A Journey Through The Old Testament - Elmer Towns

First, Jochebed wove a basket out of the long green leaves of the bulrushes growing in
the river. Though the weave had been tight to make it watertight, she was not going to take any
chances. The basket was sealed with slime and pitch to insure it would be waterproof. Then as
she placed her son in the river, she instructed her daughter Miriam as to her plan.
Though only a Hebrew slave, Jochebed must have realized how her Egyptian masters
viewed the Nile River. It was more than their source of fresh water. It was numbered among their
gods. It was inevitable that an Egyptian finding the baby in the river would think of it as a gift of
the river god. What Jochebed may not have realized was that the child would be found by none
other than Pharaoh’s daughter, thought to be Hatshepsut by many conservative scholars today.
The child was not only spared but named by Hatshepsut, Pharaoh’s daughter. His new
name was Moses which is related to a Hebrew verb meaning “to draw out of the water” (cf. Ex.
2:10). Miriam arranged to have the child’s biological mother nurse the baby on the
understanding that once the child was weaned, he would enter the courts of Pharaoh to be raised
as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.
For forty years Moses lived in Egypt as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. As such he was no
doubt the recipient of the finest education available in that day. According to the religious
convictions of the Egyptians, he would be viewed as nothing less than one of the gods of Egypt.
He was being trained to someday possibly assume the throne of Egypt. But there were factors not
conducive to that ambition.
First, there was the political situation in Egypt itself. For a number of years, Hatshepsut
reigned as co-regent with Thutmosis III. Though they were co-regents, Hatshepsut was the
dominant force during their joint reign and Thutmosis did not seem to have much influence until
the powerful female Pharaoh had died. He apparently resented Hatshepsut and there is abundant
evidence he defaced many of the great monuments she had erected and sought to destroy her
memory in Egypt. If Hatshepsut was the “Pharaoh’s daughter” of Exodus as many conservative
scholars suspect, her relationship with Moses became a political liability.
The second problem was Moses himself. Though he had been raised as an Egyptian in the
court of Pharaoh, he was a Hebrew by birth. Perhaps it was the death of his protector Hatshepsut
that forced him to reevaluate his spiritual priorities. Whatever the cause, the result was his
turning from the Egyptian hierarchy of gods to faith in the God of Israel. He determined to do
what he could for his own people (Heb. 11:24-26).
But in doing so, all things came to a head. In protecting a Hebrew slave, he killed an
abusive Egyptian. Soon word was out and the new Pharaoh had all the justification he needed to
demand the life of Moses (Ex. 2:15). It was time to make a fundamental decision. Perhaps the
decision had already been made by Moses sometime before. “By faith he forsook Egypt, not
fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible” (Heb. 11:27).
For forty years Moses had been a principle member in the most powerful court of the
world. For the next forty years he would be a nomadic shepherd wandering about the deserts of
Arabia. He married and began raising a family. And he became the keeper of the flocks of his
father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian.
THE CALL TO MOSES
(Ex. 3:1-4:28)
It was toward the end of that second forty-year period that Moses notes an unusual sight
in the desert. While leading his father-in-law’s sheep in a mountain range named Horeb, near
Mount Sinai, he noted a bush burning. The unusual thing about this bush is that though it burned,