Exodus 2 commentary

Observe the order of Providence: just at the time when Pharaoh's cruelty rose to its height by ordering the Hebrew children to be drowned, the deliverer was born. When men are contriving the ruin of the church, God is preparing for its salvation. The parents of Moses saw he was a goodly child. A lively faith can take encouragement from the least hint of the Divine favour. It is said, Heb 11:23, that the parents of Moses hid him by faith; they had the promise that Israel should be preserved, which they relied upon. Faith in God's promise quickens to the use of lawful means for obtaining mercy. Duty is ours, events are God's. Faith in God will set us above the fear of man. At three months' end, when they could not hide the infant any longer, they put him in an ark of bulrushes by the river's brink, and set his sister to watch. And if the weak affection of a mother were thus careful, what shall we think of Him, whose love, whose compassion is, as himself, boundless. Moses never had a stronger protection about him, no, not when all the Israelites were round his tent in the wilderness, than now, when he lay alone, a helpless babe upon the waves. No water, no Egyptian can hurt him. When we seem most neglected and forlorn, God is most present with us.

Come, see the place where that great man, Moses, lay, when he was a little child; it was in a bulrush basket by the river's side. Had he been left there long, he must have perished. But Providence brings Pharaoh's daughter to the place where this poor forlorn infant lay, and inclines her heart to pity it, which she dares do, when none else durst. God's care of us in our infancy ought to be often mentioned by us to his praise. Pharaoh cruelly sought to destroy Israel, but his own daughter had pity on a Hebrew child, and not only so, but, without knowing it, preserved Israel's deliverer, and provided Moses with a good nurse, even his own mother. That he should have a Hebrew nurse, the sister of Moses brought the mother into the place of a nurse. Moses was treated as the son of Pharoah's daughter. Many who, by their birth, are obscure and poor, by surprising events of Providence, are raised high in the world, to make men know that God rules.

Moses boldly owned the cause of God's people. It is plain from Heb 11. that this was done in faith, with the full purpose of leaving the honours, wealth, and pleasures of his rank among the Egyptians. By the grace of God he was a partaker of faith in Christ, which overcomes the world. He was willing, not only to risk all, but to suffer for his sake; being assured that Israel were the people of God. By special warrant from Heaven, which makes no rule for other cases, Moses slew an Egyptian, and rescued an oppressed Israelites. Also, he tried to end a dispute between two Hebrews. The reproof Moses gave, may still be of use. May we not apply it to disputants, who, by their fierce debates, divide and weaken the Christian church? They forget that they are brethren. He that did wrong quarreled with Moses. It is a sign of guilt to be angry at reproof. Men know not what they do, nor what enemies they are to themselves, when they resist and despise faithful reproofs and reprovers. Moses might have said, if this be the spirit of the Hebrews, I will go to court again, and be the son of Pharaoh's daughter. But we must take heed of being set against the ways and people of God, by the follies and peevishness of some persons that profess religion. Moses was obliged to flee into the land of Midian. God ordered this for wise and holy ends.

Moses found shelter in Midian. He was ready to help Reuel's daughters to water their flocks, although bred in learning and at court. Moses loved to be doing justice, and to act in defence of such as he saw injured, which every man ought to do, as far as it is in his power. He loved to be doing good; wherever the providence of God casts us, we should desire and try to be useful; and when we cannot do the good we would, we must be ready to do the good we can. Moses commended himself to the prince of Midian; who married one of his daughters to Moses, by whom he had a son, called Gershom, “a stranger there,” that he might keep in remembrance the land in which he had been a stranger.

The Israelites' bondage in Egypt continued, though the murdering of their infants did not continue. Sometimes the Lord suffers the rod of the wicked to lie very long and very heavy on the lot of the righteous. At last they began to think of God under their troubles. It is a sign that the Lord is coming towards us with deliverance, when he inclines and enables us to cry to him for it. God heard their groaning; he made it to appear that he took notice of their complaints. He remembered his covenant, of which he is ever mindful. He considered this, and not any merit of theirs. He looked upon the children of Israel. Moses looked upon them, and pitied them; but now God looked upon them, and helped them. He had respect unto them. His eyes are now fixed upon Israel, to show himself in their behalf. God is ever thus, a very present help in trouble. Take courage then, ye who, conscious of guilt and thraldom, are looking to Him for deliverance. God in Christ Jesus is also looking upon you. A call of love is joined with a promise of the Redeemer. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, Mt 11:28.

1. And there went. I have preferred rendering the verb in the pluperfect tense (abierat, “there had gone”) to prevent all ambiguity; for unless we say that Miriam and Aaron were the children of another mother, it would not be probable otherwise that this marriage was contracted after the passing of the edict. Aaron was three years old when Moses was born; and we may easily conjecture that he was brought up openly and securely. But there is no doubt but that the cruelty was greatest at its commencement. Therefore, if they were uterine brothers, there is no other explanation except to say that, by the figure called ὕστερον πρότερον, he now relates what had happened before. But mention is only made of Moses, because it then first began to be criminal to breed up male infants. The Hebrews use the word for going or departing, to signify the undertaking of any serious or momentous matter, or when they put any proposal into operation. Nor is it superfluous for Moses to say that his father married a wife of his own tribe, because this double tie of kindred should have confirmed them in their attempt to preserve their offspring. But soon afterwards we shall see how timidly they acted. They hide the child for a short time, rather from the transient impulse of love than from firm affection. When three months had elapsed, and that impulse had passed away, they almost abandon the child, in order to escape from danger. For although the mother would have probably come next day, if he had passed the night there, to give him the breast, yet had she exposed him as an outcast to innumerable risks. By this example, we perceive what terror had taken possession of every mind, when a man and his wife, united to each other by close natural relationship, prefer exposing their common offspring, whose beauty moved them to pity, to peril of wild beasts, of the atmosphere, of the water, and of every kind, rather than that they should perish with him. But on this point different opinions are maintained: whether or not it would have been better to discharge themselves of the care of their child, or to await whatever danger attended its secret preservation. I confess, indeed, that whilst it is difficult in such perplexities to come to a right conclusion, so also our conclusions are apt to be variously judged; still I affirm that the timidity of the parents of Moses, by which they were induced to forget their duty, cannot advisedly be excused.

We see that God has implanted even in wild and brute beasts so great instinctive anxiety for the protection and cherishing of their young, that the dam often despises her own life in their defense. Wherefore it is the more base, that men, created in the divine image, should be driven by fear to such a pitch of inhumanity as to desert the children who are intrusted to their fidelity and protection. The reply of those who assert that there was no better course in their desperate circumstances than to repose on the providence of God, has something in it, but is not complete. It is the chief consolation of believers to cast their cares on the bosom of God; provided that, in the meantime, they perform their own duties, overpass not the bounds of their vocation, and turn not away from the path set before them; but it is a perversion to make the providence of God an excuse for negligence and sloth. The parents of Moses ought rather to have looked forward with hope that God would be the safeguard of themselves and their child. His mother made the ark with great pains, and daubed it; but for what purpose? Was it not to bury her child in it? I allow that she always seemed anxious for him, yet in such a way that her proceedings would have been ridiculous and ineffectual, unless God had unexpectedly appeared from heaven as the author of their preservation, of which she herself despaired. Nevertheless, we must not judge either the father or mother as if they had lived in quiet times; for it is easy to conceive with what bitter grief they compassed the death of their child; nay, to speak more correctly, we can scarcely conceive what terrible agonies they suffered. Therefore, when Moses relates how his mother made and prepared an ark, he hints that the father was so overwhelmed with sorrow as to be incapable of doing anything. Thus the power of the Lord more clearly manifested itself, when the mother, her husband being entirely disheartened, took the whole burden on herself. For, if they had acted in concert, Moses would not have assigned the whole praise to his mother. The Apostle, indeed, (Hebrews 11:23,) gives a share of the praise to the husband, and not undeservedly, since it is probable that the child was not hidden without his cognizance and approval. But God, who generally “chooses the weak things of the world,” strengthened with the power of his Spirit a woman rather than a man, to stand foremost in the matter. And the same reasoning applies to his sister, into whose hands his mother resigned the last and most important act, so that while Miriam, who, on account of her tender age, appeared to be exempt from danger, is appointed to watch over her brother’s life, both parents appear to have neglected their duty.

2. And when she saw that he was a goodly child. There is no doubt but that God had adorned him with this beauty, in order the more to influence his parents to preserve him; as it sometimes happens that, when God sees his people slow in the performance of their duty, he spurs on their inactivity by allurements; although it appears from the testimony of the Apostle, that this was not their only motive to have pity on him, but that it was the prop, as it were, of their weak faith; for he tells us (Hebrews 11:23) that “by faith Moses was hid three months of his parents.” If any object that faith and regard for beauty are things not only very different but almost contrary to each other, I reply, that by the wonderful compassion of God, it comes to pass that the very impediment which might darken faith becomes its assistant, though it ought indeed to rest upon the promises alone. Therefore, if faith had shone purely and brightly in their hearts, they would have cared nothing for his beauty; on the other hand, unless the promise had had its power, nay, unless it had occupied the first place, there was no such efficacy in the goodliness of his appearance as would have led them willingly to hazard their lives. We conclude, then, that, since they had good hopes of the deliverance promised to them, their courage was increased by the additional motive of his beauty, and that they were so attracted to pity, that all obstacles were overcome. Thus does God ordinarily work, leading his people in their darkness like the blind, when they are wavering through ignorance and weakness of heart. In fine, the love which his beauty awakened was so far from being a part of faith, that it deservedly detracts from its praise; but God, who, in his wonderful wisdom, makes all things to work for the good of his chosen ones, sustained and strengthened their tottering faith by this support.

4. And his sister stood afar off. It is probable that this was Miriam. “De laquelle il sera ci apres parle plus a plein;” who will presently be more fully spoken of. — Fr. By the fact of her standing to watch what became of him, it appears that his parents had some hope remaining, though it was but small. For it is scarcely doubtful but that whatever Egyptian had come that way would have been his executioner, as well from the command of the king as from the general hatred of the nation against the Hebrews. It seems, then, that Miriam was set by her parents to watch, rather to witness her brother’s murder, than to provide for the safety of the child. But, since we have just seen that, in the darkness of sorrow and despair, some sparks of faith still survived, the mother, exposing her little one on the river’s side, did not abandon all care of him, but desired to commend him to the mercy of any passer-by, and therefore stationed her daughter afar off to act as circumstances arose. For, if she had heard that the child still lay there at night, she would have come secretly to give him the breast. This determination, however, as is often the case in times of perplexity and trouble, was vain, though God miraculously stretched forth his hand for the child’s preservation. For there can be no question but that his secret providence brought the king’s daughter to the river, who had the courage to take up the child and to have it nursed; and that he, too, influenced her mind to the kind act of saving its life, — in a word, that he controlled the whole matter. Indeed, all pious persons will confess that he was the author of her great and uninquisitive kindness in not taking more pains to learn who were the child’s parents, and why a nurse offered herself so immediately, which circumstance might have naturally awakened suspicion. Thus it did not happen without many miracles that the child escaped safely from the ark. Scoffers would say that all occurred accidentally; because perverse delusion has possession of their minds, so that they are blind to the manifest works of God, and think that the human race is governed by mere chance. But we must hold fast to the principle, that whilst God rules all men by his providence, he honors his elect with his peculiar care, and is watchful for their deliverance and support; and if we carefully weigh all the circumstances, reason will easily assure us that all things which led to the preservation of Moses, were disposed by his guidance, and under his auspices, and by the secret inspiration of his Spirit. For to ascribe to fortune such an harmonious combination of various and manifold means, is no less absurd than to imagine with Epicurus that the world was created by the fortuitous conjunction of atoms. “De ce qui apparoist en l’air comme poussiere, quand le soleil luist, sans que Dieu s’en soit mesle;” of that which appears in the air, like dust, when the sun shines, without the interposition of God. — Fr. Assuredly he drew out Moses, who was to be the future redeemer of his people, as from the grave, in order that he might prove that the beginning of the safety of his Church was like a creation out of nothing. And this was the crowning act of his divine mercy, not only that he was given to his mother to be nursed, but that she received wages for it.

10. And the child grew. Here, however, their grief is renewed, when his parents are again obliged to give up Moses, and he is torn as it were from their bowels. For, on this condition, he passed over to the Egyptian nation, not only that he should be alienated from his own race, but that he should increase the number of their enemies in his own person. And certainly it is scarcely credible that he could be long tolerated in the tyrant’s court, and amongst the most cruel enemies of Israel, unless he professed to be a partaker of their hatred. We know of what corrupting influences courts are full; it is well known, too, how great was the pride of the Egyptians, whilst experience teaches us how prone even the best natures are to yield to the temptations of pleasure, wherefore we must wonder the more that, when Moses was engulfed in these whirlpools, he still retained his uprightness and integrity. Certainly the hope of their redemption might seem here again to suffer an eclipse, the course of circumstances being all against it; but thus the providence of God, the more circuitously it appears to flow, shines forth all the more wonderfully in the end, since it never really wanders from its direct object, or fails of its effect, when its due time is come. Nevertheless God, as with an outstretched hand, drew back his servant to himself and to the body of his Church, by suggesting in his name the recollection of his origin; for the king’s daughter did not give him this name without the preventing Spirit of God, that Moses might know that he was drawn out of the river when he was about to perish. As often, then, as he heard his name, he must needs remember of what people he sprang; and the power of this stimulus must have been all the greater, because the fact was known to everybody. The daughter of the king, indeed, could have by no means intended this, and would have rather wished the memory of his origin to be lost; but God, who put words in the mouth of Balaam’s ass, influenced also the tongue of this woman to bear loud and public testimony to the very thing which she would have preferred to conceal; and although she desired to keep Moses with herself, became his directress and guide in returning to his own nation. But should any be surprised that she did not fear her father’s anger in thus publicly recording the violation of his command, it may readily be replied that there was no cause of offense given to the tyrant, who would have willingly allowed any number of slaves to be born to him, so that the name of Israel were abolished. For why did he spare the lives of the female infants, but in order that Egyptian slaves might be born of them? And, regarding Moses in this light, he did not conceive that the act of his daughter had violated his command, nay, he rather rejoiced that the Israelitish nation was thus diminished, and the Egyptian nation numerically increased. One question only remains, viz., how it occurred to the mind of Pharaoh’s daughter to give Moses an Hebrew name, Calvin seems altogether to ignore the opinion of Philo, Clemens Alex., etc., that Moses was an Egyptian name, from Mo, or Moys, water, and Is, or Ises, or Hyse, preserved. when it is certain from Psalm 81:5, that there was a great difference between the two languages: “he went out through the land of Egypt, where I heard a language that I understood not?” And again, we know that Joseph made use of an interpreter with his brethren when he pretended to be an Egyptian. (Genesis 42:23.) We may probably conjecture that she asked the mother of Moses the word which expressed this signification, or we may prefer supposing that he had an Egyptian name, which was interpreted by his Hebrew one, and this I am most inclined to think was the case. When Moses subsequently fled, he again took the name his mother gave him.

Exodus 2:11-15

11. And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.

11. Factum autem est diebus illis, quum adolevisset Moses, ut egrederetur ad fratres suos, et vidit onera ipsorum, viditque virum Aegyptium percutientem quendam Hebraeum ex fratribus suis.

12. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.

12. Tunc respexit hue et illuc, et videns quod nemo adesset, percussit Aegyptium, atque abscondit in arena.

13. And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy follow?

13. Et quum egressus esset postridie, ecce, duo viri Hebraei rixabantur: tunc dixit malefico, Quare percutis propinquum tuum?

14. And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? Intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? and Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known.

14. Qui respondit, Quis te constituit principem, et judicem super nos? an ut me occidas tu loqueris, sicut occidisti Aegyptium? Itaque timuit Moses, ac dixit, Certe innotuit haec res.

15. Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well.

15. Pharao etiam audito hoc sermone, quaerebat interficere Mosen. Et fugiens Moses a facie Pharaonis mansit in Madian, seditque juxta puteum.

11. And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown. Now did that faith which the Apostle celebrates begin to shew itself, when Moses, despising the pleasures and riches of the Court, chose rather to suffer the reproach of Christ, than to be accounted happy apart from companionship with the chosen people. Nor was it only love for his nation, but faith in the promises, which induced him to undertake this charge, by which he knew that he should incur the hatred of all the Egyptians. For although he did not immediately resign his wealth, and honorable station, and influence, and power, this was, as it were, the preparation for divesting himself of all these deceitful allurements. Whence the Apostle says,

“he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.” (Hebrews 11:24.)

There is certainly no doubt but that he avowed his desire to return to his true and natural kindred, from whom he had been separated: for we gather from the context, that he did not come to see his brethren only to pity their estate, but to bring them some consolation, and even to share their lot. Nor was the Court so near that he could daily visit them in his ordinary walk. And it is said that “he went out the second day.” Therefore, he privately withdrew himself from the Court, or, having asked permission, preferred to expose himself to enmity, rather than not discover his affectionate regard to his people. But he relates that he looked on their burdens, or troubles, so that their unjust oppression must have naturally aroused him to give them help. He adds, too, another motive, that he “saw an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew.” It is probable that they were harshly treated by their taskmasters if they were slow in their work, and since they were given over to the will of wicked men, that every one might exercise the same cruelty upon them with impunity.

