Matthew Poole and continuators on Exodus 2:12

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.