“The God of Details”

Exodus 2

January 23, 2005

Dr. Jerry Nelson

 

It was 1948, three years after the end of World War II and Marcel, nearly 50 years of age, took his usual 9:09 morning train from his suburban home and headed into New York City.

On this particular morning however he decided to change trains and visit a friend in Brooklyn.

 

After the visit he took a Manhattan bound subway to go to his office.

The subway car was crowded but a seat opened up and Marcel sat down next to a man reading a Hungarian language newspaper.

 

Having come from Hungary, Marcel struck up a conversation with the man only to learn that the man, whose name was Bela, had come from the city of Debrecen (De! bre(t) cen), a city Marcel knew well.

 

During the war, Bela said, he had been sent to a German labor camp in Ukraine, had been captured by the Russians, but after the war escaped and made his way back to Debrecen.

 

When he found his way to the apartment building in which his parents and brothers and sisters lived he found it inhabited by others who knew nothing of his family.

He went from there to the next street where he had lived with his wife and found likewise, the apartment was occupied by strangers who knew nothing of his wife.

 

As he was leaving a young boy, who had lived in the neighborhood before, spotted him and recognizing him, told him that his whole family had been killed and his wife taken to Auschwitz, one of the worst of the Nazi concentration camps.

 

After weeks of fruitless searching, Bela finally gave up hope and set out on foot to leave Europe.

 He had managed to immigrate to the U.S. just three months before Marcel met him.

 

As Bela was telling his story, Marcel couldn't help but think of a young woman he had met a year earlier who was also from De’brecen. 

She told of having been sent to Auschwitz then to a munitions factory and finally being liberated by the Americans and, since all in her family were dead, she was brought to the U.S.

 

Marcel had been so moved by her story that he had written her name and phone number on a piece of paper which he had in his coat.

Marcel turned to Bela and said “Is there any chance your wife's name was Marya?”

Turning pale, Bela said, "Yes, it was, how did you know?"

 

Marcel said, "Let's get off the train." 

He took a stunned Bela by the arm and led him to a phone booth where Marcel called the number. 

 

The phone was not in Marya's apartment but in the hallway outside and so Marya never answered it because it was never for her. 

But this time no one else answered and it kept ringing so finally she responded.

 

Marcel asked her to describe her husband and give her address in Debrecen.

At that he told her to hold the line for just a minute while he asked Bela did you live on such and such a street.

 

Marcel then said to Bela, "Something miraculous is about to happen.

 “Here take this phone and talk to your wife."

Bela's eyes filled with tears as he took the phone and hearing his wife's voice he began to just mumble.

 

Marcel took the phone and told Marya to stay where she was, he was sending her husband to her.

That day a reunion took place that was like few others.

 

The person retelling the story asked, "Was this reunion by mere chance?

Did chance introduce Marya to Marcel a year earlier?

Did chance cause Marcel to take a different train that day?

Did chance cause Bela to be reading a Hungarian paper at that exact time?

Was it chance or did God ride that Brooklyn subway that day?

(From Focus on the Family magazine December 96)

 

 

We live in a skeptical if not cynical age.

Something within us wants to believe there is design and purpose to life but the spirit of the day suggests, almost demands, that we abandon any such notions.

Good things happen and we “chalk it up” to luck.

Bad things happen and we say, “That’s life.”

 

In the struggle to survive in something better than a perpetual melancholy mood, we usually take the short view of life and live only in the moment not bothering ourselves with how it matters.

But in our more serious moods we find it hard to be optimistic about the world or even our own lives in the presence of evil, tragedy and the inevitable death of everything. 

 

For centuries, at least in the nominally Christian western world, the Providence of God was assumed.

“Providence” is the word used to describe God’s benevolent control of all things.

 

The Westminster Confession of Faith states it this way:

“God, the great Creator of all things upholds, directs, disposes, and governs all creatures, actions and things, from the greatest even to the least by his most wise and holy providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and unchangeable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness and mercy.”

 

The Bible states it this way:

·        Hebrews 1:3 “The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.”

·        Daniel 4:34-35 “His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation… He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth.”

·        Acts 17:26-28 God “determined the times set for (humanity) and the exact places where they should live… For in him we live and move and have our being.”

·        Ephesians 1:11 God “works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will…”

 

Until recently, belief in the providence of God was nearly universal.

But as I said, the spirit of the age has changed and now the very existence of a personal God is challenged.

 

And even among those who cling to a belief in the divine, confidence in his providence has waned.

That loss of confidence in God’s benevolent control of all things has set our culture adrift on the seas of either baseless optimism or depressing cynicism. 