12. And he looked this way and that way. Hence it more evidently appears that Moses came with the design of succouring his unhappy brethren, and of relieving and aiding them with his help, since, by killing the Egyptian, he avenged the injury done indeed to an individual, but having a bearing on the whole nation. But although he was inspired by the Holy Spirit with special courage for the performance of this act, still it was accompanied with an infirmity, which shews that he did not undertake without hesitation what he yet, knew to be his vocation. For Stephen (Acts 7:25) bears witness that Moses was not impelled by a rash zeal to stay the Egyptian, but because he knew that he was divinely appointed to be the avenger and deliverer of his nation. Still he looked about to see whether any one saw him, and dared not punish the wrong-doer, except by a secret blow. Thus we perceive that he was not altogether so bold as he should have been, and that he had to strive against his timidity. Again, we gather from his hesitation that his faith was weak, so that we must not suppose that it was thus praised by the Apostle because it was absolutely perfect. In the first place, then, let us conclude that Moses did not rashly have recourse to the sword, but that he was armed by God’s command, and, conscious of his legitimate vocation, rightly and judiciously assumed that character which God assigned to him. Thence it follows, that private persons would act improperly, and would be by no means countenanced by his example, if they sought to repress wrong by force and arms. Thus far we should imitate Moses in rendering aid to the suffering and oppressed, as far as our means go, and in caring not to incur the ill-will of the wicked, when we oppose ourselves to their oppressions; but we must leave it to the judges, who are invested with public authority, to draw the sword of vengeance. If these do not afford their aid to the innocent when they are unjustly treated, all we can do is to murmur; as not even Moses would have been allowed to proceed further, unless he had been the appointed avenger and deliverer of the people. As to the fear, by which he betrayed his pusillanimity and his present unpreparedness for fulfilling his office, let us learn that the obedience of the saints, which is stained by sin, is still sometimes acceptable with God through mercy; and therefore, although the weakness of the flesh is a draw-back to us in the performance of our duty, still let us cease not to struggle against it; for our assurance of this ought to have no small effect in animating us, when we are persuaded that there is pardon ready for our hesitation, if we do not yield to it.

13. Behold, two men of the Hebrews. This perseverance shews that Moses was firm and determined in his design of returning to his brethren, and abandoning the Court; and that he had advisedly renounced its splendor, its wealth, and comforts, although he was by no means ignorant of the miseries to which he exposed himself, and how painful and disagreeable, nay, how ignominious a condition awaited him. Wherefore we need not wonder if the Apostle says, that he chose

“rather to endure the reproach of Christ,” “and to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” (Hebrews 11:25, 26.)

Besides, the sad sight of the tyrant’s violence and of the burdens by which his brethren were oppressed, was anything but an obstacle to his proceeding, because, being prepared by the hope of future recompense to bear the cross, he was superior to present fear. But he does not assume, as before, the character of a judge; but performs a duty, which the law of charity demands of every one, addressing the men who strove together as a peace-maker, and exhorting them both to be reconciled, though he especially blames the wrongdoer. This was not peculiar to Moses, but the common duty of all believers, when the innocent are harshly treated, to take their part, and as far as possible to interpose, lest the stronger should prevail. It can scarcely be done without exasperating those who are disposed to evil; but nothing ought to allow us to be silent, while justice is violated by their forwardness. For in this ease, silence is a kind of consent. Yet Moses reproves moderately, and in kind terms, the man who had assaulted his brother; because he does not so much wish to reproach him with the greatness of his fault, as to find the means of calming his ferocity.

14. Who made thee a prince? No wonder if the headstrong and wicked man repels angrily this mild admonition; for thus are those, who are disposed to injustice, accustomed to rage as soon as they are reproved, and to drive away good advisers with contumely. And certainly it is an uncommon virtue to acknowledge our faults, and patiently to submit to correction. For in proportion to a man’s evil disposition, and to the greatness of his offense, is his rage under admonition, and his violence in altercation; wherefore, whoever undertakes to restrain the wicked must expect to meet with these indignities. Still, we may understand from the petulance of this individual how perverse were the minds of the whole nation. On this account Stephen says that Moses was refused by his own nation, and accuses them all of ingratitude. (Acts 7:35.) But, without being too hard on this people, we learn from this example how rude is the nature of those whom God has not tamed; for their perverseness as firmly repels correction, as an anvil repels the blow of a hammer. When, therefore, they are so stubborn that though ten times reproved they are still hardened, no wonder if God deals with them more roughly, as he declares he will do by the mouth of David. (Psalm 18:27.) Lest we should experience this, let us submit to his rod in time; and since this is not given to all, let us entreat him to make us truly teachable. For what shall we gain by kicking against the pricks? Moreover, a kind of brutal fierceness accompanies this perverseness, as is again seen in this instance. The vile and abject slave asks Moses, Who made him a judge over the Hebrews? as if he, and all his race, were not exposed to universal contumely. If the lowest of the Egyptian rabble had struck him a blow, he would not have dared to murmur; yet he rages as imperiously against this mild admonition, as if he were free from all subjection. What follows is even worse, “Intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian?” He ought to have received Moses as if he had been an angel of God, on account of such a proof of his zeal and piety; but, turning the benefit into an accusation, he not only hatefully taunts him with what it would have been just to praise, but even threatens him. Meantime, we cannot doubt but that the holy man must have been racked by a sore temptation, when he finds such barbarity in his nation. He knew, indeed, that the Egyptians would have been his professed enemies, if the matter had got abroad; but he never could have expected such an unworthy return from his brethren, whose misery he desired to relieve; and therefore it was a proof of incredible strength of purpose to surmount such an obstacle.

15. Now when Pharaoh heard. Moses acknowledges his fear, though it was not sufficient to withdraw him from the work to which he was called. We said before, that his zeal was mingled with infirmity, but yet prevailed; so that he performed the duty entrusted to him manfully, yet at the same time timidly. But this is another proof of his firmness, that he is not ashamed of what he had done, so as to endeavor to appease the king, but he betakes himself to exile; nor is he so alarmed in this critical time as to sink down in helplessness or despair, but he departs into the land of Midian, and prefers wandering in the Desert, to a reconciliation with the enemies of the chosen people. But although God appears by this circuitous course to decline from his purpose of delivering them, yet he marvelously carries on His work. We have already sufficiently perceived that Moses was certainly not yet ripe for the arduous contests which awaited him; that, having been brought up delicately and luxuriously in the Court, he was not yet accustomed to the great and continual anxieties of which the sequel of the history will shew him the conqueror. Therefore God in a manner withdrew him, that he might gradually render him fit and equal to undertake so difficult a task. For the experience of forty years in such a laborious and ascetic mode of life, did not a little avail to prepare him for enduring any hardships; so that the Desert may well be called the school in which he was taught, until he was invited to his more difficult charge. As to his “sitting down by a well,” I interpret it, that he sat down there to rest from his fatigue about sunset, that he might ask for hospitality from the people, who he hoped would come at eventide to draw water. From this unprosperous beginning he might conjecture what an uncomfortable reception he had to expect.

Exodus 2:16-22

16. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father's flock.

16. Erant autem sacerdoti Madian septem filiae, quae venerunt, et hauserunt, impleveruntque canales, ut potarent oves patris sui.

17. And the shepherds came and drove them away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.

17. Et venerunt pastores qui repulerunt eas: et surgens Moses auxiliatus er ipsis, potavique oves illarum.

18. And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How is it that ye are come so soon to-day?

18. Et quum venissent ad Bethuel patrem suum, dixit ille, Quare hodie tam cito rediistis?

19. And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the flock.

19. Responderunt, vir Aegyptius liberavit nos e manu pastorum, atque etiam hauriendo hausit nobis, et praebuit potum ovibus.

20. And he said unto his daughters, And where is he? why is it that ye have left the man? call him, that he may eat bread.

20. Dixit ille ad filias suas, Et ubi est ille? Quare sic dereliquistis virum? Convocate eum ut comedat paneum.

21. And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.

21. Et consensit Moses habitare cum viro illo, qui dedit Sephoram filiam suam Mosi.

22. And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.

22. Quae quum peperisset filium, vocavit nomen ejus Gerson, dicens, Peregrinus sum in terra aliena.

16. Now the priest of Midian. The profane would attribute this meeting to good fortune, whereas God affords us in it a striking picture of his providence, in thus with an outstretched hand directing the steps of his servant. Those damsels were in the habit of coming daily to the well; and Moses sat down to ask for hospitality at the waterside, whither in a dry country the inhabitants were likely to flock in the evening. But it was by no means due to chance that he came so opportunely to render assistance to the damsels, and that Jethro so hospitably invited him; but God was the guide of his wandering servant’s way, not only to obtain for him a resting-place for a day, but a comfortable habitation even to the close of his exile. For Jethro (whose title shews that he was of some dignity amongst his people) not only engaged his services, but chose him for his son-in-law. Although the occupation of a shepherd was a humble one, yet there was no little consolation in this high connection. All are not agreed about the word כהן, cohen כהן. This verb does not occur in Hebrew in its primary conjugation (kal), but is found in Arabic, where it signifies to draw nigh. Hence the noun, being of the form of the present participle, means in strictness one who draws nigh; and in usage a priest who draws nigh to God; a prince who draws nigh to the sovereign; or, sometimes the sovereign’s guards, ministers, or near kinsmen. The Chaldee paraphrast badly translates it “Prince,” because it does not accord with the fact that the shepherds of the country were at variance with his daughters. Nor is it more probable that a rich and chief man would have been without servants, so as to be obliged to expose his daughters daily to the insults and quarrels of the shepherds. I think, then, that he was a priest (sacrificum,) which is the opinion most generally received. But the question is, whether he worshipped false gods, or the one true God? and certainly many probable reasons lead us to conclude, that he did not sacrifice to idols; because Moses could scarcely have been persuaded, not merely to live in a house which was defiled by foul unrighteousness, but even to marry into it. Besides, hereafter, many indications of piety will appear in the language of Jethro. Although, as almost the whole world had then fallen into many corrupt practices, it seems likely to me that his priesthood was in some measure corrupted. In the time of Abraham, Melehizedek was the only priest of the living God. Abraham himself was extricated from a deep abyss of idolatry into which his family was plunged. It was, then, hardly possible that the Midianites should have retained the pure worship; and indeed it is plain from other passages, that they were joined to idols. After duly weighing all these points, nothing occurs to me as more probable, than that under the priesthood of Jethro the true God was worshipped, according as tradition had revealed Him, but not purely; because religion was at that time everywhere contaminated by diverse superstitions. But there is some difference between idolatry and the impure worship of God, corrupted in some respects. I say, then, that they were worshippers of the true God, because they had not entirely departed from the principles of His religion, although they had contracted some defilement from the stinking puddles of error which had gradually crept in. There is also another question among interpreters as to the name “Jethro.” Those who think Bethuel See note on ver. 18. In the French version he is always called Raguel. was a different person from Jethro, are easily refuted; for it is quite evident, that Moses in the next chapter speaks of the same person, though under another name. Nor would it agree with the mention of his marriage, that the name of the father should be altogether omitted; and it is a forced construction to suppose, that in such immediate connection two persons should be spoken of as in the same degree of relationship. Again, if Jethro was the son of Bethuel, living in the same house, he would have been a member of the family, but not its head, and therefore Moses would not be said to have fed his flock. Besides, it is probable that Hobab (who will be afterwards called the son of Bethuel, Numbers 10:29) was the brother-in-law of Moses, i e., the brother of his wife; from whence we collect, that Jethro, as is not unusual, had two names. For it is absurd to think that it is Hobab whom Moses here calls Jethro, and an unreasonable invention. We shall hereafter see that Jethro came into the Desert to congratulate Moses; but it is related in the same place that he “let him depart;” and certainly it would not have been kind to press a man bowed down by age to accompany him on his long journey. For if he was older than Moses, he was scarcely less than ninety; and what sense would there have been in promising a decrepit old man the reward of his labor, after they should reach the land of Canaan?

But the whole controversy is put an end to in one word; because Moses writes that Jethro returned home, but that Hobab was persuaded to listen to his earnest requests, and to remain with him. Nothing can be more probable than that the old man Bethuel, who was unequal to bear the fatigue of a long journey, returned straight home, having left his son behind with Moses, to be to him “instead of eyes,” and to guide them on their way.

18. And when they came to Reuel In the Latin Geneva editions of 1573 and 1617, this name is printed, through the whole commentary on the chapter, Bethuel; but in the commentary on Numbers 10:29, Reuel; whilst A V. has Reuel here, and Raguel in Numbers. In Hebrew, the name in both cases is Reuel; but the Hebrew ע having no equivalent in either the Greek, Latin, or English alphabet, its occurrence has occasioned a dissimilar orthography of several proper names in different translations, or sometimes in the same translation, according as the translator happened to substitute for it a or o, or to omit it altogether. The LXX. seems to have been induced by mere similarity of shape to substitute γ for it in the middle of words, where a consonant seemed desirable.

As to the person here spoken of, the relation of each to Moses is designated by the same word חתן; viz., Jethro in Exodus 3:1, and 18; Hobab in Judges 4:11; and Reuel (probably) in Numbers 10:29; whilst Zipporah uses the same word, rendered husband in Exodus 4:25, 26;. The radical verb, in this case also, is one which does not occur in Hebrew in its primary conjugation, but is found in Arabic, where it signifies to provide a nuptial feast; and hence the noun came to signify any relative by marriage, though most commonly a father-in-law In Numbers 10:29, and Judges 4:11, Jerome has rendered it simply kinsman. This being premised, it will appear probable that Reuel was the grandfather, Jethro the father, and Hobab the brother, of Zipporah. Hence, after forty years, Reuel is no more spoken of, except to notice descent from him. — W I do not think any blame attaches to the daughters of Bethuel for not offering hospitality to Moses, because young women should be modest, and it would have been an act of too great forwardness to invite an unknown foreigner, without acquainting their father. But God inspires the heart of their father with gratitude, so that he desires him to be sent for. Moses, therefore, is brought from the well, and finds a home in which he may live comfortably, and is treated with kindness on account of his matrimonial alliance. And certainly there was need of some alleviation for his manifold cares and sorrows; since it was a hard trial, which would not only pain him greatly, but would have altogether overwhelmed him in despair unless the holy man had been supported in some way in enduring his forty years’ exile. We may easily conjecture from our own feelings how great must have been the weariness of so tedious a delay, especially when he saw that the flower of his age was past, and that his strength was failing, so that he would be afterwards but little fitted for activity. It was, therefore, difficult for him to be intent on that vocation, which might seem to be obsolete, and abrogated in this period of forty years. These heavy troubles and anxieties are in some degree mitigated, but yet not so completely as to prevent the recurrence of many opposing thoughts. Wherefore God’s grace is more astonishing, which kept him peaceful and calm in the midst of so many cares, so that, in expectation of the unknown time, he should be content with his mean and humble lot, and stand in daily preparation to perform the part of a deliverer. As to the word יאל, יואל, A V., was content C states the question about the meaning of this word nearly as he found it stated in S M.; who had said, “Radix verbi יאל idem significat quod רצה, voluit, complacuit, consensit. Sunt tamen inter Hebraeos qui etiam אלה et נשבע, id est juravit, exponunt.” They who would interpret it he sware, must suppose יואל to be irregularly formed out of the verb אלה; whilst there is no irregularity of formation assumed by those who accept it as a part of the verb יאל, and consequently translate it consented, or was content — W yal, the Jews themselves are not agreed: many think that it merely expresses consent; others take it to mean “to swear.” And perhaps Bethuel was unwilling to give his daughter to an unknown guest, unless he bound himself by an oath to live there, as otherwise it might be feared that Moses might take away his wife elsewhere. Thus the marriage-vow was a promise to remain. Thence we see the integrity of that age, that the sanction of an oath, through reverence to the name of God, was so strong, that both were contented with this bond.

22. He called his name Gershom. I do not approve of their view who think this was a name of congratulation to alleviate the pain of banishment, but rather imagine that Moses gave this name to his son, as well to remind himself as his father-in-law and his wife, that he sought a country elsewhere, and that there he was but a sojourner. Nor is there any objection in his promise to his father-in-law to remain, because he did not so bind himself as to shake off or break the yoke of his divine vocation. It was only a provision to this effect, that Moses should not lightly forsake the home where he was so kindly welcomed. It is not credible that he was silent as to the cause of his exile: in the first place, to avert the suspicion of wrong-doing, and in witness of his innocence; and secondly, that he might proclaim the peculiar favor with which God had honored the people of Israel. Wherefore, in the name of his son, he would set before himself an unceasing memorial, by which he might be kept, alive to the hope of redemption; for he declares that land, in which he had found apparently a peaceful resting-place, and a pleasant home, to be “strange” to him. Nor does he compare Midian with Egypt, for he was but a sojourner in either land; but wherever he may dwell, he declares himself a stranger, until he should obtain the inheritance which God has promised. And, indeed, it would have been absurd to call that land, where he had found a settled home, a foreign land, in reference to Egypt, especially since the Apostle bears testimony that he had left that land under the influence of faith. (Hebrews 11:27.) In fine, we see that he sought for a means of cherishing and at the same time of testifying his faith, when he professed that he was a sojourner in a foreign land.

Exodus 2:23-25

23. And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried; and their cry came up unto God, by reason of the bondage.

23. Accidit autem diebus illis multis, mortuus est rex Aegypti: et suspiraverunt filii Israel propter opus, et vociferati sunt: ascenditque clamor eorum, ad Deum propter opus. Vel, a servitute.

24. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

24. Et audivit Deus clamorem eorum, recordatusque est Deus pacti sui cum Abraham, Isaac, et Jacob.

25. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them

25. Viditque Deus filios Israel, et cognovit Deus.

23. And it came to pass in process of time. The Commentary here refers to Calvin’s Latin Translation. He uses the demonstrative pronoun to mark the forty years in which God kept his servant in suspense, as if he had forsaken him. By adding “many,” he expresses the approaching end of the interval. When, therefore, he had reached his eightieth year, and had married and grown old in the land of Midian, the intolerable cruelty of their tyrannical masters extorted new sighings and cries from the children of Israel; not that they began then first to grieve and lament, but because they became more alive to their woes, and their duration made them to be felt more acutely. We know that the hope of a happier issue is soothing to our woes; and the hope that some one more kind would succeed the dead tyrant, in some measure softened the misery of the afflicted people. But when the change of kings in no wise lightened their oppression, their sorrow was increased, and forced them to cry out more loudly than before. Thus, then, I understand the words of Moses, that when the tyrant was dead, the children of Israel were not treated more humanely, and therefore cried out more vehemently. Although it is not likely, I think, that the Pharaoh who had at first afflicted them with burdens and taxes, and had commanded their children to be killed, lived till this time; because in that case he would have reigned more than eighty years, which is not usual. Before the birth of Moses, the Israelites had already been sorely oppressed for many years. Nor had (the king) proceeded at once to so great an atrocity as to command all the males to be killed; but when he found that his cruel edicts availed nothing, he advanced to this extremity. From the birth of Moses until the time here spoken of, about eighty years had passed; and hence we may suppose that, before their deliverance drew near, there had been one or more successive kings. When these various changes of circumstances left the condition of the people unchanged, or even made it worse, extreme necessity drew forth this unwonted lamentation, and despair itself drove them to pray, not that there had been an entire neglect of supplication to God before, but because they looked also in other directions, until all earthly means being entirely cut off, they were forcibly drawn to seek in earnest for help from above. From this example we learn that, although the pressure of our tribulations weighs us down with sorrow and pain, yet that our prayers are not straightway directed to God, and that much is required to stimulate our sluggish hearts. Moses also infers that it was no wonder if God’s assistance was not earlier afforded, since the children of Israel were stupified in their misery. Let this example, then, teach us to flee to God at once, in order that he may make haste to bestow his grace.

And their cry came up. Moses magnifies the mercy of God by this circumstance, that he took not vengeance on their slowness, as it deserved, but graciously inclined to their tardy cries. In fact, we may observe in this history what is described in Psalm 106, that the most stubborn and hard-hearted in their extremity turn their prayers at length to God, rather from the exceeding greatness of their trouble than from the well-regulated exercise of faith. He says, “by reason of the bondage;” because it is the attribute of God to succor the oppressed, to deliver the captives, and to raise up them that are brought low; and this office he constantly performs. As to what is added, that “God remembered his covenant,” it is the explanation of the cause why he heard their groaning, viz., that he might ratify his gratuitous promise made to Abraham and his descendants. He expressly mentions the three patriarchs, because God lodged his covenant with them, that it might continue firm for perpetual generations. And, indeed, since God is inclined towards us to help us of his own free mercy, so he offers himself, and invites us voluntarily; and therefore confidence in prayer must only be sought for in his promises. Thus the copula here should be resolved into the illative particle, that “God heard their groaning, because he remembered his covenant.” How far remembrance is possible with God, we must learn from its contrary. God is said to forget when he does not really and openly appear, and stretch forth his hand to help; therefore, when we say he “remembers,” we mark our apprehension of his aid; and both expressions have relation to effect. In the same way he is said “to behold,” and its opposite, “to turn his back,” because we then perceive that he beholds us when he actually succours us.

EXODUS 3

Exodus 3:1-5

1. Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the back-side of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even, to Horeb.

1. Pascebat autem Moses oves Jethro soceri sui sacerdotis Midian, duxitque oves post desertum, et venit ad mentem Dei, nempe Horeb.

2. And the Angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.

2. Et visus est ei Angelus Jehovae in flamma ignis e medio rubi: et vidit, et ecce rubus ardebat in igne, et rubus ipse non consumebatur.

3. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.

3. Dixit itaque Moses, Divertam nunc ut videam visionem hanc magnam, quare non comburatur rubus.

4. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.

4. Et vidit Jehova quod diverteret ad videndum: vocavitque eum Deus e medio rubi, dicens, Moses, Moses. Et respondit, Ecce ego.

5. And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet; for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.

5. Tunc dixit, Ne appropinques huc: solve calceamenta e pedibus tuis: quia locus, in quo stas, terra sancta est.

CHAPTER 2

Ex 2:1-10. Birth and Preservation of Moses.

1. there went a man of the house of Levi, &c. Amram was the husband and Jochebed the wife (compare Ex 6:2; Nu 26:59). The marriage took place, and two children, Miriam and Aaron, were born some years before the infanticidal edict.

2. the woman ... bare a son, &c.--Some extraordinary appearance of remarkable comeliness led his parents to augur his future greatness. Beauty was regarded by the ancients as a mark of the divine favor.

hid him three months--The parents were a pious couple, and the measures they took were prompted not only by parental attachment, but by a strong faith in the blessing of God prospering their endeavors to save the infant.

3. she took for him an ark of bulrushes--papyrus, a thick, strong, and tough reed.

slime--the mud of the Nile, which, when hardened, is very tenacious.

pitch--mineral tar. Boats of this description are seen daily floating on the surface of the river, with no other caulking than Nile mud (compare Is 18:2), and they are perfectly watertight, unless the coating is forced off by stormy weather.

flags--a general term for sea or river weed. The chest was not, as is often represented, committed to the bosom of the water but laid on the bank, where it would naturally appear to have been drifted by the current and arrested by the reedy thicket. The spot is traditionally said to be the Isle of Rodah, near Old Cairo.

4. his sister--Miriam would probably be a girl of ten or twelve years of age at the time.

5. the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river--The occasion is thought to have been a religious solemnity which the royal family opened by bathing in the sacred stream. Peculiar sacredness was attached to those portions of the Nile which flowed near the temples. The water was there fenced off as a protection from the crocodiles; and doubtless the princess had an enclosure reserved for her own use, the road to which seems to have been well known to Jochebed.

walked along--in procession or in file.

she sent her maid--her immediate attendant. The term is different from that rendered "maidens."

6-9. when she had opened it, she saw the child--The narrative is picturesque. No tale of romance ever described a plot more skilfully laid or more full of interest in the development. The expedient of the ark, the slime and pitch, the choice of the time and place, the appeal to the sensibilities of the female breast, the stationing of the sister as a watch of the proceedings, her timely suggestion of a nurse, and the engagement of the mother herself--all bespeak a more than ordinary measure of ingenuity as well as intense solicitude on the part of the parents. But the origin of the scheme was most probably owing to a divine suggestion, as its success was due to an overruling Providence, who not only preserved the child's life, but provided for his being trained in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Hence it is said to have been done by faith (He 11:23), either in the general promise of deliverance, or some special revelation made to Amram and Jochebed--and in this view, the pious couple gave a beautiful example of a firm reliance on the word of God, united with an active use of the most suitable means.

10. she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter--Though it must have been nearly as severe a trial for Jochebed to part with him the second time as the first, she was doubtless reconciled to it by her belief in his high destination as the future deliverer of Israel. His age when removed to the palace is not stated; but he was old enough to be well instructed in the principles of the true religion; and those early impressions, deepened by the power of divine grace, were never forgotten or effaced.

he became her son--by adoption, and his high rank afforded him advantages in education, which in the Providence of God were made subservient to far different purposes from what his royal patroness intended.

she called his name Moses--His parents might, as usual, at the time of his circumcision, have given him a name, which is traditionally said to have been Joachim. But the name chosen by the princess, whether of Egyptian or Hebrew origin, is the only one by which he has ever been known to the church; and it is a permanent memorial of the painful incidents of his birth and infancy.

Ex 2:11-25. His Sympathy with the Hebrews.

11. in those days, when Moses was grown--not in age and stature only, but in power as well as in renown for accomplishments and military prowess (Ac 7:22). There is a gap here in the sacred history which, however, is supplied by the inspired commentary of Paul, who has fully detailed the reasons as well as extent of the change that took place in his worldly condition; and whether, as some say, his royal mother had proposed to make him coregent and successor to the crown, or some other circumstances, led to a declaration of his mind, he determined to renounce the palace and identify himself with the suffering people of God (He 11:24-29). The descent of some great sovereigns, like Diocletian and Charles V, from a throne into private life, is nothing to the sacrifice which Moses made through the power of faith.

he went out unto his brethren--to make a full and systematic inspection of their condition in the various parts of the country where they were dispersed (Ac 7:23), and he adopted this proceeding in pursuance of the patriotic purpose that the faith, which is of the operation of God, was even then forming in his heart.

he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew--one of the taskmasters scourging a Hebrew slave without any just cause (Ac 7:24), and in so cruel a manner, that he seems to have died under the barbarous treatment--for the conditions of the sacred story imply such a fatal issue. The sight was new and strange to him, and though pre-eminent for meekness (Nu 12:3), he was fired with indignation.

12. he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand--This act of Moses may seem and indeed by some has been condemned as rash and unjustifiable--in plain terms, a deed of assassination. But we must not judge of his action in such a country and age by the standard of law and the notions of right which prevail in our Christian land; and, besides, not only is it not spoken of as a crime in Scripture or as distressing the perpetrator with remorse, but according to existing customs among nomadic tribes, he was bound to avenge the blood of a brother. The person he slew, however, being a government officer, he had rendered himself amenable to the laws of Egypt, and therefore he endeavored to screen himself from the consequences by concealment of the corpse.

13-14. two men of the Hebrews strove together--His benevolent mediation in this strife, though made in the kindest and mildest manner, was resented, and the taunt of the aggressor showing that Moses' conduct on the preceding day had become generally known, he determined to consult his safety by immediate flight (He 11:27). These two incidents prove that neither were the Israelites yet ready to go out of Egypt, nor Moses prepared to be their leader (Jas 1:20). It was by the staff and not the sword--by the meekness, and not the wrath of Moses that God was to accomplish that great work of deliverance. Both he and the people of Israel were for forty years more to be cast into the furnace of affliction, yet it was therein that He had chosen them (Is 48:10).

15. Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh--His flight took place in the second year of Thothmes I.

dwelt in the land of Midian--situated on the eastern shore of the gulf of the Red Sea and occupied by the posterity of Midian the son of Cush. The territory extended northward to the top of the gulf and westward far across the desert of Sinai. And from their position near the sea, they early combined trading with pastoral pursuits (Ge 37:28). The headquarters of Jethro are supposed to have been where Dahab-Madian now stands; and from Moses coming direct to that place, he may have travelled with a caravan of merchants. But another place is fixed by tradition in Wady Shuweib, or Jethro's valley, on the east of the mountain of Moses.

sat down by a well--(See on Ge 29:3).

16-22. the priest of Midian--or, "prince of Midian." As the officers were usually conjoined, he was the ruler also of the people called Cushites or Ethiopians, and like many other chiefs of pastoral people in that early age, he still retained the faith and worship of the true God.

seven daughters--were shepherdesses to whom Moses was favorably introduced by an act of courtesy and courage in protecting them from the rude shepherds of some neighboring tribe at a well. He afterwards formed a close and permanent alliance with this family by marrying one of the daughters, Zipporah, "a little bird," called a Cushite or Ethiopian (Nu 12:1), and whom Moses doubtless obtained in the manner of Jacob by service [see Ex 3:1]. He had by her two sons, whose names were, according to common practice, commemorative of incidents in the family history [Ex 18:3, 4].

23. the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage--The language seems to imply that the Israelites had experienced a partial relaxation, probably through the influence of Moses' royal patroness; but in the reign of her father's successor the persecution was renewed with increased severity.

There went a man - Amram, son of Kohath, son of Levi, Exo 6:16-20. A daughter of Levi, Jochebed, sister to Kohath, and consequently both the wife and aunt of her husband Amram, Exo 6:20; Num 26:59. Such marriages were at this time lawful, though they were afterwards forbidden, Lev 18:12. But it is possible that daughter of Levi means no more than a descendant of that family, and that probably Amram and Jochebed were only cousin germans. As a new law was to be given and a new priesthood formed, God chose a religious family out of which the lawgiver and the high priest were both to spring.

Bare a son - This certainly was not her first child, for Aaron was fourscore and three years old when Moses was but fourscore, see Exo 7:7 : and there was a sister, probably Miriam, who was older than either; see below, Exo 2:4, and see Num 26:59. Miriam and Aaron had no doubt been both born before the decree was passed for the destruction of the Hebrew male children, mentioned in the preceding chapter.

Goodly child - The text simply says כי טיב הוא ki tob hu, that he was good, which signifies that he was not only a perfect, well-formed child, but that he was very beautiful; hence the Septuagint translate the place, Ιδοντες δε αυτο αστειον, Seeing him to be beautiful, which St. Stephen interprets, Ην αστειος τῳ Θεῳ, He was comely to God, or divinely beautiful. This very circumstance was wisely ordained by the kind providence of God to be one means of his preservation. Scarcely any thing interests the heart more than the sight of a lovely babe in distress. His beauty would induce even his parents to double their exertions to save him, and was probably the sole motive which led the Egyptian princess to take such particular care of him, and to educate him as her own, which in all likelihood she would not have done had he been only an ordinary child.

An ark of bulrushes - תבת גמא tebath gome, a small boat or basket made of the Egyptian reed called papyrus, so famous in all antiquity. This plant 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, which the ancients used to compare to a thyrsus. This reed was of the greatest use to the inhabitants of Egypt, the pith contained in the stalk serving them for food, and the woody part to build vessels with; which vessels frequently appear on engraved stones and other monuments of Egyptian antiquity. For this purpose they made it up like rushes into bundles, and by tying them together gave their vessels the necessary figure and solidity. "The vessels of bulrushes or papyrus," says Dr. Shaw, "were no other than large fabrics of the same kind with that of Moses, Exo 2:3, which from the late introduction of planks and stronger materials are now laid aside." Thus Pliny, lib. vi., cap. 16, takes notice of the naves papyraceas armamentaque Nili, "ships made of papyrus and the equipments of the Nile:" and lib. xiii., cap. 11, he observes, Exodus ipsa quidem papyro navigia texunt: "Of the papyrus itself they construct sailing vessels." Herodotus and Diodorus have recorded the same fact; and among the poets, Lucan, lib. iv., ver. 136: Conseritur bibula Memphitis cymba papyro, "The Memphian or Egyptian boat is constructed from the soaking papyrus." The epithet bibula is particularly remarkable, as corresponding with great exactness to the nature of the plant, and to its Hebrew name גמא gome, which signifies to soak, to drink up. See Parkhurst sub voce.

She laid it in the flags - Not willing to trust it in the stream for fear of a disaster; and probably choosing the place to which the Egyptian princess was accustomed to come for the purpose specified in the note on the following verse.

And the daughter of Pharaoh - Josephus calls her Thermuthis, and says that "the ark was borne along by the current, and that she sent one that could swim after it; that she was struck with the figure and uncommon beauty of the child; that she inquired for a nurse, but he having refused the breasts of several, and his sister proposing to bring a Hebrew nurse, his own mother was procured." But all this is in Josephus's manner, as well as the long circumstantial dream that he gives to Amram concerning the future greatness of Moses, which cannot be considered in any other light than that of a fable, and not even a cunningly devised one.

To wash herself at the river - Whether the daughter of Pharaoh went to bathe in the river through motives of pleasure, health, or religion, or whether she bathed at all, the text does not specify. It is merely stated by the sacred writer that she went down to the river to Wash; for the word herself is not in the original. Mr. Harmer, Observat., vol. iii., p. 529, is of opinion that the time referred to above was that in which the Nile begins to rise; and as the dancing girls in Egypt are accustomed now to plunge themselves into the river at its rising, by which act they testify their gratitude for the inestimable blessing of its inundations, so it might have been formerly; and that Pharaoh's daughter was now coming down to the river on a similar account. I see no likelihood in all this. If she washed herself at all, it might have been a religious ablution, and yet extended no farther than to the hands and face; for the word רחץ rachats, to wash, is repeatedly used in the Pentateuch to signify religious ablutions of different kinds. Jonathan in his Targum says that God had smitten all Egypt with ulcers, and that the daughter of Pharaoh came to wash in the river in order to find relief; and that as soon as she touched the ark where Moses was, her ulcers were healed. This is all fable. I believe there was no bathing in the case, but simply what the text states, washing, not of her person, but of her clothes, which was an employment that even kings' daughters did not think beneath them in those primitive times. Homer, Odyss. vi., represents Nausicaa, daughter of Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians, in company with her maidens, employed at the seaside in washing her own clothes and those of her five brothers! While thus employed they find Ulysses just driven ashore after having been shipwrecked, utterly helpless, naked, and destitute of every necessary of life. The whole scene is so perfectly like that before us that they appear to me to be almost parallels. I shall subjoin a few lines. The princess, having piled her clothes on a carriage drawn by several mules, and driven to the place of washing, commences her work, which the poet describes thus: - Ται δ' απ' απηνης Εἱματα χερσιν ἑλοντο, και εσφορεον μελαν ὑδωρ. Στειβον δ' εν βαθροισι θοως, εριδα προφερουσαι. Αυταρ επει πλυναν τε, καθηραν τε ῥυπα παντα, Εξειης πετασαν παρα θιν' ἁλος, ᾑχι μαλιστα. Λαΐγγας ποτι χερσον αποπλυνεσκε θαλασσα.

Odyssey, lib. vi., ver. 90. "Light'ning the carriage, next they bore in hand

The garments down to the unsullied wave,

And thrust them heap'd into the pools; their task

Despatching brisk, and with an emulous haste.

When all were purified, and neither spot

Could be perceived or blemish more, they spread

The raiment orderly along the beach,

Where dashing tides had cleansed the pebbles most."

Cowper.

