essentially on the banks of the Nile • Accordingly, the Nile served not only as the nation’s source of water and therefore wealth but like many great rivers, as its nation’s sewer, its relentless current taking away anything that was not wanted. Throwing a baby into the Nile was a lot easier and quicker, involving no cleanup and leaving no evidence, than almost any other means of killing. • Second, it shifted some of the blame because of the way the pantheistic Egyptians viewed the Nile as a god. If the Nile were to “receive” the infant, it would at least to some degree represent the god Nile’s judgment rather than that of the individual who carried out the pharaoh’s order. • A proleptic irony follows from this approach to killing the Israelite baby boys. Later God would kill large numbers of grown-up boys, that is, Egyptian soldiers, by drowning them in the Red Sea

21. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • Moses’ Birth and God’s Provision (2:1–10) • The story concerns a baby born a humble Israelite but, surprisingly, adopted as a royal Egyptian. On the other hand, it forms part of a cheering story of God’s careful provision of a deliverer for his people. • The story of his birth is thus both a prelude to his call and, in part, an indication of his call. • Although this portion of the overall narrative features Moses, it is also the story of how God used three women to save a baby from death. • It features two mothers and two daughters, with the daughter of Pharaoh in two roles, initially that of daughter and eventually also of adoptive mother. • Moses’ biological mother also figures prominently in these events as the one who not only did everything she could to preserve the life of her child, but also as the woman who ended up being able to nurse • The final major figure is this woman’s daughter, that is, Moses’ sister, who will be identified later as Miriam, one of the leaders of the exodus. • Miriam’s oversight of Moses as he floated among the rushes of the Nile and her quick thinking in proposing an Israelite nurse for the baby (knowing full well she would “recruit” his own mother) helped preserve Moses for her family and for Israel’s salvation.

22. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 2:1 The verse pointedly tells the reader that Moses was fully a Levite, that is, from Levite stock on both his father’s and his mother’s side. • 2:2 No special significance attaches to the expression “she became pregnant and gave birth to.” • It is standard hendiadys in Hebrew narrative for describing a baby coming into a family. • Special significance should, however, be noted in the pattern of its usage: this is the sixteenth and final time that Moses used the expression in the Pentateuch. He had used it fifteen times throughout Genesis to describe important births. The sixteenth usage describes his own. • The women’s role in rescuing Moses continues with the actions of his mother, later identified as Jochebed. This should not be understood to mean that Moses’ father, Amram, was not in agreement or was deceived. • As Heb 11:23 makes clear, “By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.” • The translation “she saw that he was a fine child” can be improved upon. The Hebrew idiom used here, rāʾāh + [noun or pronoun] + kı̂ ṭôb, actually means “to care about,” “to be fond of,” or “to want [to have or to keep].”

23. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 2:3 The term used here for what Moses’ mother put him in is tēbāh, found elsewhere in the Bible only in the flood story in Genesis 6–8, where it is translated “ark.” • Moses apparently was consciously drawing the reader’s attention to the fact that God, through Moses’ mother’s actions, was graciously protecting him from death by a small ark, just as God had protected Noah and the animals by a great ark in the days of the great flood. • It is hard to imagine that Moses was not keenly aware of the obvious comparison between himself and Noah. They both were deliverers/rescuers who were called by God to lead people and animals through and out of danger into a new location where those people and animals would become dominant in establishing a new stage of God’s unfolding plan of redemption of the world. • Here Jochebed would be able to retrieve her baby to nurse him and give him love when no Egyptian police/soldiers were around. But here she also could quickly place him where, should he cry, his cries would be muffled by the enclosure of the ark, the thickness of the reeds, the general outdoor noises, the nearby sound of the Nile waters [he would not have been out in the current itself, of course], and at such a distance from where police/soldiers would normally be likely to walk that they likely could not hear him.

24. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 2:4 This short verse provides several useful bits of information. • First, unless this sister is one who is otherwise unknown and unmentioned in the narrative, it introduces Miriam (whose name will be provided first at 15:20) as an important person in Moses’ life. • Second, it shows that the family was together involved in protecting Moses, as would be expected. • Third, it suggests that Miriam was older even than Aaron (who was already three years old at this time; cf. Exod 7:7), but not so old that she would be expected to be working as the young women did at home and field tasks. • 2:5–6 There was surely no attempt to place Moses in his little ark at a location where he was likely to be discovered. The whole intent was just the opposite. Yet he was discovered—and by an Egyptian! • In the story’s surprising twist, however, the discovery by an Egyptian, under other conditions likely to lead to the boy’s death, leads instead to a perfect protection of his life. This is God at work, providing deliverance in an unanticipated yet wonderful way. • We have no way of knowing how many daughters this pharaoh had, but there may have been dozens, and the popular idea that Moses was one of just a few favored grandchildren of the pharaoh lacks the merit of realism.

25. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 2:7–8 Moses must have heard this part of the story many times, and not merely from his adoptive mother but from Jochebed and, indeed, from Miriam herself. • Miriam controlled the action: she apparently didn’t run when the Egyptian women arrived but remained at her post and affected curiosity when the baby was found. • She must have gotten close enough to the action to overhear the princess’s various expressions of concern for the boy (e.g., “He’s crying!” “He must be hungry!” “I can’t leave him like this!”) • Miriam wisely volunteered a wet nurse she knew well (her own mother). The turning point of the story is contained in a one-word command, that of the princess: “Go”! With that decision of the king’s daughter, Moses’ protection was assured. • 2:9–10 In this concluding portion of the passage, God’s special provision for Moses cannot be missed. The baby boy once in grave peril received royal protection, his own mother raised him in his early years, she was actually paid to care for him, and the princess formally adopted him as evidenced by her giving him an Egyptian name. • The nursing contract described in v. 9 presumably took a standard form in which the wet nurse was compensated for caring for a child but the legal possession remained with the one making the payment. Because in ancient times children were nursed for three or four years before being weaned,the princess realized that she would have actual physical custody of the boy only later.

26. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • Moses’ Own Exile/Exodus: Midian and Marriage (2:11–22) • 2:11–12 The narrative now jumps ahead approximately thirty-six years,skipping completely over Moses’ later childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. • This sort of leap from infancy/childhood to later adulthood is not only efficient for purposes of getting to the heart of the story but apparently was preferred often in ancient times, when the story of an important person’s birth might be recounted if it had special significance but his “biography” in effect began with the first truly prominent actions he undertook. • The New Testament Gospels illustrate both options: Mark and John describe Jesus first at age thirty; Matthew and Luke tell about his birth and then jump to his life at age thirty—though Luke adds as well a brief story about him at age twelve, an exception to the usual approach. • These two verses explain how Moses had by this time identified with the Israelites over against the Egyptians and how his zeal against the oppression of his people got him into trouble. • This was his first attempt at delivering his people—acting alone and in secret and relying on his own strength and wisdom—and though it failed miserably, it certainly shows the strength of Moses’ sentiments on behalf of his people.

27. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • Twice in v. 11 the phrase ʾeḥāyw, “his own people” (lit., “his brothers”), serves to orient the reader to the fact that Moses saw himself by this point as an Israelite, not an Egyptian. • Verse 12 does not necessarily suggest that the beating Moses observed was done in an isolated location. These statements are brief summaries, and although the beating was widely witnessed, perhaps Moses waited until the Egyptian who had given the beating was alone (i.e., perhaps he followed him) and killed him then. • There appears to be thus some degree of premeditation in Moses’ act, as indicated in the statement that “he looked this way and that.” “Glancing” gives the incorrect impression that Moses did the whole thing on the spur of the moment). • Hebrews 11:24 provides another perspective on these verses that might easily be missed in a rapid read through of the Old Testament story: • By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. (NIV)

28. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 2:13–14 These two verses provide the reason why Moses had to flee Egypt and in the process give further emphasis to the fact that he had identified with the hardship of the Hebrews as over against the superior status of the Egyptians, even though it cost him dearly (cf. Heb 11:24–26). • Here is God at work in a way that Moses surely did not recognize at the time, just as we can virtually never understand how our own miseries and emergencies, at the time we are experiencing them, might end up leading to blessing. • “Who made you ruler and judgeoverus?”—clearly an expression of resentment against this ‘johnny-come-lately' styling himself as a defender of the Hebrews. • It is not difficult to imagine why Moses was disliked or why the news about his murderous act had spread so far so fast: • an Egyptian overseer was missing, an investigation probably was underway or soon would be, and there was every likelihood that the Hebrews would be blamed and severely punished for the overseer’s murder. • Such a situation would become the talk of the community and would easily surface someone’s admission, “I saw who did it!” What Moses had tried to do had, from his people’s point of view, backfired. He had taken matters into his own hands, and his arrogance in doing so probably was going to get a lot of people in trouble.

29. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 2:15 Moses was in danger of death at various times by various persons. • The earlier story of his rescue as a baby reflects a general attempt to kill Israelite male children, Moses included. • Now he is sought for murder by a presumably enraged Pharaoh, since testimony during the investigation of the crime must have pointed directly to Moses, and the king could hardly have been unmoved by the implications of a turncoat Hebrew-raised-as-an-Egyptian now killing Egyptian work supervisors! • But it is all part of a great plan. Moses was now clearly separated from his Egyptian ties and could not even remain in the country. Where, then, could he go that would be relatively safe from Egyptian influence, relatively hospitable to an Israelite (speaking a related language and sharing some customs), and relatively easy to get to from northeast Egypt, where his flight originated? • Even in the short time Moses probably had to gather his things and flee, the answer must have seemed obvious to him: Midian. • The Midianites were descended from Abraham through his wife Keturah (Gen 25:2) and occupied sparsely (i.e., to the extent that such regions can support population) portions of the central and northern Sinai peninsula in addition to their main location, northwestern Arabia, so that Midianites could be encountered in that day from the Arabian gulf in the south to the plains of Moab in the north. • The final clause, “where he sat down by a well,” brings the story to a specific location, where the fugitive, looking for some place to settle, will have yet another opportunity to intervene in a dispute on behalf of the oppressed and in so doing will also begin to meet those with whom he will live and work for the next forty years. In the largely barren Sinai wilderness, a well was a necessity for human and domesticated animal life, a meeting place, a community center; roads led to it, and travelers sought it out. For Moses, “a certain well” would be the beginning point of a new life.

30. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 2:16–19 The account of the encounter at the well in Midian tells several things about Moses’ character: • his flight from Egypt had not blunted his instinct for intervening against injustice and righting wrongs; • he was quick to act against oppression, even alone, isolated, and with the odds against him; • he was sufficiently imposing and/or assertive to intimidate several shepherds; • he was physically vigorous enough to chase off a group of shepherds and then do work that seven girls were planning to do; • he was not easily cowed himself; • he was generous and helpful to people he hardly knew, acting from principle rather than merely from personal loyalty; • he did not ask for a personal reward for what he had done. • All of these characteristics are seen again in various ways as Moses responded to God’s call to deliver the Israelites from Egypt.

31. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • 2:20–22 These three verses provide a fast summary: • Jethro’s invitation to dinner • Moses’ settling down as part of Jethro’s household • Moses’ marriage to Zipporah, and the birth and naming of their first child. • Thus Moses had become a permanent resident (emphasized by the last statement in v. 22) among the Midianites and an exile both from the land, Egypt, and the people of his birth, Israel. • Jethro is shown here in a typically favorable light, as a gracious and diplomatic individual who found in Moses someone he could appreciate. • The naming of Gershom in v. 22 represents another instance of homophonous naming of a child (cf. 2:10), the name in this case suggested by its being similar in sound to the explanation Moses provided: gēr (“alien”) and šōm (close in sound to šām, “there”) combining to suggest the approximate meaning “an alien there.” The name itself probably was preexistingand thus not a new name but one carefully chosen in light of Moses’ circumstances. • These circumstances are not entirely positive. From Moses’ point of view, he was now permanently separated both from what he regarded as his homeland, Egypt, and also from the people he now identified with as his own, Israel. • Consider, then, the spiritual challenge that was his. He was a failure as a deliverer of his people, a failure as a citizen of Egypt, unwelcome among either of the nations he might have called his own, a wanted man, a now-permanent resident of an obscure place, alone and far from his origins

32. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • Summative Reminder: Severity of the Oppression and God’s Concern (2:23–25) • 2:23–25 Now that Moses’ situation has been summarized, these verses conclude the entire large section of introduction to the exodus story (1:1–2:25) by returning the reader’s attention to Egypt, where God’s people are trapped in crushing slavery and where he will on their behalf unleash his mighty deliverance. • This little “postscript” prepares us to expect that God will now take action. Five important assertions are made, each bearing implications for the events that follow. • First, the pharaoh who sought Moses’ life had died. This would make possible Moses’ return to deal with the Egyptian leadership no longer as a criminal fugitive (cf. this assurance in 4:19) but as a prophet of the true God. • Second, the change in government produced no relief for the Israelites, whose painful slavery continued unabated. • Third, the people of Israel began to pray. That is the point made by the language in v. 23 (“cried out … their cry … went up to God”) and v. 24 (“God heard their groaning”). This description of their prayer is central • The exodus did not come about simply because people were in trouble; it was the result of a prayer of lament for rescue to the only one who could actually do something about it. As Jesus taught, the one who knows all needs before they are prayed for nevertheless expects them to be prayed for (Matt 6:5–8, 32).

33. Israel’s Egyptian Oppression and God’s Choice of a Deliverer • Fourth, God “remembered his covenant.” The word bĕrı̂ṭ (“covenant”) occurs twenty-five times in Genesis; this is its first occurrence in Exodus. • In covenantal language the term “remember” (zākar) should not be misunderstood to suggest that God was somehow unaware or unconcerned previously. The Bible consistently portrays him as intervening at various times for various purposes, though rarely as soon as humans, self-centeredly, would like. • Indeed, this particular remembering comes at the end of no less than 430 years of captivity (12:40)! Thus the emphasis is on ongoing covenant: God’s promises never stopped being valid, however seldom most Israelites may have called upon him to honor his promises in the past • Fifth, God was closely interested in his people and in the process of making himself known to them. Moses now mentioned God again for the first time since the account of the midwives in 1:17–20—not because God had been disinterested or irrelevant but as a way of heightening the fact that God alone was the Israelite’s hope in this situation. • The best reading of the original, “God looked on them and made himself known to them,” sets the scene for what follows. God was initiating the process of deliverance, and the circumstances of both Moses and Israel were about to change. • Implicitly, the theological issue here is not whether or how people suffer; the issue is: does suffering go unnoticed? If it does not—and indeed the one doing the noticing is the true, omnipotent, and loving covenant God—his people can properly surmise that their suffering may well be part of a plan, that it is a suffering with a distinct beginning and end, a hardship understood by and watched over by a sovereign who will not let it continue without good purpose and result. Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus, vol. 2, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2006), 84–104.