And such cynicism has left even Christians wondering if they are on their own. 

·        Maybe God is there but I can’t see him.

·        Maybe he is working out history but what about my history?

 

Two weeks ago, I began our current series in the book of Exodus, attempting to give a much broader perspective to life and history than we usually think about.

I wanted us to see that God is working through hundreds and thousands of years of history to bring about his desired goal.

I emphasized history as “God’s story” rather than ours and that we individually play a very small role in that story. 

 

Last week, I attempted to show that while our part in the overall scope of history may be small, God’s goal is motivated by his eternal love for us. 

We are not cogs in God’s historical machine; we are the objects of his undying love.  

 

Today I want to emphasize that while our role may be small in the overall plan of God; while our time is short in comparison to thousands of years of history, Yet God’s attention is on us individually.

He not only works in macro-history but in micro-history.

He sets kings up and takes them down but the Bible also says,

Matthew 10:29-31 Sparrows are nearly worthless, “Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

 

In Exodus chapter 1 we are quickly led through 400 years of history.

·        It begins with the names of Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, and his 12 sons leaving Canaan to live in Egypt.

·        It moves through 400 years of what began in prosperity but ends in slavery of the worst kind.

·        The chapter ends with an evil king attempting to limit the growth of the people of Israel through infanticide – in this case the drowning of every newborn Hebrew boy. 

 

From the perspective of those who were reading the book of Exodus for the first time, nearly 100 years later, that first chapter reminded them of the hand of God on the life of his people even through those many hellish years.

 

Now before we question too quickly the love of a God who would allow them to languish in slavery for so many years, we might want to see something else about these Hebrew people.

Ezekiel 20:5-9 “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: On the day I chose Israel…I swore to them that I would bring them out of Egypt… And I said to them, "Each of you, get rid of the vile images you have set your eyes on, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt. I am the LORD your God." 8 " `But they rebelled against me and would not listen to me; they did not get rid of the vile images they had set their eyes on, nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt. So I said I would pour out my wrath on them and spend my anger against them in Egypt.”

 

What seems clear to me is that the descendants of Jacob in Egypt soon forgot their God and turned to serving themselves with all the perversions that leads to.

 

Romans 1:24 gives us some insight into the ways of God.

Speaking of humanity in general, it says, “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts…”

In the providence of God, he uses even the sinfulness of human beings to accomplish his goals.

 

In case of the Hebrew people in Egypt, God gave them over to their sins long enough to cause them to cry out to him as we will see at the end of the chapter.

Then they were ready for the deliverance he would provide.

 

But that brings us to Exodus chapter 2.

·        What we will see are three stories told in rapid succession covering, not 400, but just 80 years.

·        And instead of the focus being on an entire people, it will narrow to one man – the man Moses.

·        And what I most want you to see is the providence of God controlling people, places and events that converge in achieving God’s purposes in the life of that one man. 

 

READ Exodus 2 but beginning with the last verse of chapter one.

 

Exodus 1:22-2:25

Story number one:

“Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: "Every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live." 2:1 Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, 2 and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. 5 Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. 6 She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. "This is one of the Hebrew babies," she said. 7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?" 8 "Yes, go," she answered. And the girl went and got the baby's mother. 9 Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you." So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, "I drew him out of the water."

 

Story number two:

11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. 12 Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, "Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?" 14 The man said, "Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and thought, "What I did must have become known." 15 When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses,

 

Story number three:

but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. 16 Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father's flock. 17 Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock. 18 When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, "Why have you returned so early today?" 19 They answered, "An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock." 20 "And where is he?" he asked his daughters. "Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat." 21 Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. 22 Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, "I have become an alien in a foreign land."

 

Lastly, a commentary on the times:

23 During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help,, because of their slavery, went up to God. 24 God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. 25 So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.

 

 

We have good reason to believe that the author of Exodus is using this accounting of these three events to teach his readers and us several things, but I think primarily about the providence of God.

 

In the first story, the reference to Moses being placed in the basket is significant.

The word for “basket”, his readers would know, is the word for the ark that saved Noah. And this is the only other time that word is used.

As surely as an ark saved Noah so an ark saved this child.

God’s providential care is written all over that comparison.

 

The Princess gives him an Egyptian name unaware that the name, in Hebrew, sounds like “to draw out.”

Again, the first readers of this book would have known as we do that God used Moses to draw them out of Egypt. 

God’s providential care is written all over this comparison.

 

But I think it is the twist in the story, the irony dripping from the way it is told, that most indicates the hand of God on each detail of this time in Moses’ life.