When this task was finished we find the Phaeacian princess and her ladies (Κουρη δ' εκ θαλαμοιο - αμφιπολοι αλλαι) employed in amusing themselves upon the beach, till the garments they had washed should be dry and fit to be folded up, that they might reload their carriage and return. In the text of Moses the Egyptian princess, accompanied by her maids, נערתיה naarotheyha, comes down to the river, not to bathe herself, for this is not intimated, but merely to wash, לרחץ lirchots; at the time in which the ark is perceived we may suppose that she and her companions had finished their task, and, like the daughter of Alcinous and her maidens, were amusing themselves walking along by the river's side, as the others did by tossing a ball, σφαιρῃ ται τ' αρ επαιζον, when they as suddenly and as unexpectedly discovered Moses adrift on the flood, as Nausicaa and her companions discovered Ulysses just escaped naked from shipwreck. In both the histories, that of the poet and this of the prophet, both the strangers, the shipwrecked Greek and the almost drowned Hebrew, were rescued by the princesses, nourished and preserved alive! Were it lawful to suppose that Homer had ever seen the Hebrew story, it would be reasonable to conclude that he had made it the basis of the 6th book of the Odyssey.

She had compassion on him - The sight of a beautiful babe in distress could not fail to make the impression here mentioned; see Clarke on Exo 2:2 (note). It has already been conjectured that the cruel edict of the Egyptian king did not continue long in force; see Exo 1:22. And it will not appear unreasonable to suppose that the circumstance related here might have brought about its abolition. The daughter of Pharaoh, struck with the distressed state of the Hebrew children from what she had seen in the case of Moses, would probably implore her father to abolish this sanguinary edict.

Shall I go and call a nurse - Had not the different circumstances marked here been placed under the superintendence of an especial providence, there is no human probability that they could have had such a happy issue. The parents had done every thing to save their child that piety, affection, and prudence could dictate, and having done so, they left the event to God. By faith, says the apostle, Heb 11:23, Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. Because of the king's commandment they were obliged to make use of the most prudent caution to save the child's life; and their faith in God enabled them to risk their own safety, for they were not afraid of the king's commandment - they feared God, and they had no other fear.

And he became her son - From this time of his being brought home by his nurse his education commenced, and he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, Act 7:22, who in the knowledge of nature probably exceeded all the nations then on the face of the earth.

And she called his name - משה mosheh, because מן המים min hammayim, out of the waters משיתהו meshithihu, have I drawn him. משה mashah signifies to draw out; and mosheh is the person drawn out; the word is used in the same sense Psa 18:16, and 2Sam 22:17. What name he had from his parents we know not; but whatever it might be it was ever after lost in the name given to him by the princess of Egypt. Abul Farajius says that Thermuthis delivered him to the wise men Janees and Jimbrees to be instructed in wisdom.

When Moses was grown - Being full forty years of age, as St. Stephen says, Act 7:23, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, i.e., he was excited to it by a Divine inspiration; and seeing one of them suffer wrong, by an Egyptian smiting him, probably one of the task-masters, he avenged him and smote - slew, the Egyptian, supposing that God who had given him commission, had given also his brethren to understand that they were to be delivered by his hand; see Act 7:23-25. Probably the Egyptian killed the Hebrew, and therefore on the Noahic precept Moses was justified in killing him; and he was authorized so to do by the commission which he had received from God, as all succeeding events amply prove. Previously to the mission of Moses to deliver the Israelites, Josephus says, "The Ethiopians having made an irruption into Egypt, and subdued a great part of it, a Divine oracle advised them to employ Moses the Hebrew. On this the king of Egypt made him general of the Egyptian forces; with these he attacked the Ethiopians, defeated and drove them back into their own land, and forced them to take refuge in the city of Saba, where he besieged them. Tharbis, daughter of the Ethiopian king, seeing him, fell desperately in love with him, and promised to give up the city to him on condition that he would take her to wife, to which Moses agreed, and the city was put into the hands of the Egyptians." - Jos. Ant. lib. ii., chap. 9. St. Stephen probably alluded to something of this kind when he said Moses was mighty in deeds as well as words.

Two men of the Hebrews strove together - How strange that in the very place where they were suffering a heavy persecution because they were Hebrews, the very persons themselves who suffered it should be found persecuting each other! It has been often seen that in those times in which the ungodly oppressed the Church of Christ, its own members have been separated from each other by disputes concerning comparatively unessential points of doctrine and discipline, in consequence of which both they and the truth have become an easy prey to those whose desire was to waste the heritage of the Lord. The Targum of Jonathan says that the two persons who strove were Dathan and Abiram.

And Moses feared - He saw that the Israelites were not as yet prepared to leave their bondage; and that though God had called him to be their leader, yet his providence had not yet sufficiently opened the way; and had he stayed in Egypt he must have endangered his life. Prudence therefore dictated an escape for the present to the land of Midian.

Pharaoh - sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh - How can this be reconciled with Heb 11:27 : By faith he (Moses) forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king? Very easily. The apostle speaks not of this forsaking of Egypt, but of his and the Israelites' final departure from it, and of the bold and courageous manner in which Moses treated Pharaoh and the Egyptians, disregarding his threatenings and the multitudes of them that pursued after the people whom, in the name and strength of God, he led in the face of their enemies out of Egypt.

Dwelt in the land of Midian - A country generally supposed to have been in Arabia Petraea, on the eastern coast of the Red Sea, not far from Mount Sinai. This place is still called by the Arabs the land of Midian or the land of Jethro. Abul Farajius calls it the land of the Arabs. It is supposed that the Midianites derived their origin from Midian, the fourth son of Abraham by Keturah, thus: - Abraham, Zimran, Jokshan, Medan and Midian, Raguel, Jethro; see Gen 25:1. But Calmet contends that if Jethro had been of the family of Abraham, either by Jokshan, or Midian, Aaron and Miriam could not have reproached Moses with marrying a Cushite, Zipporah, the daughter of Reuel. He thinks therefore that the Midianites were of the progeny of Cush, the son of Ham; see Gen 10:6.

The priest of Midian - Or prince, or both; for the original כהן cohen has both meanings. See it explained at large at Gen 15:18 (note). The transaction here very nearly resembles that mentioned Genesis 29 (note) concerning Jacob and Rachel.

The shepherds - drove them - The verb יגרשים yegareshum, being in the masculine gender, seems to imply that the shepherds drove away the flocks of Reuel's daughters, and not the daughters themselves. The fact seems to be, that, as the daughters of Reuel filled the troughs and brought their flocks to drink, the shepherds drove those away, and, profiting by the young women's labor, watered their own cattle. Moses resisted this insolence, and assisted them to water their flocks, in consequence of which they were enabled to return much sooner than they were wont to do, Exo 2:18.

Reuel, their father - In Num 10:29 this person is called Raguel, but the Hebrew is the same in both places. The reason of this difference is that the ע ain in רעואל is sometimes used merely as vowel, sometimes as g, ng, and gn, and this is occasioned by the difficulty of the sound, which scarcely any European organs can enunciate. As pronounced by the Arabs it strongly resembles the first effort made by the throat in gargling, or as Meninski says, Est vox vituli matrem vocantis, "It is like the sound made by a calf in seeking its dam." Raguel is the worst method of pronouncing it; Re-u-el, the first syllable strongly accented, is nearer to the true sound. A proper uniformity in pronouncing the same word wherever it may occur, either in the Old or New Testament, is greatly to be desired. The person in question appears to have several names. Here he is called Reuel; in Num 10:29, Raguel; in Exo 3:1, Jethor; in Jdg 4:11, Hobab; and in Jdg 1:16 he is called קיני Keyni, which in Exodus 4 we translate Kenite. Some suppose that Re-u-el was father to Hobab, who was also called Jethro. This is the most likely; see Clarke's note on Exo 3:1.

That he may eat bread - That he may be entertained, and receive refreshment to proceed on his journey. Bread, among the Hebrews, was used to signify all kinds of food commonly used for the support of man's life.

Zipporah his daughter - Abul Farajius calls her "Saphura the black, daughter of Rewel the Midianite, the son of Dedan, the son of Abraham by his wife Keturah." The Targum calls her the granddaughter of Reuel. It appears that Moses obtained Zipporah something in the same way that Jacob obtained Rachel; namely, for the performance of certain Services, probably keeping of sheep: see Exo 3:1.

Called his name Gershom - Literally, a stranger; the reason of which Moses immediately adds, for I have been an Alien in a strange land.

The Vulgate, the Septuagint, as it stands in the Complutensian Polyglot, and in several MSS., the Syriac, the Coptic, and the Arabic, add the following words to this verse: 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. These words are found in Exo 18:4, but they are certainly necessary here, for it is very likely that these two sons were born within a short space of each other; for in Exo 4:20, it is said, Moses took his wife and his Sons, by which it is plain that he had both Gershom and Eliezer at that time. Houbigant introduces this addition in his Latin version, and contends that this is its most proper place. Notwithstanding the authority of the above versions, the clause is found in no copy, printed or MS., of the Hebrew text.

In process of time - the king of Egypt died - According to St. Stephen, (Act 7:30, compared with Exo 7:7), the death of the Egyptian king happened about forty years after the escape of Moses to Midian. The words ויהי בימים הרבים ההם vayehi baiyamim harabbim hahem, which we translate And it came to pass in process of time, signify, And it was in many days from these that the king, etc. It has already been remarked that Archbishop Usher supposes this king to have been Ramesses Miamun, who was succeeded by his son Amenophis, who was drowned in the Red Sea when pursuing the Israelites, but Abul Farajius says it was Amunfathis, (Amenophis), he who made the cruel edict against the Hebrew children. Some suppose that Moses wrote the book of Job during the time he sojourned in Midian, and also the book of Genesis. See the preface to the book of Job, where this subject is considered.

Sighed by reason of the bondage - For the nature of their bondage, see Clarke's note on Exo 1:14.

God remembered his covenant - God's covenant is God's engagement; he had promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give their posterity a land flowing with milk and honey, etc. They are now under the most oppressive bondage, and this was the most proper time for God to show them his mercy and power in fulfilling his promise. This is all that is meant by God's remembering his covenant, for it was now that he began to give it its effect.

And God had respect unto them - וידע אלהים vaiyeda Elohim, God knew them, i.e., he approved of them, and therefore it is said that their cry came up before God, and he heard their groaning. The word ידע yada, to know, in the Hebrew Bible, as well as γινωσκω in the Greek Testament, is frequently used in the sense of approving; and because God knew - had respect for and approved of, them, therefore he was determined to deliver them. For אלהים Elohim, God, in the last clause of this verse, Houbigant reads אליהם aleyhem, Upon Them, which is countenanced by the Vulgate, Septuagint, Chaldee, Coptic, and Arabic, and appears to have been the original reading. The difference in the original consists in the interchange of two letters, the י yod and ה he. Our translators insert unto them, in order to make up that sense which this various reading gives without trouble.

The farther we proceed in the sacred writings, the more the history both of the grace and providence of God opens to our view. He ever cares for his creatures, and is mindful of his promise. The very means made use of to destroy his work are, in his hands, the instruments of its accomplishment. Pharaoh orders the male children of the Hebrews to be thrown into the river; Moses, who was thus exposed, is found by his own daughter, brought up as her own son, and from his Egyptian education becomes much better qualified for the great work to which God had called him; and his being obliged to leave Egypt was undoubtedly a powerful means to wean his heart from a land in which he had at his command all the advantages and luxuries of life. His sojourning also in a strange land, where he was obliged to earn his bread by a very painful employment, fitted him for the perilous journey he was obliged to take in the wilderness, and enabled him to bear the better the privations to which he was in consequence exposed.

The bondage of the Israelites was also wisely permitted, that they might with less reluctance leave a country where they had suffered the greatest oppression and indignities. Had they not suffered severely previously to their departure, there is much reason to believe that no inducements could have been sufficient to have prevailed on them to leave it. And yet their leaving it was of infinite consequence, in the order both of grace and providence, as it was indispensably necessary that they should be a people separated from all the rest of the world, that they might see the promises of God fulfilled under their own eyes, and thus have the fullest persuasion that their law was Divine, their prophets inspired by the Most High, and that the Messiah came according to the prophecies before delivered concerning him.

From the example of Pharaoh's daughter, (see Clarke's note Exo 2:5), and the seven daughters of Jethro, (Exo 2:16), we learn that in the days of primitive simplicity, and in this respect the best days, the children, particularly the daughters of persons in the highest ranks in life, were employed in the most laborious offices. Kings' daughters performed the office of the laundress to their own families; and the daughters of princes tended and watered the flocks. We have seen similar instances in the case of Rebekah and Rachel; and we cannot be too pointed in calling the attention of modern delicate females, who are not only above serving their own parents and family, but even their own selves: the consequence of which is, they have neither vigor nor health; their growth, for want of healthy exercise, is generally cramped; their natural powers are prematurely developed, and their whole course is rather an apology for living, than a state of effective life. Many of these live not out half their days, and their offspring, when they have any, is more feeble than themselves; so that the race of man where such preposterous conduct is followed (and where is it not followed?) is in a state of gradual deterioration. Parents who wish to fulfill the intention of God and nature, will doubtless see it their duty to bring up their children on a different plan. A worse than the present can scarcely be found out.

Afflictions, under the direction of God's providence and the influence of his grace, are often the means of leading men to pray to and acknowledge God, who in the time of their prosperity hardened their necks from his fear. When the Israelites were sorely oppressed, they began to pray. If the cry of oppression had not been among them, probably the cry for mercy had not been heard. Though afflictions, considered in themselves, can neither atone for sin nor improve the moral state of the soul, yet God often uses them as means to bring sinners to himself, and to quicken those who, having already escaped the pollutions of the world, were falling again under the influence of an earthly mind. Of many millions besides David it may truly be said, Before they were afflicted they went astray.

And there went a man - Amram, from the place of his abode to another place. A daughter - That is, grand - daughter of Levi.

Bare a son - It seems just at the time of his birth that cruel law was made for the murder of all the male - children of the Hebrews, and many no doubt perished by the execution of it. Moses's parents had Miriam and Aaron, both elder than he, born to them before that edict came out. Probably his mother had little joy of her being with child of him, now this edict was in force. Yet this child proves the glory of his father's house. Observe the beauty of providence: just when Pharaoh's cruelty rose to this height, the deliverer was born. She hid him three months - In some private apartment of their own house, though probably with the hazard of their lives had he been discovered. It is said, Heb 11:23. That Moses's parents hid him by faith: some think they had a special revelation that the deliverer should spring from their loins; however, they believed the general promise of Israel's preservation, and in that faith hid their child.

And when she could no longer hide him, she put him in an ark of bulrushes - By the river side. God put it into their hearts to do this, to bring about his own purposes: that Moses might by this means be brought into the hands of Pharaoh's daughter, and that by his deliverance, a specimen might be given of the deliverance of God's church.

And the daughter of Pharaoh came - Providence brings no less a person than Pharaoh's daughter just at that juncture, guides her to the place where this poor infant lay, inclines her heart to pity it, which she dares do, when none else durst. Never did poor child cry so seasonably, as this did; the babe wept, which moved her compassion, as no doubt his beauty did.

And he became her son - The tradition of the Jews is, that Pharaoh's daughter had no child of her own, and that she was the only child of her father, so that when he was adopted for her son, he stood fair for the crown: however, it is certain he stood fair for the best preferments of the court in due time, and in the mean time had the advantage of the best education, with the help of which, he became master of all the lawful learning of the Egyptians Acts 7:22. Those whom God designs for great services he finds out ways for to qualify them. Moses, by having his education in a court, is the fitter to be a prince, and king in Jeshurun; by having his education in a learned court, (for such the Egyptian then was) is the fitter to be an historian; and by having his education in the court of Egypt, is the fitter to be employed as an ambassador to that court in God's name. The Jews tell us, that his father at his circumcision called him Joachim, but Pharaoh's daughter called him Moses, Drawn out of the water, so it signifies in the Egyptian language, The calling of the Jewish lawgiver by an Egyptian name is a happy omen to the Gentile world, and gives hopes of that day when it should be said, Blessed be Egypt my people, Isa 19:25. And his tuition at court was an earnest of the performance of that promise, Isa 49:23. Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and queens thy nursing mothers.

When Moses was grown he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens - He looked on their burdens as one that not only pitied them, but was resolved to venture with them, and for them.

He slew the Egyptian - Probably it was one of the Egyptian task - masters, whom he found abusing his Hebrew slave. By special warrant from heaven (which makes not a precedent in ordinary cases) Moses slew the Egyptian, and rescued his oppressed brother. The Jew's tradition is, that he did not slay him with any weapon, but as Peter slew Ananias and Sapphira, with the word of his mouth.

He said, Who made thee a prince? - He challengeth his authority; Who made thee a prince? - A man needs no great authority for giving a friendly reproof; it is an act of kindness; yet this man needs will interpret it an act of dominion, and represents his reprover as imperious and assuming. Thus, when people are sick of good discourse, or a seasonable admonition, they will call it preaching, as if a man could not speak a word for God, and against sin, but he took too much upon him. Yet Moses was indeed a prince, and a judge, and knew it, and thought the Hebrews would have understood it; but they stood in their own light, and thrust him away. Acts 7:25,27. Intendest thou to kill me? - See what base constructions malice puts upon the best words and actions. Moses, for reproving him, is presently charged with a design to kill him.

