Exodus 2:11-3:22

For several years, which we know pretty much nothing about, Moses lived as an Egyptian, part of the royal family.  We can assume that perhaps he was trained and educated along with any other males of the Pharaoh's family and given good opportunities.  He at least had freedom of movement (as he was free to go survey his people's condition).  However, it's clear that he never forgot, and was never blinded to, the fact that he was a Hebrew.  He might have stayed there forever, we don't know, if he hadn't killed the Egyptian.  I've always wondered why Moses saw that as a viable option.  It was definitely premeditated: he looked right and left to see if anyone was watching, and then he hid him in the sand.  Definitely trying to cover it up and get away with it.  Does it ever strike you as odd that God chose a murderer to do His work?

I rather think that Moses experiences in his middle years (post-Egypt, pre-Exodus) were among the most important formatively.  He went from being as a prince to being a hired shepherd, and then taken in as a son when he married Zipporah.  Reuel (or Jethro) also seems to have been a good father-in-law and mentor, as his advice in Numbers will prove later on.  These experiences prepared Moses to meet the Lord within the burning bush, an amazing passage in and of itself.  (Can you imagine seeing a burning bush that doesn't wither?  Can you imagine hearing God's voice coming from within it?)

But do you know the part of today's passage that struck me most?  This:

During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help.  Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.  And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.  God saw the people of Israel--and God knew.  (Exodus 2:23-25)

Whoa!  Doesn't it give you thrills and chills?  It does me!  I really do get a thrill out of reading that last sentence: "God saw the people of Israel--and God knew."  It wasn't that God had forgotten the people.  It wasn't that He had turned His back on them or that He had forgotten His promises or that He had failed to see.  God had seen it all along, knew that this time of slavery was necessary as part of forming a nation out of an unruly people.  But man.   God saw and God knew.  It's almost like: ok, here we go.  It's gonna get started.  What a weight those words carry!  You can almost "feel it coming" for Egypt.  Egypt was to see the Might and the Glory of God before all was said and done.  God would be known as GOD, and none other.  You know how on movies and tv shows (and sometimes real life, sadly) you see a fight coming, and people get a little excited, and some fool has the brilliance to say, "Ah, yeah, this is gonna be good"?  It's like that moment here.  You know something's coming, you know that God's about to move.  All you want to do is hunker down to watch, as you think, "This is gonna be good."

Tomorrow's Reading: Exodus 4:1-31