What we should expect after reading the death decree in chapter one and what actually results are so different, we must ask, how is this possible?

 

·        Moses survives undetected for three months.

·        He is set afloat on the very Nile that is supposed to kill him.

·        He is shown kindness by the daughter of the man who commanded his death.

·        He is adopted into the very people he would later oppose.

·          And he is assigned to the care of his own mother who had disobeyed the king’s law. (Dunham, 17)

 

We laugh at the Pharaoh when we realize that his plan is thwarted by his own princess.

We smile when the princess is fooled by the true mother becoming the nurse of the child and being paid to do so out of the Pharaoh’s treasury.

The very river into which the children were to be thrown becomes the medium of Moses’ salvation.

He floats on it instead of drowning in it.

 

Is God in control? 

 

The second story in the chapter likewise demonstrates the hand of God in the details of Moses’ life.

Exodus 2:11-15 “One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, "Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?" The man said, "Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and thought, "What I did must have become known."  When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses

 

There was no way that Moses was going to be able to lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt – he had no credibility with them.

When Moses tried to break up a fight between two of his own people, their response was, “Who made you ruler and judge over us?”

 

Likewise, Moses had no credibility with the Egyptians.

Other historical sources indicate that Moses’ adoptive mother, the Princess, was now hated by the new Pharaoh in Egypt.

Moses, as her son, would have no standing with him. (see notes below)

 

Moses had to “get out of Dodge!”

In so doing, God saves Moses’ life until that Pharaoh dies.

Exodus 2:23 “During that long period, the king of Egypt died.”

 

And God gives the formerly privileged Moses the experience of his people –a death sentence hangs over him and he becomes an exile, a man without a country.

 

There’s a third way that God is working in Moses through these details of his life.

In Acts 7 when Steven, in a sermon, recounts this event he speaks of Moses’ intentions when assaulting the Egyptian slave master.

Acts 7:23-25 “When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his fellow Israelites. 24 He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. 25 Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.

 

With no direction from God, with no calling by God, Moses takes it upon himself to do God’s work.

God had to knock the arrogance out of Moses and prepare him for the task ahead.

 

Is God in control?

 

The third story probably has much more to it than I speak to this morning.

Exodus 2:16-22 “Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father's flock. Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock. When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, "Why have you returned so early today?" They answered, "An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock." "And where is he?" he asked his daughters. "Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat." Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage.  Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, "I have become an alien in a foreign land."

 

It covers a period of nearly 40 years.

At least we can see God placing Moses right where he needs to be to learn the humility that would be necessary for the leadership he would eventually have.

 

The naming of his son shows the work God was doing in Moses heart – Exodus 2:22 “Moses named him Gershom, saying, "I have become an alien in a foreign land."

He grew up in the Pharaoh’s palace but he has now become one with his own people in exile.

 

Numbers 12:3 says of Moses, “Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.”

Where did he learn it?

I have heard it said, Moses spent 40 years thinking he was a somebody and 40 more years learning he was a nobody before he was ready for 40 years of being God’s body – meaning a body for God.

 

What I want you to see, above all else today is that God not only works in a general way to shape history, he works in very specific ways. 

He not only moves nations, he works in your history and mine – he is personally involved in our personal lives. 

 

The culture, the age, may be cynical but the word of God says God has not forgotten you; he is working in every detail of your life.

 

Isaiah 49:14-16 The people of God said, "The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me."

15 "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast

    and have no compassion on the child she has borne?

  Though she may forget, I will not forget you!

16 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands…”

 

In two weeks my son, Paris, will attain seven years of age.

 

Thoughts on God’s providential care and especially the birth narrative of Moses, reminded me of the specific ways in which God worked his providence in our lives between 5 and 7 years ago.

Many of you know some of what I’m about to tell you, but like Paul Harvey, let me tell you “the rest of the story.”

 

Paris was born at what was then known as Denver General Hospital, the second child of an imprisoned young woman.

A chaplain was asked if she knew anyone who might be willing to care for the newborn until the mother’s sentence was served.

Because the chaplain is a relative and friend of ours, and because we had done foster-care in the past, we agreed, assuming it would be 5-6 weeks.

My wife and daughter, Stephanie, went to the hospital and brought home a one-day-old baby boy.

The short story is that 5-6 weeks turned into over three years.

 

As I have expressed in the past, those three years became for us one of the greatest testings of our faith.

Through numerous prison contacts with the mother and visits with her family, we discovered how unfit for motherhood she was and how unsafe for a baby her world would be, when she was released. 