Moses fled from Pharaoh - God ordered this for wise ends. Things were not yet ripe for Israel's deliverance. The measure of Egypt's iniquity was not yet full; the Hebrews were not sufficiently humbled, nor were they yet increased to such a multitude as God designed: Moses is to be farther fitted for the service, and therefore is directed to withdraw for the present, till the time to favour Israel, even the set time, come. God guided Moses to Midian, because the Midianites were of the seed of Abraham, and retained the worship of the true God; so that he might have not only a safe, but a comfortable settlement among them; and through this country he was afterwards to lead Israel, which, that he might do the better, he now had opportunity of acquainting himself with it. Hither he came, and sat down by a well; tired and thoughtful, waiting to see which way Providence would direct him. It was a great change with him, since he was but the other day at ease in Pharaoh's court.

Stood up and helped them - This be did, because wherever he was, as occasion offered itself, he loved to be doing justice, and appearing in the defence of such as he saw injured. He loved to be doing good: wherever the Providence of God call us, we should desire and endeavour to be useful; and when we cannot do the good we would, we must be ready to do the good we can.

Reul or Raguel (see Num 10:29,) seems to have been their grandfather and father of Hobab or Jethro, their immediate father.

Gershom - That is, A stranger there. Now this settlement of Moses in Midian was designed by Providence. To shelter him for the present; God will find hiding places for his people in the day of their distress. It was also designed to prepare him for the services he was farther designed to. His manner of life in Midian, where he kept the flock of his father - in - law would be of use to him, to inure him to hardship and poverty; and to inure him to contemplation and devotion. Egypt accomplished him for a scholar, a gentleman, a statesman, a soldier, all which accomplishments would be afterwards of use to him; but yet lacketh he one thing, in which the court of Egypt could not befriend him. He that was to do all by divine revelation must know, what it was to live a life of communion with God, and in this he would be greatly furthered by the retirement of a shepherd's life in Midian. By the former he was prepared to rule in Jeshurun, but by the latter he was prepared to converse with God in mount Horeb. Those that know what it is to be alone with God, are acquainted with better delights than ever Moses tasted in the court of Pharaoh.

The king of Egypt died - And after him, one or two more of his sons or successors. And the children of Israel sighed by reason of bondage - Probably the murdering of their infants did not continue, that part of their affliction only attended the birth of Moses, to signalize that. And now they were content with their increase, finding that Egypt was enriched by their labour; so they might have them for their slaves, they cared not how many they were. On this therefore they were intent, to keep them all at work, and make the best hand they could of their labour. When one Pharaoh died, another rose up in his place, that was as cruel to Israel as his predecessors. And they cried - Now at last they began to think of God under their troubles, and to return to him from the idols they had served, Eze 20:8. Hitherto they had fretted at the instruments of their trouble, but God was not in all their thoughts. But before God unbound them, he put it into their hearts to cry unto him. It is a sign God is coming towards us with deliverance, when he inclines us to cry to him for it.

And God heard their groaning - That is, he made it to appear that he took notice of their complaints. The groans of the oppressed cry loud in the ears of the righteous God, to whom vengeance belongs; especially the groans of God's children, the burdens they groan under, and the blessings they groan after. And God remembered his covenant - Which he seemed to have forgotten, but really is ever mindful of. This God had an eye to, and not to any merit of theirs in what he did for them. And God looked upon the children of Israel - Moses looked upon them and pitied them, but now God looked upon them and helped them. And God had respect unto them - A favourable respect to them as his own. The frequent repetition of the name of God intimates, that now we are to expect something great. His eyes which run to and fro through the earth, are now fixed on Israel, to shew himself strong, to shew himself a God in their behalf.

1 AND there went a man of the house of Levi , and took to wife a daughter of Levi .

From the place of his abode to another place for the following purpose.

viz. Amram, Exod. 6. 20. Numb. 26. 58, 59.

Namely Iochebed, Numb. 26. 59. called a daughter not strictly but more largely, to wit, a grandchild, as the words father and Son are oft used for a grandfather and a grandson, as hath been shewed before. And so the word sister, Exod. 6. 20. is to be taken largely, as brother is oft used for a cousin. This seems more probable, than that an Israelite should marry his own sister, which even heathens by the light of nature have condemned, especially now when he had such abundant choice elsewhere.

Marginal references: 1 Chron. 23.13.

3 And when she could not longer hide him , she took for him an ark of bulrushes , and daubed it with slime and with pitch and put the child therein, and she laid it in the flags by the rivers brink.

To wit, with safety to her self, because they now grew more violent in executing that bloody decree, and the child growing up was more likely to be discovered, especially seeing the Egyptians dwelt among them, Exod. 3. 22.

That boats were made of such materials in those parts is evident from Isa. 18. 2. and from the testimonies of Herod. Pliny, and others.

Slime within, and pitch without.

Which grew near the rivers side, partly that the vessel might not be carried away and overturned by the violence of the winds and water, and partly that the child might be sooner discerned and more easily taken out thence by any kind hand, which she hoped for.

4 And his sister stood afar off , to wit what would be done unto him.

That she might not be thought to have laid the child there, or to be related to it.

6 And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and behold the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews children .

This she might very probably guess both from the circumstances in which she found him, and from the singular fairness and beauty of the child, far differing from the Egyptian hew, and she might certainly know it by its circumcision.

10 And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaohs daughter, and he became her son . And she called his name Moses : and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.

By adoption, Heb. 11. 24. For as Philo. reports, she, though long married, had no child of her own; and therefore treated him as her own and gave him royal education and instruction: see Act. 7. 21.

It matters not whether this be an Egyptian name, or an Hebrew name answering to it in signification, seeing the meaning of it is here explained.

Marginal references: That is, drawn out.

11 And it came to pass in those dayes , when Moses was grown , that he went out unto his brethren , and looked on their burdens, and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.

Whilest Moses lived at court, and was owned as the son of Pharaohs daughter, and, as some write, designed to succeed Pharaoh in the Throne.

To maturity, being 40 years old, Act. 7. 23.

Partly by natural affection and inclination, that he might learn the state of his brethren, and help them, as occasion should offer it self; and partly by divine instigation, and in design, that he might give some manifestation to them that he was raised and sent of God to deliver them, as may be gathered from Act. 7. 25.

12 And he looked this way and that way , and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian , and hid him in the sand.

Not from conscience of guilt in what he intended, but from humane and warrantable prudence.

This action of Moses was extraordinary, and is not to be justified by the common right of defending the oppressed, which belongs not to private persons, Rom. 12. 19. but onely by his divine and special vocation to be the ruler and deliverer of Israel. Which call of his, howsoever manifested, whether by his father, as Iosephus saith, or immediately to himself, was evident to his own conscience, and he gave this as a signal to make it evident to the people.

13 And when he went out the second day , behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: And he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?

The next day after that atchievement, he returns to execute the office in which God had set him, as a Judge, whose work it is both to destroy enemies and to reconcile brethren.

14 And he said, Who made thee a Prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? and Moses feared , and said, Surely this thing is known.

Through the weakness of his faith, which afterwards growing stronger, he feared not, that which now he did fear, the wrath of the King, Heb. 11. 27. Distinguish the times, and Scriptures agree which seemed to clash together.

Marginal references: Heb. a man, a Prince.

15 Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses . But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sate down by a well.

Not out of zeal to punish a murderer, but to secure himself from so dangerous a person, probably supposing, that this was the man foretold to be the scourge of Egypt and the deliverer of Israel.

16 Now the Priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their fathers flock.

Not of Idols, for then Moses would not have married into his family, but of the true God, for some such were in those antient times, here and there, as appears by Melchisedeck, though his manner of worshipping God might be superstitious and corrupt: Or the Hebrew Cohen may here signify a Prince, or a Potent[illegible: 1+ letters]te, as Gen. 41. 45. Nor doth the employment of his daughters contradict that translation, both because principalities were then many of them very small and mean, and because this employment then was esteemed noble and worthy of great mens daughters, as appears from Gen. 24. 15. and 29. 6. &c.

Marginal references: Or, Prince.

17 And the shepherds came and drove them away : but Moses stood up and helped them , and watered their flock.

That they might enjoy the fruit of their labours, and make use of the water which they had drawn for their own cattle.

Either by perswading them with fair words, or by force, for Moses was strong and full of courage and resolution, wherewith the Shepherds were easily daunted.

18 And when they came to Reuel their father , he said, How is it that you are come so soon to day?

Either 1. Strictly, and then he is the same who elsewhere is called Iethro, Exod. 3. 1. and 18. oft-times, and, as some think, Hobab, Iudg. 4. 11. Or 2. largely, i. e. their grandfather, for such are oft called fathers, as Gen. 31. 43. 2 King. 14. 3. &c. and 16. 2. and 18. 3. so he was the father of Iethro, or Hobab, Numb. 10. 29.

19 And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the flock.

So they guessed him to be by his habit and speech, or he told them that he came from thence.

Heb. in drawing dr[illegible: 1+ letters]w, which notes that he drew it very diligently and readily, which caused their quick return.

20 And he said unto his daughters, And where is he? why is it that ye have left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.

Heb. have left thus, or now, at this time of the day, when it is so late, and he a stranger and traveller.

21 And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter .

Or, consented to his desire or offer. And so his present and temporary repose there is turned into a settled habitation.

Whom Moses married not instantly, but after some years of acquaintance with the family, as may probably be gathered from the youngness and uncircumcisedness of one of his sons 40 years after this, Exod. 4. 25. In which time as Moses would not fail to instruct them in the knowledge of the true God, which he was able excellently to do, so it is likely he had succeeded therein in some measure, and therefore married Zipporah.

23 And it came to pass in process of time , that the King of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cryed, and their cry came up unto God, by reason of the bondage.

Heb. in those many days, viz. in which he lived or abode there, i. e. after them. In is put for after here, as it is Numb. 28. 26. Isa. 20. 1. Mark 13. 24. compared with Mat. 24. 29. Luk. 9. 36. After 40 years, as appears by comparing Exod. 7. 7. with Act. 7. 30.

And after him one or two more of his sons or Successors, and the rest who sought for Moses his life, Exod. 4. 19.

Because though their great oppressor was dead, yet they found no relief, as they hoped to do.

Marginal references: Num. 20. 16.

25 And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them .

Heb. knew them, so as to pity and help them, as words of knowledge are oft used, as Psal. 1. 6. and 31. 7. he, who seeme[illegible: 1+ letters] to have rejected them, now owned them for his people, and came for their rescue.

Marginal references: Heb. knew.; chap. 3. 7.

Exo 2:1-2

At the time when all the Hebrew boys were ordered to be thrown into the Nile, “there went (הלך contributes to the pictorial character of the account, and serves to bring out its importance, just as in Gen 35:22; Deu 31:1) a man of the house of Levi - according to Exo 6:20 and Num 26:59, it was Amram, of the Levitical family of Kohath - and married a daughter (i.e., a descendant) of Levi,” named Jochebed, who bore him a son, viz., Moses. From Exo 6:20 we learn that Moses was not the first child of this marriage, but his brother Aaron; and from Exo 2:7 of this chapter, it is evident that when Moses was born, his sister Miriam was by no means a child (Num 26:59). Both of these had been born before the murderous edict was issued (Exo 1:22). They are not mentioned here, because the only question in hand was the birth and deliverance of Moses, the future deliverer of Israel. “When the mother saw that the child was beautiful” (טוב as in Gen 6:2; lxx ἀστεῖος), she began to think about his preservation. The very beauty of the child was to her “a peculiar token of divine approval, and a sign that God had some special design concerning him” (Delitzsch on Heb 11:23). The expression ἀστεῖος τῷ Θεῷ in Act 7:20 points to this. She therefore hid the new-born child for three months, in the hope of saving him alive. This hope, however, neither sprang from a revelation made to her husband before the birth of her child, that he was appointed to be the saviour of Israel, as Josephus affirms (Ant. ii. 9, 3), either from his own imagination or according to the belief of his age, nor from her faith in the patriarchal promises, but primarily from the natural love of parents for their offspring. And if the hiding of the child is praised in Heb 11:23 as an act of faith, that faith was manifested in their not obeying the king’s commandment, but fulfilling without fear of man all that was required by that parental love, which God approved, and which was rendered all the stronger by the beauty of the child, and in their confident assurance, in spite of all apparent impossibility, that their effort would be successful (vid., Delitzsch ut supra). This confidence was shown in the means adopted by the mother to save the child, when she could hide it no longer.

Exo 2:3-4

She placed the infant in an ark of bulrushes by the bank of the Nile, hoping that possibly it might be found by some compassionate hand, and still be delivered. The dagesh dirim. in הצּפינו serves to separate the consonant in which it stands from the syllable which follows (vid., Ewald, §92 c; Ges. §20, 2 b). גּמא תּבת a little chest of rushes. The use of the word תּבה (ark) is probably intended to call to mind the ark in which Noah was saved (vid., Gen 6:14). גּמא, papyrus, the paper reed: a kind of rush which was very common in ancient Egypt, but has almost entirely disappeared, or, as Pruner affirms (ägypt. Naturgesch. p. 55), is nowhere to be found. It had a triangular stalk about the thickness of a finger, which grew to the height of ten feet; and from this the lighter Nile boats were made, whilst the peeling of the plant was used for sails, mattresses, mats, sandals, and other articles, but chiefly for the preparation of paper (vid., Celsii Hierobot. ii. pp. 137ff.; Hengstenberg, Egypt and the Books of Moses, pp. 85, 86, transl.). ותּחמרה, for תּחמרהּ with mappik omitted: and cemented (pitched) it with חמר bitumen, the asphalt of the Dead Sea, to fasten the papyrus stalks, and with pitch, to make it water-tight, and put it in the reeds by the bank of the Nile, at a spot, as the sequel shows, where she knew that the king’s daughter was accustomed to bathe. For “the sagacity of the mother led her, no doubt, so to arrange the whole, that the issue might be just what is related in Exo 2:5-9” (Baumgarten). The daughter stationed herself a little distance off, to see what happened to the child (Exo 2:4). This sister of Moses was most probably the Miriam who is frequently mentioned afterwards (Num 26:59). תּתצּב for תּתיצּב. The infinitive form דּעה as in Gen 46:3.

Exo 2:5

Pharaoh’s daughter is called Thermouthis or Merris in Jewish tradition, and by the Rabbins בתיה. על־היאר is to be connected with תּרד, and the construction with על to be explained as referring to the descent into (upon) the river from the rising bank. The fact that a king’s daughter should bathe in the open river is certainly opposed to the customs of the modern, Mohammedan East, where this is only done by women of the lower orders, and that in remote places (Lane, Manners and Customs); but it is in harmony with the customs of ancient Egypt,Wilkinson gives a picture of bathing scene, in which an Egyptian woman of rank is introduced, attended by four female servants. and in perfect agreement with the notions of the early Egyptians respecting the sanctity of the Nile, to which divine honours even were paid (vid., Hengstenberg’s Egypt, etc. pp. 109, 110), and with the belief, which was common to both ancient and modern Egyptians, in the power of its waters to impart fruitfulness and prolong life (vid., Strabo, xv. p. 695, etc., and Seetzen, Travels iii. p. 204).

Exo 2:6-8

The exposure of the child at once led the king’s daughter to conclude that it was one of the Hebrews’ children. The fact that she took compassion on the weeping child, and notwithstanding the king’s command (Exo 1:22) took it up and had it brought up (of course, without the knowledge of the king), may be accounted for from the love to children which is innate in the female sex, and the superior adroitness of a mother’s heart, which co-operated in this case, though without knowing or intending it, in the realization of the divine plan of salvation. Competens fuit divina vindicta, ut suis affectibus puniatur parricida et filiae provisione pereat qui genitrices interdixerat parturire (August. Sermo 89 de temp.).

Exo 2:9

With the directions, “Take this child away (היליכי for הוליכי used here in the sense of leading, bringing, carrying away, as in Zec 5:10; Ecc 10:20) and suckle it for me,” the king’s daughter gave the child to its mother, who was unknown to her, and had been fetched as a nurse.

Exo 2:10

When the child had grown large, i.e., had been weaned (יגדּל as in Gen 21:8), the mother, who acted as nurse, brought it back to the queen’s daughter, who then adopted it as her own son, and called it Moses (משׁה): “for,” she said, “out of the water have I drawn him” (משׁיתהוּ). As Pharaoh’s daughter gave this name to the child as her adopted son, it must be an Egyptian name. The Greek form of the name, Μωΰσῆς (lxx), also points to this, as Josephus affirms. “Thermuthis,” he says, “imposed this name upon him, from what had happened when he was put into the river; for the Egyptians call water Mo, and those who are rescued from the water Uses” (Ant. ii. 9, 6, Whiston’s translation). The correctness of this statement is confirmed by the Coptic, which is derived from the old Egyptian.Josephus gives a somewhat different explanation in his book against Apion (i. 31), when he says, “His true name was Moüses, and signifies a person who is rescued from the water, for the Egyptians call water Moü.” Other explanations, though less probable ones, are attempted by Gesenius in his Thes. p. 824, and Knobel in loc.

Now, though we find the name explained in the text from the Hebrew משׁה, this is not to be regarded as a philological or etymological explanation, but as a theological interpretation, referring to the importance of the person rescued from the water to the Israelitish nation. In the lips of an Israelite, the name Mouje, which was so little suited to the Hebrew organs of speech, might be involuntarily altered into Moseh; “and this transformation became an unintentional prophecy, for the person drawn out did become, in fact, the drawer out” (Kurtz). Consequently Knobel's supposition, that the writer regarded משׁה as a participle Poal with the מ dropped, is to be rejected as inadmissible. - There can be no doubt that, as the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter, Moses received a thoroughly Egyptian training, and was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, as Stephen states in Act 7:22 in accordance with Jewish tradition.The tradition, on the other hand, that Moses was a priest of Heliopolis, named Osarsiph (Jos.c. Ap. i. 26, 28), is just as unhistorical as the legend of his expedition against the Ethiopians (Jos.Ant. ii. 10), and many others with which the later, glorifying Saga embellished his life in Egypt.

