Friday, Sept. 13
Exodus 1:1 – 2:15 Read it here
How much difference a couple of centuries can make.
Sources disagree on the time lapse between Joseph and Moses, but most of the ones I’ve found settle on 200 years, give or take. In other words, long enough that there’s no one still living who had direct experience with Joseph, but still fairly recent history.
But as generations have passed, the gratitude and respect the Egyptians once felt for Joseph have faded into memory, and they see the growing Hebrew population as a threat. Suspicion of foreigners and people with different beliefs seems infect humans of all eras.
The early life of Moses is told briefly but with such vivid images that we feel like we’ve seen him grow into adulthood.
To reduce the perceived threat from the Hebrews, Pharaoh has ordered that male Hebrew children be thrown into the Nile. Presumably the order applies to males and not females because the men would be seen as more likely to take up arms against Pharaoh. But, whether intentional or not, it would have been particularly painful for faithful Jews, as it was the men who bore the mark of circumcision that was the sign of obedience to God.
Moses’s mother tries to save his life by putting him into the river in a floating basket. It is in the river that he is discovered by Pharaoh’s daughter and adopted as her own. His quick-thinking sister arranges for his own mother to nurse him.
And so Moses, one of the Jews that Pharaoh fears so much, grows up in the royal household. As we’ll see later, Pharaoh was right to perceive a threat, though probably not in the same way he expected.
Moses grows up in privilege, but is aware of his ancestry.
After he grows up, he kills an Egyptian he sees beating a Hebrew slave. In spite of his own privilege, he cares for his own people and is angered. To the Hebrews, though, he is not really one of them, and two Hebrews who witnessed the murder threaten to expose him.
It was once a move to Egypt that saved his family. Now, he flees Egypt to protect his own life.