Her own father had abandoned the family, her mother had died of illegal drugs, her siblings were in various stages of trouble with the law, and even her own grandmother wanted nothing to do with her.

Her life, up to that point had been one of drugs and prostitution, even giving birth but abandoning a first child 2 ½ years earlier. 

 

We pleaded with God for the safety of this second child, now in our home.

 

We had no legal standing – the child was not in foster care and Social Services could not intervene unless we abandoned him.

And if we abandoned him to Social Services, they would be required to consider us unfit to care for him and would place him in the foster care system to languish for who knows how long. 

 

In the meantime, now two years into Paris’ life, his birth mother was expected to be released and she said she was planning to reclaim her son.

·        She had refused every offer to help her with living arrangements, with employment, and the rest that she would need to care for a child.

·        She had also steadfastly refused to consider relinquishing the child for adoption even though we encouraged her that way and even had younger families willing to adopt

·        For those three years, in scores of visits to her, with the baby, she had shown no interest in the child, sometimes even refusing to hold him. 

 

Then in the year 2001, three years into this ordeal, the County and State were still powerless to intervene because the child was not in their system and was not being neglected.

 

The county couldn’t be responsible for him, no one could adopt him, and we had no legal standing to keep him, if she came to get him. 

It seemed to us be one of those impossible situations that you only read about that happens to someone else.

Our hearts broke when we considered his future but we and everyone else were powerless to do anything.

 

What we could not see then was how God was working behind the scenes.

 

Two years earlier in 1999, when Paris was but one year old, the state legislature amended the laws concerning adoption.

It was commonly referred to as the new “kinship” provision.

 

It was technically a two-step process, but it basically decreed that if the birth parents had not cared for the child for a period of over one year and the child’s custodian had provided care for over a year, the custodian could apply for immediate adoption.

That law became effective February 1, 1999, almost exactly one year after Paris’ birth.

 

God put a baby boy in our home, put him there in such a way that “foster care” was precluded, dare I also say kept the young woman in prison until a law was passed, and timed the passing of that law to make it possible for us, when no one else could, to adopt him. 

We were working with adoption agencies, lawyers and Social Services trying to determine some way to protect this child, when God was fully in control the whole time – working in his way to bring about his loving plan for Paris’ life and for our lives.

 

But that is not the full extent of God’s providential care.

Every bit as significant is what God had done even while the baby was developing in his mother’s womb.

Paris’ mother was HIV positive.

 

But in the providence of God, she was incarcerated within three months of Paris’s conception and was made to take medication to lessen the chances of Paris contracting the disease.

For 18 months following his birth he was tested regularly and it was determined that he is completely free of the deadly virus.

 

When John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was 5 or 6 years old the family home caught on fire.

John’s bedroom was in the attic and at first no one was able to get to him.

At the last moment that little boy leaned out of a window and a neighbor managed to rescue him.

 

The incident so dramatically affected John that until his death, in old age, John believed God had saved him for a special task in life and often referred to himself, from a verse in Zechariah (3:2) as “a brand (burning stick) plucked from the fire.”

 

In the three to four years since those dark days in our lives, I have often thought of my son likewise, as a brand plucked from the fire.

 

Do I believe in the providence of God?  Yes, I believe!

 

What about you?

 

Just imagine how God is working behind the scenes even now for you.

Imagine what he started decades ago or even hundreds of years ago, that will eventually converge with your life producing just what God lovingly desires for you. 

Imagine how your present circumstances, be they seemingly good or bad, will be used by God to bring about good in the lives of your children or even great-great-great grandchildren. 

 

I’d like to end with a meditative reading of a portion of Psalm 139.

Would you please close your eyes, to avoid distractions, and listen to the word of God for you?

 

Psalm 139:1-16

O LORD, you have searched me

    and you know me.

  PS 139:2 You know when I sit and when I rise;

    you perceive my thoughts from afar.

  PS 139:3 You discern my going out and my lying down;

    you are familiar with all my ways.

  PS 139:4 Before a word is on my tongue

    you know it completely, O LORD.

  PS 139:5 You hem me in--behind and before;

    you have laid your hand upon me.

  PS 139:6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

    too lofty for me to attain.

  PS 139:7 Where can I go from your Spirit?

    Where can I flee from your presence?

  PS 139:8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

  PS 139:9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

    if I settle on the far side of the sea,

  PS 139:10 even there your hand will guide me,

    your right hand will hold me fast.

  PS 139:11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me

    and the light become night around me,"

  PS 139:12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;

    the night will shine like the day,

    for darkness is as light to you.

  PS 139:13 For you created my inmost being;

    you knit me together in my mother's womb.