Through such an education as this, he received just the training required for the performance of the work to which God had called him. Thus the wisdom of Egypt was employed by the wisdom of God for the establishment of the kingdom of God.

Exo 2:11-15

Flight of Moses from Egypt to Midian. - The education of Moses at the Egyptian court could not extinguish the feeling that he belonged to the people of Israel. Our history does not inform us how this feeling, which was inherited from his parents and nourished in him when an infant by his mother’s milk, was fostered still further after he had been handed over to Pharaoh’s daughter, and grew into a firm, decided consciousness of will. All that is related is, how this consciousness broke forth at length in the full-grown man, in the slaying of the Egyptian who had injured a Hebrew (Exo 2:11, Exo 2:12), and in the attempt to reconcile two Hebrew men who were quarrelling (Exo 2:13, Exo 2:14). Both of these occurred “in those days,” i.e., in the time of the Egyptian oppression, when Moses had become great (יגדּל as in Gen 21:20), i.e., had grown to be a man. According to tradition he was then forty years old (Act 7:23). What impelled him to this was not “a carnal ambition and longing for action,” or a desire to attract the attention of his brethren, but fiery love to his brethren or fellow-countrymen, as is shown in the expression, “One of his brethren” (Exo 2:11), and deep sympathy with them in their oppression and sufferings; whilst, at the same time, they undoubtedly displayed the fire of his impetuous nature, and the ground-work for his future calling. It was from this point of view that Stephen cited these facts (Act 7:25-26), for the purpose of proving to the Jews of his own age, that they had been from time immemorial “stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears” (Act 7:51). And this view is the correct one. Not only did Moses intend to help his brethren when he thus appeared among them, but this forcible interference on behalf of his brethren could and should have aroused the thought in their minds, that God would send them salvation through him. “But they understood not” (Act 7:25). At the same time Moses thereby declared that he would no longer “be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; and chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt” (Heb 11:24-26; see Delitzsch in loc.). And this had its roots in faith (πίστει). But his conduct presents another aspect also, which equally demands consideration. His zeal for the welfare of his brethren urged him forward to present himself as the umpire and judge of his brethren before God had called him to this, and drove him to the crime of murder, which cannot be excused as resulting from a sudden ebullition of wrath.The judgment of Augustine is really the true one. Thus, in his c. Faustum Manich. l. 22, c. 70, he says, “I affirm, that the man, though criminal and really the offender, ought not to have been put to death by one who had no legal authority to do so. But minds that are capable of virtues often produce vices also, and show thereby for what virtue they would have been best adapted, if they had but been properly trained. For just as farmers, when they see large herbs, however useless, at once conclude that the land is good for growing corn, so that very impulse of the mind which led Moses to avenge his brother when suffering wrong from a native, without regard to legal forms, was not unfitted to produce the fruits of virtue, but, though hitherto uncultivated, was at least a sign of great fertility.” Augustine then compares this deed to that of Peter, when attempting to defend his Lord with a sword (Mat 26:51), and adds, “Both of them broke through the rules of justice, not through any base inhumanity, but through animosity that needed correction: both sinned through their hatred of another’s wickedness, and their love, though carnal, in the one case towards a brother, in the other to the Lord. This fault needed pruning or rooting up; but yet so great a heart could be as readily cultivated for bearing virtues, as land for bearing fruit.”

For he acted with evident deliberation. “He looked this way and that way; and when he saw no one, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand” (Exo 2:12). Through his life at the Egyptian court his own natural inclinations had been formed to rule, and they manifested themselves on this occasion in an ungodly way. This was thrown in his teeth by the man “in the wrong” (הרשׁע, Exo 2:13), who was striving with his brother and doing him an injury: “Who made thee a ruler and judge over us” (Exo 2:14)? and so far he was right. The murder of the Egyptian had also become known; and as soon as Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses, who fled into the land of Midian in fear for his life (Exo 2:15). Thus dread of Pharaoh’s wrath drove Moses from Egypt into the desert. For all that, it is stated in Heb 11:27, that “by faith (πίστει) Moses forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king.” This faith, however, he manifested not by fleeing - his flight was rather a sign of timidity - but by leaving Egypt; in other words, by renouncing his position in Egypt, where he might possibly have softened down the kings’ wrath, and perhaps even have brought help and deliverance to his brethren the Hebrews. By the fact that he did not allow such human hopes to lead him to remain in Egypt, and was not afraid to increase the king’s anger by his flight, he manifested faith in the invisible One as though he saw Him, commending not only himself, but his oppressed nation, to the care and protection of God (vid., Delitzsch on Heb 11:27).

The situation of the land of Midian, to which Moses fled, cannot be determined with certainty. The Midianites, who were descended from Abraham through Keturah (Gen 25:2, Gen 25:4), had their principal settlements on the eastern side of the Elanitic Gulf, from which they spread northwards into the fields of Moab (Gen 36:35; Num 22:4, Num 22:7; Num 25:6, Num 25:17; Num 31:1.; Jdg 6:1.), and carried on a caravan trade through Canaan to Egypt (Gen 37:28, Gen 37:36; Isa 60:6). On the eastern side of the Elanitic Gulf, and five days’ journey from Aela, there stood the town of Madian, the ruins of which are mentioned by Edrisi and Abulfeda, who also speak of a well there, from which Moses watered the flocks of his father-in-law Shoeib (i.e., Jethro). But we are precluded from fixing upon this as the home of Jethro by Exo 3:1, where Moses is said to have come to Horeb, when he drove Jethro’s sheep behind the desert. The Midianites on the eastern side of the Elanitic Gulf could not possibly have led their flocks as far as Horeb for pasturage. We must assume, therefore, that one branch of the Midianites, to whom Jethro was priest, had crossed the Elanitic Gulf, and settled in the southern half of the peninsula of Sinai (cf. Exo 3:1). There is nothing improbable in such a supposition. There are several branches of the Towara Arabs occupying the southern portion of Arabia, that have sprung from Hedjas in this way; and even in the most modern times considerable intercourse was carried on between the eastern side of the gulf and the peninsula, whilst there was formerly a ferry between Szytta, Madian, and Nekba. - The words “and he sat down (ויּשׁב, i.e., settled) in the land of Midian, and sat down by the well,” are hardly to be understood as simply meaning that “when he was dwelling in Midian, he sat down one day by a well” (Baumg.), but that immediately upon his arrival in Midian, where he intended to dwell or stay, he sat down by the well. The definite article before בּאר points to the well as the only one, or the principal well in that district. Knobel refers to “the well at Sherm;” but at Sherm el Moye (i.e., water-bay) or Sherm el Bir (well-bay) there are “several deep wells finished off with stones,” which are “evidently the work of an early age, and have cost great labour” (Burckhardt, Syr. p. 854); so that the expression “the well” would be quite unsuitable. Moreover there is but a very weak support for Knobel's attempt to determine the site of Midian, in the identification of the Μαρανῖται or Μαρανεῖς (of Strabo and Artemidorus) with Madyan.

Exo 2:16-20

Here Moses secured for himself a hospitable reception from a priest of Midian, and a home at his house, by doing as Jacob had formerly done (Gen 29:10), viz., helping his daughters to water their father’s sheep, and protecting them against the other shepherds. - On the form יושׁען for יושׁען vid., Gen 19:19; and for the masculine suffixes to יגרשׁוּם and צאנם, Gen 31:9. תּדלנה for תּדלינה, as in Job 5:12, cf. Ewald, §198 a. - The flock of this priest consisted of nothing but צאן, i.e., sheep and goats (vid., Exo 3:1). Even now there are no oxen reared upon the peninsula of Sinai, as there is not sufficient pasturage or water to be found. For the same reason there are no horses kept there, but only camels and asses (cf. Seetzen, R. iii. 100; Wellsted, R. in Arab. ii. p. 66). In Exo 2:18 the priest is called Reguel, in Exo 3:1 Jethro. This title, “the priest of Midian,” shows that he was the spiritual head of the branch of the Midianites located there, but hardly that he was the prince or temporal head as well, like Melchizedek, as the Targumists have indicated by רבא, and as Artapanus and the poet Ezekiel distinctly affirm. The other shepherds would hardly have treated the daughters of the Emir in the manner described in Exo 2:17. The name רעוּאל (Reguel, friend of God) indicates that this priest served the old Semitic God El (אל). This Reguel, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses, was unquestionably the same person as Jethro (יתרו) the חתן of Moses and priest of Midian (Exo 3:1). Now, as Reguel's son Chobab is called Moses’ חתן in Num 10:29 (cf. Jdg 4:11), the Targumists and others supposed Reguel to be the grandfather of Zipporah, in which case אב would mean the grandfather in Exo 2:18, and בּת the granddaughter in Exo 2:21. This hypothesis would undoubtedly be admissible, if it were probable on other grounds. But as a comparison of Num 10:29 with Ex 18 does not necessarily prove that Chobab and Jethro were the same persons, whilst Exo 18:27 seems to lead to the very opposite conclusion, and התן, like the Greek γαμβρός, may be used for both father-in-law and brother-in-law, it would probably be more correct to regard Chobab as Moses’ brother-in-law, Reguel as the proper name of his father-in-law, and Jethro, for which Jether (praestantia) is substituted in Exo 4:18, as either a title, or the surname which showed the rank of Reguel in his tribe, like the Arabic Imam, i.e., praepositus, spec. sacrorum antistes. Ranke's opinion, that Jethro and Chobab were both of them sons of Reguel and brothers-in-law of Moses, is obviously untenable, if only on the ground that according to the analogy of Num 10:29 the epithet “son of Reguel” would not be omitted in Exo 3:1.

Exo 2:21-22

Moses’ Life in Midian. - As Reguel gave a hospitable welcome to Moses, in consequence of his daughters’ report of the assistance that he had given them in watering their sheep; it pleased Moses (ויּואל) to dwell with him. The primary meaning of הואיל is voluit (vid., Ges. thes.). קראן for קראנה: like שׁמען in Gen 4:23. - Although Moses received Reguel’s daughter Zipporah as his wife, probably after a lengthened stay, his life in Midian was still a banishment and a school of bitter humiliation. He gave expression to this feeling at the birth of his first son in the name which he gave it, viz., Gershom (גּרשׁם, i.e., banishment, from גּרשׁ to drive or thrust away); “for,” he said, interpreting the name according to the sound, “I have been a stranger (גּר) in a strange land.” In a strange land he was obliged to live, far away from his brethren in Egypt, and far from his fathers’ land of promise; and in this strange land the longing for home seems to have been still further increased by his wife Zipporah, who, to judge from Exo 4:24., neither understood nor cared for the feelings of his heart. By this he was urged on to perfect and unconditional submission to the will of his God. To this feeling of submission and confidence he gave expression at the birth of his second son, by calling him Eliezer (אליעזר God is help); for he said, “The God of my father (Abraham or the three patriarchs, cf. Exo 3:6) is my help, and has delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh” (Exo 18:4). The birth of this son is not mentioned in the Hebrew text, but his name is given in Exo 18:4, with this explanation.In the Vulgate the account of his birth and name is interpolated here, and so also in some of the later codices of the lxx. But in the oldest and best of the Greek codices it is wanting here, so that there is no ground for the supposition that it has fallen out of the Hebrew text.

In the names of his two sons, Moses expressed all that had affected his mind in the land of Midian. The pride and self-will with which he had offered himself in Egypt as the deliverer and judge of his oppressed brethren, had been broken down by the feeling of exile. This feeling, however, had not passed into despair, but had been purified and raised into firm confidence in the God of his fathers, who had shown himself as his helper by delivering him from the sword of Pharaoh. In this state of mind, not only did “his attachment to his people, and his longing to rejoin them, instead of cooling, grow stronger and stronger” (Kurtz), but the hope of the fulfilment of the promise given to the fathers was revived within him, and ripened into the firm confidence of faith.

Exo 2:23-25 form the introduction to the next chapter. The cruel oppression of the Israelites in Egypt continued without intermission or amelioration. “In those many days the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the service” (i.e., their hard slave labour). The “many days” are the years of oppression, or the time between the birth of Moses and the birth of his children in Midian. The king of Egypt who died, was in any case the king mentioned in Exo 2:15; but whether he was one and the same with the “new king” (Exo 1:8), or a successor of his, cannot be decided. If the former were the case, we should have to assume, with Baumgarten, that the death of the king took place not very long after Moses’ flight, seeing that he was an old man at the time of Moses’ birth, and had a grown-up daughter. But the greater part of the “many days” would then fall in his successor’s reign, which is obviously opposed to the meaning of the words, “It came to pass in those many days, that the king of Egypt died.” For this reason the other supposition, that the king mentioned here is a successor of the one mentioned in Exo 1:8, has far greater probability. At the same time, all that can be determined from a comparison of Exo 7:7 is, that the Egyptian oppression lasted more than 80 years. This allusion to the complaints of the Israelites, in connection with the notice of the king’s death, seems to imply that they hoped for some amelioration of their lot from the change of government; and that when they were disappointed, and groaned the more bitterly in consequence, they cried to God for help and deliverance. This is evident from the remark, “Their cry came up unto God,” and is stated distinctly in Deu 26:7.  “God heard their crying, and remembered His covenant with the fathers: “and God saw the children of Israel, and God noticed them.” “This seeing and noticing had regard to the innermost nature of Israel, namely, as the chosen seed of Abraham” (Baumgarten). God’s notice has all the energy of love and pity. Lyra has aptly explained ויּדע thus: “ad modum cognoscentis se habuit, ostendendo dilectionem circa eos;” and Luther has paraphrased it correctly: “He accepted them.” The Altar of Incense and Incense-Offering bring the directions concerning the sanctuary to a close. What follows, from Ex 30:11-31:17, is shown to be merely supplementary to the larger whole by the formula “and Jehovah spake unto Moses,” with which every separate command is introduced (cf. Exo 30:11, Exo 30:17, Exo 30:22, Exo 30:24, Exo 31:1, Exo 31:12).

The Birth of Moses. (b. c. 1571.)

1 And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. 2 And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. 3 And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. 4 And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.

Moses was a Levite, both by father and mother. Jacob left Levi under marks of disgrace (Gen. xlix. 5); and yet, soon after, Moses appears a descendant from him, that he might typify Christ, who came in the likeness of sinful flesh and was made a curse for us. This tribe began to be distinguished from the rest by the birth of Moses, as afterwards it became remarkable in many other instances. Observe, concerning this newborn infant,

I. How he was hidden. It seems to have been just at the time of his birth that the cruel law was made for the murder of all the male children of the Hebrews; and many, no doubt, perished by the execution of it. The parents of Moses had Miriam and Aaron, both older than he, born to them before this edict came out, and had nursed them without that peril: but those that begin the world in peace know not what troubles they may meet with before they have got through it. Probably the mother of Moses was full of anxiety in the expectation of his birth, now that this edict was in force, and was ready to say, Blessed are the barren that never bore, Luke xxiii. 29. Better so than bring forth children to the murderer, Hos. ix. 13. Yet this child proves the glory of his father's house. Thus that which is most our fear often proves, in the issue, most our joy. Observe the beauty of providence: just at the time when Pharaoh's cruelty rose to this height the deliverer was born, though he did not appear for many years after. Note, When men are projecting the church's ruin God is preparing for its salvation. Moses, who was afterwards to bring Israel out of this house of bondage, was himself in danger of falling a sacrifice to the fury of the oppressor, God so ordering it that, being afterwards told of this, he might be the more animated with a holy zeal for the deliverance of his brethren out of the hands of such bloody men. 1. His parents observed him to be a goodly child, more than ordinarily beautiful; he was fair to God, Acts vii. 20. They fancied he had a lustre in his countenance that was something more than human, and was a specimen of the shining of his face afterwards, Exod. xxxiv. 29. Note, God sometimes gives early earnests of his gifts, and manifests himself betimes in those for whom and by whom he designs to do great things. Thus he put an early strength into Samson (Judge xiii. 24, 25), an early forwardness into Samuel (1 Sam. ii. 18), wrought an early deliverance for David (1 Sam. xvii. 37), and began betimes with Timothy, 1 Tim. iii. 15. 2. Therefore they were the more solicitous for his preservation, because they looked upon this as an indication of some kind purpose of God concerning him, and a happy omen of something great. Note, A lively active faith can take encouragement from the least intimation of the divine favour; a merciful hint of Providence will encourage those whose spirits make diligent search, Three months they hid him in some private apartment of their own house, though probably with the hazard of their own lives, had he been discovered. Herein Moses was a type of Christ, who, in his infancy, was forced to abscond, and in Egypt too (Matt. ii. 13), and was wonderfully preserved, when many innocents were butchered. It is said (Heb. xi. 23) that the parents of Moses hid him by faith; some think they had a special revelation to them that the deliverer should spring from their loins; however they had the general promise of Israel's preservation, which they acted faith upon, and in that faith hid their child, not being afraid of the penalty annexed to the king's commandment. Note, Faith in God's promise is so far from superseding that it rather excites and quickens to the use of lawful means for the obtaining of mercy. Duty is ours, events are God's. Again, Faith in God will set us above the ensnaring fear of man.

II. How he was exposed. At three months' end, probably when the searchers came about to look for concealed children, so that they could not hide him any longer (their faith perhaps beginning now to fail), they put him in an ark of bulrushes by the river's brink (v. 3), and set his little sister at some distance to watch what would become of him, and into whose hands he would fall, v. 4. God put it into their hearts to do this, to bring about his own purposes, that Moses might by this means be brought into the hands of Pharaoh's daughter, and that by his deliverance from this imminent danger a specimen might be given of the deliverance of God's church, which now lay thus exposed. Note, 1. God takes special care of the outcasts of Israel (Ps. cxlvii. 2); they are his outcasts, Isa. xvi. 4. Moses seemed quite abandoned by his friends; his own mother durst not own him: but now the Lord took him up and protected him, Ps. xxvii. 10. 2. In times of extreme difficulty it is good to venture upon the providence of God. Thus to have exposed their child while they might have preserved it, would have been to tempt Providence; but, when they could not, it was to trust to Providence. "Nothing venture, nothing win." If I perish, I perish.

The Deliverance of Moses. (b. c. 1571.)

5 And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. 6 And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children. 7 Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? 8 And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child's mother. 9 And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it. 10 And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.

Here is, I. Moses saved from perishing. Come see the place where that great man lay when he was a little child; he lay in a bulrush-basket by the river's side. Had he been left to lie there, he must have perished in a little time with hunger, if he had not been sooner washed into the river or devoured by a crocodile. Had he fallen into any other hands than those he did fall into, either they would not, or durst not, have done otherwise than have thrown him straightway into the river; but Providence brings no less a person thither than Pharaoh's daughter, just at that juncture, guides her to the place where this poor forlorn infant lay, and inclines her heart to pity it, which she dares do when none else durst. Never did poor child cry so seasonably, so happily, as this did: The babe wept, which moved the compassion of the princess, as no doubt his beauty did, v. 5, 6. Note, 1. Those are hard-hearted indeed that have not a tender compassion for helpless infancy. How pathetically does God represent his compassion for the Israelites in general considered in this pitiable state! Ezek. xvi. 5, 6. 2. It is very commendable in persons of quality to take cognizance of the distresses of the meanest, and to be helpful and charitable to them. 3. God's care of us in our infancy ought to be often made mention of by us to his praise. Though we were not thus exposed (that we were not was God's mercy) yet many were the perils we were surrounded with in our infancy, out of which the Lord delivered us, Ps. xxii. 9, 10. 4. God often raises up friends for his people even among their enemies. Pharaoh cruelly seeks Israel's destruction, but his own daughter charitably compassionates a Hebrew child, and not only so, but, beyond her intention, preserves Israel's deliverer. O Lord, how wonderful are thy counsels!

II. Moses well provided with a good nurse, no worse than his own dear mother, v. 7-9. Pharaoh's daughter thinks it convenient that he should have a Hebrew nurse (pity that so fair a child should be suckled by a sable Moor), and the sister of Moses, with art and good management, introduces the mother into the place of a nurse, to the great advantage of the child; for mothers are the best nurses, and those who receive the blessings of the breasts with those of the womb are not just if they give them not to those for whose sake they received them: it was also an unspeakable satisfaction to the mother, who received her son as life from the dead, and now could enjoy him without fear. The transport of her joy, upon this happy turn, we may suppose sufficient to betray her to be the true mother (had there been any suspicion of it) to a less discerning eye than that of Solomon, 1 Kings iii. 27.

III. Moses preferred to be the son of Pharaoh's daughter (v. 10), his parents herein perhaps not only yielding to necessity, having nursed him for her, but too much pleased with the honour thereby done to their son; for the smiles of the world are stronger temptations than its frowns, and more difficult to resist. The tradition of the Jews is that Pharaoh's daughter had no child of her own, and that she was the only child of her father, so that when he was adopted for her son he stood fair for the crown: however it is certain he stood fair for the best preferments of the court in due time, and in the meantime had the advantage of the best education and improvements of the court, with the help of which, having a great genius, he became master of all the lawful learning of the Egyptians, Acts vii. 22. Note, 1. Providence pleases itself sometimes in raising the poor out of the dust, to set them among princes, Ps. cxiii. 7, 8. Many who, by their birth, seem marked for obscurity and poverty, by surprising events of Providence are brought to sit at the upper end of the world, to make men know that the heavens do rule. 2. Those whom God designs for great services he find out ways to qualify and prepare beforehand. Moses, by having his education in a court, is the fitter to be a prince and king in Jeshurun; by having his education in a learned court (for such the Egyptian then was) is the fitter to be an historian; and by having his education in the court of Egypt is the fitter to be employed, in the name of God, as an ambassador to that court.

IV. Moses named. The Jews tell us that his father, at his circumcision, called him Joachim, but Pharaoh's daughter called him Moses, Drawn out of the water, so it signifies in the Egyptian language. The calling of the Jewish lawgiver by an Egyptian name is a happy omen to the Gentile world, and gives hopes of that day when it shall be said, Blessed be Egypt my people, Isa. xix. 25. And his tuition at court was an earnest of the performance of that promise, Isa. xlix. 23, Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and queens thy nursing mothers.

Moses Slays an Egyptian; Rebukes a Contentious Hebrew. (b. c. 1533.)

11 And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. 12 And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. 13 And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? 14 And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known. 15 Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well.

Moses had now passed the first forty years of his life in the court of Pharaoh, preparing himself for business; and now it was time for him to enter upon action, and,

I. He boldly owns and espouses the cause of God's people: When Moses was grown he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens, v. 11. The best exposition of these words we have from an inspired pen, Heb. xi. 24-26, where we are told that by this he expressed, 1. His holy contempt of the honours and pleasures of the Egyptian court; he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, for he went out. The temptation was indeed very strong. He had a fair opportunity (as we say) to make his fortune, and to have been serviceable to Israel too, with his interest at court. He was obliged, in gratitude as well as interest, to Pharaoh's daughter, and yet he obtained a glorious victory by faith over his temptation. He reckoned it much more his honour and advantage to be a son of Abraham than to be the son of Pharaoh's daughter. 2. His tender concern for his poor brethren in bondage, with whom (though he might easily have avoided it) he chose to suffer affliction; he looked on their burdens as one that not only pitied them, but was resolved to venture with them, and, if occasion were, to venture for them.

II. He gives a specimen of the great things he was afterwards to do for God and his Israel in two little instances, related particularly by Stephen (Acts vii. 23, &c.) with design to show how their fathers had always resisted the Holy Ghost (v. 51), even in Moses himself, when he first appeared as their deliverer, wilfully shutting their eyes against this day-break of their enlargement. He found himself, no doubt, under a divine direction and impulse in what he did, and that he was in an extraordinary manner called of God to do it. Now observe,

1. Moses was afterwards to be employed in plaguing the Egyptians for the wrongs they had done to God's Israel; and, as a specimen of that, he killed the Egyptian who smote the Hebrew (v. 11, 12); probably it was one of the Egyptian taskmasters, whom he found abusing his Hebrew slave, a relation (as some think) of Moses, a man of the same tribe. It was by special warrant from Heaven (which makes not a precedent in ordinary cases) that Moses slew the Egyptian, and rescued his oppressed brother. The Jew's tradition is that he did not slay him with any weapon, but, as Peter slew Ananias and Sapphira, with the word of his mouth. His hiding him in the sand signified that hereafter Pharaoh and all his Egyptians should, under the control of the rod of Moses, be buried in the sand of the Red Sea. His taking care to execute this justice privately, when no man saw, was a piece of needful prudence and caution, it being but an assay; and perhaps his faith was as yet weak, and what he did was with some hesitation. Those who come to be of great faith, yet began with a little, and at first spoke tremblingly.

2. Moses was afterwards to be employed in governing Israel, and as a specimen of this, we have him here trying to end a controversy between two Hebrews, in which he is forced (as he did afterwards for forty years) to suffer their manners. Observe here,

(1.) The unhappy quarrel which Moses observed between two Hebrews, v. 13. It does not appear what was the occasion; but, whatever it was, it was certainly very unseasonable for Hebrews to strive with one another when they were all oppressed and ruled with rigour by the Egyptians. Had they not beating enough from the Egyptians, but they must beat one another? Note, [1.] Even sufferings in common do not always unite God's professing people to one another, so much as one might reasonably expect. [2.] When God raises up instruments of salvation for the church they will find enough to do, not only with oppressing Egyptians, to restrain them, but with quarrelsome Israelites, to reconcile them.

(2.) The way he took of dealing with them; he marked him that caused the division, that did the wrong, and mildly reasoned with him: Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? The injurious Egyptian was killed, the injurious Hebrew was only reprimanded; for what the former did was from a rooted malice, what the latter did we may suppose was only upon a sudden provocation. The wise God makes, and, according to his example, all wise governors make, a difference between one offender and another, according to the several qualities of the same offence. Moses endeavoured to make them friends, a good office; thus we find Christ often reproving his disciples' strifes (Luke ix. 46, &c.; xxii. 24, &c.), for he was a prophet like unto Moses, a healing prophet, a peacemaker, who visited his brethren with a design to slay all enmities. The reproof Moses gave on this occasion may still be of use, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? Note, Smiting our fellows is bad in any, especially in Hebrews, smiting with tongue or hand, either in a way of persecution or in a way of strife and contention. Consider the person thou smitest; it is thy fellow, thy fellow-creature, thy fellow-christian, it is thy fellow-servant, thy fellow-sufferer. Consider the cause, Wherefore smitest? Perhaps it is for no cause at all, or no just cause, or none worth speaking of.

(3.) The ill success of his attempt (v. 14): He said, Who made thee a prince? He that did the wrong thus quarrelled with Moses; the injured party, it should seem, was inclinable enough to peace, but the wrong-doer was thus touchy. Note, It is a sign of guilt to be impatient of reproof; and it is often easier to persuade the injured to bear the trouble of taking wrong than the injurious to bear the conviction of having done wrong. 1 Cor. vi. 7, 8. It was a very wise and mild reproof which Moses gave to this quarrelsome Hebrew, but he could not bear it, he kicked against the pricks (Acts ix. 5), and crossed questions with his reprover. [1.] He challenges his authority: Who made thee a prince? A man needs no great authority for the giving of a friendly reproof, it is an act of kindness; yet this man needs will interpret it an act of dominion, and represents his reprover as imperious and assuming. Thus when people dislike good discourse, or a seasonable admonition, they will call it preaching, as if a man could not speak a work for God and against sin but he took too much upon him. Yet Moses was indeed a prince and a judge, and knew it, and thought the Hebrews would have understood it, and struck in with him; but they stood in their own light, and thrust him away, Acts vii. 25, 27. [2.] He upbraids him with what he had done in killing the Egyptian: Intendest thou to kill me? See what base constructions malice puts upon the best words and actions. Moses, for reproving him is immediately charged with a design to kill him. An attempt upon his sin was interpreted an attempt upon his life; and his having killed the Egyptian was thought sufficient to justify the suspicion; as if Moses made no difference between an Egyptian and a Hebrew. If Moses, to right an injured Hebrew, had put his life in his hand, and slain an Egyptian, he ought therefore to have submitted to him, not only as a friend to the Hebrews, but as a friend that had more than ordinary power and zeal. But he throws that in his teeth as a crime which was bravely done, and was intended as a specimen of the promised deliverance; if the Hebrews had taken the hint, and come in to Moses as their head and captain, it is probable that they would have been delivered now; but, despising their deliverer, their deliverance was justly deferred, and their bondage prolonged forty years, as afterwards their despising Canaan kept them out of it forty years more. I would, and you would not. Note, Men know not what they do, nor what enemies they are to their own interest, when they resist and despise faithful reproofs and reprovers. When the Hebrews strove with Moses, God sent him away into Midian, and they never heard of him for forty years; thus the things that belonged to their peace were hidden from their eyes, because they knew not the day of their visitation. As to Moses, we may look on it as a great damp and discouragement to him. He was now choosing to suffer affliction with the people of God, and embracing the reproach of Christ; and now, at his first setting out, to meet with this affliction and reproach from them was a very sore trial of his resolution. He might have said, "If this be the spirit of the Hebrews, I will go to court again, and be the son of Pharaoh's daughter." Note, First, We must take heed of being prejudiced against the ways and people of God by the follies and peevishness of some particular persons that profess religion. Secondly, It is no new thing for the church's best friends to meet with a great deal of opposition and discouragement in their healing, saving attempts, even from their own mother's children; Christ himself was set at nought by the builders, and is still rejected by those he would save.

(4.) The flight of Moses to Midian, in consequence. The affront given him thus far proved a kindness to him; it gave him to understand that his killing the Egyptian was discovered, and so he had time to make his escape, otherwise the wrath of Pharaoh might have surprised him and taken him off. Note, God can overrule even the strife of tongues, so as, one way or other, to bring good to his people out of it. Information was brought to Pharaoh (and it is well if it was not brought by the Hebrew himself whom Moses reproved) of his killing the Egyptian; warrants are presently out for the apprehending of Moses, which obliged him to shift for his own safety, by flying into the land of Midian, v. 15. [1.] Moses did this out of a prudent care of his own life. If this be his forsaking of Egypt which the apostle refers to as done by faith (Heb. xi. 27), it teaches us that when we are at any time in trouble and danger for doing our duty the grace of faith will be of good use to us in taking proper methods for our own preservation. Yet there it is said, He feared not the wrath of the king; here it is said he feared, v. 14. He did not fear with a fear of diffidence and amazement, which weakens and has torment, but with a fear of diligence, which quickened him to take that way which Providence opened to him for his own preservation. [2.] God ordered it for wise and holy ends. Things were not yet ripe for Israel's deliverance: the measure of Egypt's iniquity was not yet full; the Hebrews were not sufficiently humbled, nor were they yet increased to such a multitude as God designed; Moses is to be further fitted for the service, and therefore is directed to withdraw for the present, till the time to favour Israel, even the set time, should come. God guided Moses to Midian because the Midianites were of the seed of Abraham, and retained the worship of the true God among them, so that he might have not only a safe but a comfortable settlement among them. And through this country he was afterwards to lead Israel, with which (that he might do it the better) he now had opportunity of making himself acquainted. Hither he came, and sat down by a well, tired and thoughtful, at a loss, and waiting to see which way Providence would direct him. It was a great change with him, since he was but the other day at ease in Pharaoh's court: thus God tried his faith, and it was found to praise and honour.

The Marriage of Moses. (b. c. 1533.)

16 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. 17 And the shepherds came and drove them away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock. 18 And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How is it that ye are come so soon to day? 19 And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the flock. 20 And he said unto his daughters, And where is he? why is it that ye have left the man? call him, that he may eat bread. 21 And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter. 22 And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.

Moses here gains a settlement in Midian, just as his father Jacob had gained one in Syria, Gen. xxix. 2, &c. And both these instances should encourage us to trust Providence, and to follow it. Events that seem inconsiderable, and purely accidental, after wards appear to have been designed by the wisdom of God for very good purposes, and of great consequence to his people. A casual transient occurrence has sometimes occasioned the greatest and happiest turns of a man's life. Observe,

I. Concerning the seven daughters of Reuel the priest or prince of Midian. 1. They were humble, and very industrious, according as the employment of the country was: they drew water for their father's flock, v. 16. If their father was a prince, it teaches us that even those who are honourably born, and are of quality and distinction in their country, should yet apply themselves to some useful business, and what their hand finds to do do it with all their might. Idleness can be no one's honour. If their father was a priest, it teaches us that ministers' children should, in a special manner, be examples of humility and industry. 2. They were modest, and would not ask this strange Egyptian to come home with them (though handsome and a great courtier), till their father sent for him. Modesty is the ornament of woman.

II. Concerning Moses. He was taken for an Egyptian (v. 19); and strangers must be content to be the subjects of mistake; but it is observable, 1. How ready he was to help Reuel's daughters to water their flocks. Though bred in learning and at court, yet he knew how to turn his hand to such an office as this when there was occasion; nor had he learned of the Egyptians to despise shepherds. Note, Those that have had a liberal education yet should not be strangers to servile work, because they know not what necessity Providence may put them in of working for themselves, or what opportunity Providence may give them of being serviceable to others. These young women, it seems, met with some opposition in their employment, more than they and their servants could conquer; the shepherds of some neighbouring prince, as some think, or some idle fellows that called themselves shepherds, drove away their flocks; but Moses, though melancholy and in distress, stood up and helped them, not only to get clear of the shepherds, but, when that was done, to water the flocks. This he did, not only in complaisance to the daughters of Reuel (though that also did very well become him), but because, wherever he was, as occasion offered itself, (1.) He loved to be doing justice, and appearing in the defence of such as he saw injured, which every man ought to do as far as it is in the power of his hand to do it. (2.) He loved to be doing good. Wherever the Providence of God casts us we should desire and endeavour to be useful; and, when we cannot do the good we would, we must be ready to do the good we can. And he that is faithful in a little shall be entrusted with more. 2. How well he was paid for his serviceableness. When the young women acquainted their father with the kindnesses they had received from this stranger, he sent to invite him to his house, and made much of him, v. 20. Thus God will recompense the kindnesses which are at any time shown to his children; they shall in no wise lose their reward. Moses soon recommended himself to the esteem and good affection of this prince of Midian, who took him into his house, and, in process of time, married one of his daughters to him (v. 21), by whom he had a son, whom he called Gershom, a stranger there (v. 22), that if ever God should give him a home of his own he might keep in remembrance the land in which he had been a stranger. Now this settlement of Moses in Midian was designed by Providence, (1.) To shelter him for the present. God will find hiding-places for his people in the day of their distress; nay, he will himself be to them a little sanctuary, and will secure them, either under heaven or in heaven. But, (2.) It was also designed to prepare him for the great services he was further designed for. His manner of life in Midian, where he kept the flock of his father-in-law (having none of his own to keep), would be of use to him, [1.] To inure him to hardship and poverty, that he might learn how to want as well as how to abound. Those whom God intends to exalt he first humbles. [2.] To inure him to contemplation and devotion. Egypt accomplished him as a scholar, a gentleman, a statesman, a soldier, all which accomplishments would be afterwards of use to him; but yet he lacked one thing, in which the court of Egypt could not befriend him. He that was to do all by divine revelation must know, by a long experience, what it was to live a life of communion with God; and in this he would be greatly furthered by the solitude and retirement of a shepherd's life in Midian. By the former he was prepared to rule in Jeshurun, but by the latter he was prepared to converse with God in Mount Horeb, near which mount he had spent much of his time. Those that know what it is to be alone with God in holy exercises are acquainted with better delights than ever Moses tasted in the court of Pharaoh.