  PS 139:14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

    your works are wonderful,

    I know that full well…

  All the days ordained for me

    were written in your book

    before one of them came to be.

 

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

 

 

Please stand with me for prayer

 

Postscript:

Mr. Mark Paschall, now Jefferson County Treasurer and former state legislator and Partner in our church, came to me following the sermon and said that he sponsored the adoption law in the legislature.  One more evidence of God’s providence.

 

 

Likely chronology of events and kings related to Exodus

 

1875 BC Joseph and Jacob to Egypt under ethnic Egyptian rulers

(See Gleason Archer A Survey of Old Testament Introduction 229)

 

1730 BC Hyksos rulers (Semitic, not ethnic Egyptians) come to power

Exodus 1:8-10“Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. "Look," he said to his people, "the Israelites have become much too numerous for us.  Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country."

 

Many, many years are represented by verses 1:8-14 which describe the growing hostility toward the Israelites and time for the Israelites to grow to over 603,000 men plus women and children (Numbers 2:32).

 

1559 BC Hyksos expelled by 18th Egyptian Dynasty (Amenhotep I 1559-1539 and Thutmose I 1539-1514) – The ethnic Egyptian rulers continue the slavery of the Israelites.

 

 

1527 BC Moses is born under Thutmose I  (1539-1514)

 

A sister (Hatshepsut) of Thutmose II (1514- ?) may be the princess who found and reared Moses. She ruled after Thutmose II and was co-regent, for a while before her death with her step-son, Thutmose III.  Thutmose III despised his stepmother and thus would likely have sought to kill Moses forcing Moses to flee Egypt. (see Ron Youngblood Exodus , 24)

 

Thutmose III (1501-1447) continues oppression of Israelites.

Exodus 2:11 When Moses kills an Egyptian it is c. 1487 and Moses is 40 when he flees from Egypt.

 

1447 BC Moses returns to Egypt under Amenhotep II 1447-1421)

Exodus 2:23 “During that long period, the king of Egypt died…” (Thutmose III)

 

1445 BC Exodus from Egypt – Amenhotep II the Pharaoh of the Exodus

Thutmose IV (1421-1412 BC) succeeded Amenhoteop II but he was not the oldest son since the oldest son died during plague on first-born males (Exodus 12:29). (See Archer, 245)

 

430 years from 1875 to 1450  Exodus 12:40-41 “Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years.  At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the LORD's divisions left Egypt.

 

1405 BC Conquest of Jericho (after Isreal’s 40 years in the desert)

 

480 years from Exodus to Solomon’s Temple is begun.  1 Kings 6:1 “In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites had come out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the temple of the LORD.

 

 

966 BC Solomon’s Temple

 

Other Notes on the Text

 

“The purpose of the three narratives in Ex 2 is to present us with an exceptional deliverer, exceptionally prepared, in the setting of a persecution precipitated by God’s fulfillment of the first half of his promise, and in anticipation of his fulfillment of the second half of the promise. By three entirely different devices, these narratives perform a connecting and transitional function.” (Dunham, Exodus,15)

 

 

Exodus 2:1-2 “Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, 2 and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months.

 

HEB 11:23 By faith Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king's edict.

 

The “fine child” is literally “good” and we don’t know for certain what it implies.

Hopefully this does not mean that he was attractive suggesting that if he had been ugly she wouldn’t have hidden him. For that matter, what mother thinks her child is ugly.

More likely, though purely speculation, the word “good” is used as in creation where God pronounces his work as good.  So Moses’ mother is recognizing the child as the work of God and she has no right to kill him.

 

Exodus 2:3-4 “But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

 

The basket mentioned is the word translated “ark” in Genesis 6-8 and she does what Noah was told to do – cover it with pitch. These are the only two places in all of Bible where this word is used.

 

The point was not to set Moses adrift but to periodically feed him and protect him as best she could – thus the sister kept watch.

His mother was not putting him out there to die but to save him.

 

Aaron and the sister were born before Moses, but they are not central to the story at this point and thus are not mentioned until later.

Exodus 6:20 “Amram married his father's sister Jochebed, who bore him Aaron and Moses. Amram lived 137 years.”

 

 

Exodus 2:10 “When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, "I drew him out of the water."

 

The Princess named him Moses (which is Egyptian for “born of” or “son of” just as in our time we have a “son of John” or Johnson.

But the author picks up on what the Egyptian word Moses sounds like in Hebrew. It sounds like the Hebrew word, Mashah meaning “to draw out.”

Moses was drawn out of the river and would become God’s means to draw out his people.