Cry of the Oppressed Israelites. (b. c. 1491.)

23 And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. 24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.

Here is, 1. The continuance of the Israelites' bondage in Egypt, v. 23. Probably the murdering of their infants did not continue; this part of their affliction attended only the period immediately connected with the birth of Moses, and served to signalize it. The Egyptians now were content with their increase, finding that Egypt was enriched by their labour; so that they might have them for slaves, they cared not how many they were. On this therefore they were intent, to keep them all at work, and make the best hand they could of their labour. When one Pharaoh died, another rose up in his place that was governed by the same maxims, and was as cruel to Israel as his predecessors. If there was sometimes a little relaxation, yet it presently revived again with as much rigour as ever; and probably, as the more Israel were oppressed the more they multiplied, so the more they multiplied the more they were oppressed. Note, Sometimes God suffers the rod of the wicked to lie very long and very heavily on the lot of the righteous. If Moses, in Midian, at any time began to think how much better his condition might have been had he staid among the courtiers, he must of himself think this also, how much worse it would have been if he had had his lot with brethren: it was a great degradation to him to be keeping sheep in Midian, but better so than making brick in Egypt. The consideration of our brethren's afflictions would help to reconcile us to our own. 2. The preface to their deliverance at last. (1.) They cried, v. 23. Now, at last, they began to think of God under their troubles, and to return to him from the idols they had served, Ezek. xx. 8. Hitherto they had fretted at the instruments of their trouble, but God was not in all their thoughts. Thus hypocrites in heart heap up wrath; they cry not when he binds them, Job xxxvi. 13. But before God unbound them he put it into their hearts to cry unto him, as it is explained, Num. xx. 16. Note, It is a good sign that God is coming towards us with deliverance when he inclines and enables us to cry to him for it. (2.) God heard, v. 24, 25. The name of God is here emphatically prefixed to four different expressions of a kind intention towards them. [1.] God heard their groaning; that is, he made it to appear that he took notice of their complaints. The groans of the oppressed cry aloud in the ears of the righteous God, to whom vengeance belongs, especially the groans of God's spiritual Israel; he knows the burdens they groan under and the blessings they groan after, and that the blessed Spirit, by these groanings, makes intercession in them. [2.] God remembered his covenant, which he seemed to have forgotten, but of which he is ever mindful. This God had an eye to, and not to any merit of theirs, in what he did for them. See Lev. xxvi. 42. (3.) God looked upon the children of Israel. Moses looked upon them and pitied them (v. 11); but now God looked upon them and helped them. (4.) God had a respect unto them, a favourable respect to them as his own. The frequent repetition of the name of God here intimates that now we are to expect something great, Opus Deo dignum—A work worthy of God. His eyes, which run to and fro through the earth, are now fixed upon Israel, to show himself strong, to show himself a God in their behalf.

CHAP. II.

AND there went a man, of the house of Levi: and hee tooke, the daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived, and bare a sonne: and she saw him, that he was a goodly child; and she hid him, three moneths. And she could not longer hide him; and shee tooke for him, an arke of bulrushes; and dawbed it with slime, and with pitch. and she put the childe, therein; and put it in the flags, by the rivers brink. And his sister stood, afarre off: to know, what should be done to him. And the daughter of Pharaoh came downe, to wash at the river; and her maidens walked, by the rivers side: and she saw the arke, among the flags; and sent her hand maid, and tooke it. And she opened it, and saw the child; and behold, the babe wept: and she had-compassion on him, and said; This is one of the Hebrewes children. And his sister said, to Pharaohs daughter; shall I goe, and call to thee, a woman a nurse; of the hebrew women: that she may nurse the child for thee? And Pharaohs daughter said to her, Go; and the maid went; & called, the childs mother. And Pharaohs daughter said to her. Take this child away, and nurse it for me; and I will give thee thy wages; and the woman tooke the child & nursed it. And the child grew great, and she brought him unto Pharaohs daughter; and he was to her, for a son; and she called his name, Moses; and she said, because I drew him, out of the water. And it was, in those dayes; when Moses was growen-great, that hee went-out unto his brethren; and saw their burdens: and he saw, an Egyptian man; smiting an Hebrew man, one of his brethren. And hee looked this way, and that way; and saw, that there was no man: and he smote, the Egyptian; and hid him, in the land. And he went-out in the second day; and behold, two Hebrew men, strove-together: and he said to the wicked one, wherefore smitest thou thy neighbour? And hee said, who made thee a man a prince and a judge, over us? sayest thou this, to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, surely, the thing is knowne. And Pharaoh heard this thing, and he sought to kill Moses: and Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh; and dwelt in the land of Midian, and hee sate downe by a well. And the Priest of Midian, had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughes; to water, their fathers flocke. And the sheedherds came, and drove them away: and Moses stood-up, and saved them; and watred their flocke. And they came unto Reguel their father: and he said, why are ye come so soone, to day? And they sayd, an Egyptian man, delivered us out of the hand of the sheepherds: and also drawing drew water for us; and watred the flocke And he sayd unto his daughters, and where is he? wherefore now, have ye left the man? call him, that he may eate bread. And Moses was content, to dwell with the man: and he gave Zipporah his daughter, unto Moses. And she bare a sonne, and he called his name Gershom: for he sayd; I have been a stranger, in a forraigne land. And it was, after those many dayes, when the King of Egypt was dead; and the sonnes of Israel sighed, for the servitude, and cryed-out; that their cry came-up unto God, for the servitude. And God heard, their growning: and God remembred his covenant, with Abraham, with Isaak and with Iakob. And God looked upon the sonnes of Israel: and God knew them.

Annotations. A Man] named Amram, the sonne of Kohath, the sonne of Levi: Exod. 6. 16. 18. 20. To this religious family, rather then any other, God now appeared: which mercy is remembred in 1 Sam. 2. 27. tooke] to wife, Exod. 6. 20. the daughter] named Iochebed, sister unto Kohath, and next daughter to Levi: aunt unto Amram her husband, Exod 6. 20. Numb. 26. 59. So Thargum Ierusalemy saith, hee tooke Iochebed his aunt, to him to wife. Such mariages with their neere kindred, were afterwards forbidden, when the tribes and families were multiplyed: Levit. 18. 12. a sonne] this was not their first childe, for Marie a daughter, and Aaron a sonne were both borne before him: Verse 4. Numb. 26. 59. Exod. 7. 7. Vers. 2. a goodly childe] or fayre proper child, so the Apostle (following the Greeke version) translateth it, in Hebr. 11. 23. the Hebrew being good, meaning in forme and beauty; as Gen. 24. 16. and Stephen addeth goodly (or faire) to God: Act. 7. 20. that is, exceeding faire, or having divine beauty and g[illegible: 2 letters]dlinesse: and there be of the Iew Doctors which write to the like effect, that hee had the forme of an Angel of God: Pirkei R. Elie[illegible: 1 span] chap. 48. And heathen writers make mention also of his beautifull personage, Iustin. hist. b. 36. This Moses was, by the father, the seventh generation from Abraham; (as Enoch was the seventh from Adam: and Abraham the Hebrew, was the seventh from Heber:) and considering his mi[illegible: 2 letters]des upon Egypt, and his lawes unto Israel; hee may be likened to that manchild, who [illegible: 1 word] to rule all [illegible: 1 word] with [illegible: 1 word] of [illegible: 1 word]: Rev. 12. 5. [illegible: 1 span] together with his father: therefore the Greeke translateth they hid. And Paul saith, By faith Moses was hid of his parents three moneths, because they saw hee was a goodly childe, and they were not afraid of the kings commandement, Heb. 11. 23. This hiding was in his owne fathers house, Act. 7. 20. in the yeare from the creation of the world, 2433. Vers. 3. longer] or any more: by reason they dwelt mixed with the Egyptians, Exod. 3. 22. and the kings commandement was strait, and dangerous to transgresse, Exod. 1. 22. Heb. 11. 23. arke] or coffin, whereof see Gen. 6. 14. Thus Moses, as Noe, was saved in an arke from drowning, what that figured, see Gen. 6. 15. &c. bulrushes:] a thing there growing, of which the Egyptians used to make leight botes and vessels to goe upon the waters, Esay, 18. 2. flags] or, sea weeds, or sedge: such as grew by that river, and in the red sea, and other seas; Ion. 2. 5. Hereof the Redsea had the name, see Exod. 10. 19. brinke] Hebr. lip. Vers. 4. his sister] named Marie, or Miriam, of whom see Exod. 15. 20. Numb. 26. 59. stood] or, set her selfe to stand and looke; or espied (as the Greek translateth it) to learne what should befall him. Vers. 6. saw the child] or, saw him, (namely) the child. had compassion] or, mercifully spared him: see this word, in Cen. 19. 16. Hebrewes] so the Israelites were called, of Heber: see Gen. 14. 13. and 39. 14. The Chaldee translateth it Iewes: so after verse 7. 11. 13. &c. Vers. 7. a woman a nurse] an Hebrew phrase, the word woman may in English bee omitted: as the word man, in verse 11. 14. See Gen. 13. 8. & 38. 1. Vers. 10. for a sonne] adopted to be as her owne child, and trained up in all the wisedome of the Egyptians; Act. 7. 21. 22. Moses] in Hebrew Mosheh; but the Greeke of the new Testament writeth him Moses, and Moyses, Mat. 19. 8. Act. 7. 20. 35. 37. his name signifieth Drawen-out: What name his parents had given him before is not recorded. I drew] Hebrew, Masithi: of this, the childe had his name: and it is not used againe in Scripture, but in Davids case, who saith of God, he drew me out of many waters, Psal. 18. 17. waters, signifying troubles. Vers. 11. growen great] both in yeeres, and in authoritie, being full sorty yeeres old; and mightie in words and in deeds: Act. 7. 23. 22. There fore In those dayes, may hee read, After those daies: as in verse 23. went-out:] it came into his heart to visit his brethren the sons of Israel, Act. 7. 23. and hee after this, renounced his honours and pleasures in Pharaohs Court, and associated him-selfe to Gods afflicted people: for by faith, heerefused to bee called the sonne of Pharaohs daughter chosing rather to to suffer affliction with the people of God, then to injoy the pleasures of sinne for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christe, greater riches then the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward, Heb. 11. 24. 25. 26. saw their [illegible: 1 word]] he Greek translateth, considered their labour: in Chaldee their ser[illegible: 1 span]de. Vers. 12. smote] that is, killed him, (as is shewed on Gen. 14. 17) so defending and avenging his oppressed brother; supposing that his brethren would have vnderstood, how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not. Act. 7. 24. 25. And because his calling was not yet manifested, he did this action secretly, and hid the Egyptian in the sand. From this action of Moses, the Iew Doctors did gather a law, that if an heathen smote an Israelite, he was to die. Maimony in Misneh, tom. 4. treat. of Hurt and dammage, chap. 5. S. 3. Vers. 13. the second day] the day next after the former, Act. 7. 26. so prosecuting diligently the worke which God had secretly called him unto. to the wicked one] that is, to him that did the wrong, as the Greeke translateth it; and Stephen approveth the same, saying, The next day hee shewed him-selfe unto them as they strove, and earnestly exhorted them unto peace, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren, why doe ye wrong one to another? Act. 7. 26. Vers. 14. he] that did his neighbour wrong, hee thrust Moses away; Act. 7. 27. a man a prince] or, constituted thee a prince; omitting the word man, as Stephen (following the Greeke version) doth. See also Gen. 13. 8. This refusall of Moses, by one, is imputed to the rest of the Israelites, Act. 7. 35. And God for their unthankfulnesse, withdrew Moses from them 40. yeeres, before he sent him againe to deliver them: verse 23. sayest thou] to wit, in thy heart; (as Gen. 27. 41.) that is, intendest thou, thinkest thou; or, wilt thou kill me? as the Greeke translateth it; and so Stephen alleadgeth it, Act. 7. 28. And other scriptures have the like phrase, 2 Sam. 21. 16. the Egyptian] the Greek addeth, yesterday, and so it is in Act. 7. 28. the thing] Hebr. the word: Gr. this word: So in the verse following. Vers. 15. fled] at this saying Act. 7. 29. Of this first departure, as well as of the second, some doe understand that speech of the Apostle; By faith Moses left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he indured, as seeing him who is invisible, Heb. 11. 27. dwelt] or, seated, namely as a stranger, Act. 7. 29. and so here in vers. 22. and Exod. 12. 40. Midian] Madiam, as the Greeke calleth it, or Madian, as in Act. 7. 29. a people that came of Madian the sonne of Abraham, Gen. 25. 2. Vers. 16. Priest] or, Prince, as the Chaldee translateth it; but the Greeke saith priest: See Gen. 41. 45. father] the Greeke addeth his name Iothor, that is, Iethor, as Exod. 3. 1. Vers. 17. them] the daughters, as the Greeke version plainly sheweth: but the Hebrew here and after is masculine, as if it were them men, which some understand to be the shepherds that looked to the flocke, under these women: but the Hebrew putteth sometime one gender for another: see the notes on Exod. 1. 21. saved] in Greeke delivered them daughters. Compare this fact of Moses, with Iakobs, Gen. 29. 9. 10. Vers. 18. Reguel] in Greeke, Ragouel: hee was a Madianite, father to Hobab or Iethro the next father of these daughters: Num. 10. 29. All grand-fathers and [illegible: 1 word], are called fathers: 2 Kin. 14. 3. & 16. 2. & 18. 3. [illegible: 1 word] so soon] Heb. hastned to come. Vers. 19. drawing drew] that is, drew readily and enough; the Greeke saith, and drew for us. Vers. 20. now] or, at this time; it being so Iate. The Greeke translateth it, thus. Vers. 21. was content] or began; as the word is Englished, Deut. 1. 5. The Greeke omitteth it, saying, And Moses dwelt with the man: and the Holy Ghost often omitteth the like, as some Evangelists say of Iesus, he began to say, Luk. 12. 1. Mark. 13. 5. another writeth, Iesus said, Matth. 16. 6. and 24. 4. so, he began to cast out, Mark. 11. 15. that is, he cast out, Mat. 21. 12. he began to crie, Mark. 10. 47. that is, he cried, Luke 18. 38. they began to beseech, Mark. 5. 17. that is, they besought him, Matth. 8. 34. and sundry the like. gave Zipporah] to wife, as the Greeke addeth; and calleth her Zemphora, as the letter m, is often put in such Greeke names; as Abbakuk the Prophet, is Amb[illegible: 1 letter]koum in Greek, Ab. 1. 1. so Chiun, Amos 5. 26. is Remphan, Act. 7. 43. the interpreters mistaking [non-Latin text not transcribed] R. for [non-Latin text not transcribed] C. and interposing M. And in the Hebrew, Berodach, 2 King. 20. 12. is called also Merodach, Esa. 39. 1. that such change of letters, should not seeme strange unto us. Concerning this wife of Moses, his sister and brother afterwards spake against him, Num. 12. 1. where she is called a Cushite. Vers. 22. Gershon] by interpretation, A desolate stranger; the reason whereof followeth. Here the Greeke addeth, And she conceived againe, and bare a second sonne; and he called his name Eliezer, saying; for the God of my father is my helper, and hath delivered me from the hand of Pharaoh. This addition is borrowed from Exod. 18. 4. Vers. 23. after those many daies] that is, as Stephen openeth it, when forty yeeres were expired, Act. 7. 30. Exod. 7. 7. So the Hebrew Doctors also reckon the time: they say Moses was Iethroes shepherd 40. yeeres; and the wilde beasts spoiled not his sheepe, but they were fruitfull and multiplied greatly. Pirkei R. Eliezer, c. 40. Thus Moses had lived 40. yeeres in Pharaohs court; was 40. yeeres a stranger & shepherd in Midian; and after this, he fed Gods people Israel 40. yeeres, Act. 7. 36. Deut. 8. 2. and 34. 7. Here the Hebrew [non-Latin text not transcribed] In, is rightly translated in Greeke After, as it elsewhere also plainely signifieth, Numb. 28. 26. So in the new Testament, Marke 13. 24. in those daies, that is, after them, as is explained, Matth. 24. 29. after the tribulation of those daies. So in Dan. 2. 44. In (that is, After) the daies of these Kings, was dead] both the King, and all other that sought Moses life, Exod. 4. 19. servitude] or, bondage: in Greeke workes: which, as appeareth, continued though the King was dead. The Chaldee addeth, servitude which was hard upon them. came up] or ascended up to heaven. This their misery, and Gods mercy in releasing them, is often mentioned; and was by the Israelites remembred in their land, every yeere, Deut. 26. 6. 7. 8. Num. 20. 16. Vers. 24. covenant] whereof see Gen. 15. 14. and 26. 13. and 46. 4. which God is said to remember (after the manner of men) when hee sheweth care, of performance: See Gen. 8. 1. V. 25. knew] namely their sorrowes, as is expressed in Exod. 3. 7. or, knew them, in their sorrowes, that is, cared for them; as knowing often signifieth, Psal. 31. 8. and 1. 6. Prov. 12. 20. The Greek translateth it, hee was knowne unto them; The Chaldee, he said by his word, that he would deliver them.