The Book of Exodus - Deliverance. Kenneth B. Alexander

issued by the Pharaoh she hid Moses in a wicker basket and floated him down the Nile. The daughter of Pharaoh found Moses in the basket, saw that he was a beautiful child, and decided to keep him for her own. Thus Moses grew up among the rulers of Egypt for the next 40 years. He became an adopted son of the Pharaoh (Ex. 2:1-10). However he never lost his Hebrew heritage in his heart. “Now it came about in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brethren and looked on their  hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren. So he looked this way and that, and when he saw there was no one around, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand” (Ex 2:11-12). When Pharaoh found out that Moses had committed murder he sought to kill Moses but Moses fled Egypt and traveled to Midian, some distance away. (Ex. 2:15). The priest of Midian, Jethro, received Moses as his son and gave him his daughter Zipporoh for a wife. Moses worked 40 years for Jethro as a sheepherder.

      “Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God. So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them” (Ex. 2:23-25).

      “Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb the mountain of God [Horeb is also named Mt Sinai.] The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed” (Ex. 3:1-2). The Lord spoke to Moses from the bush: “He said “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. The Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. “So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite [all descendants of Ham, Canaan and Cush, see Genesis] “Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them “(Ex. 3:6-9). The land of Canaan was the place Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had dwelt. God was saying that He was ready to fulfill His promise to them and give them this land for their own.

      Moses accepted the commission rather reluctantly. He told God he was a man of slow speech (he stuttered).He grumbled “What if they don’t receive me?” Moses said: “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” And God said, “Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt,  you shall worship God at this mountain.” [Horeb]. This is a curious scripture. Moses was concerned about just getting the people out of Egypt. Then God said He would give Moses a sign. The sign was that “after” Moses got the people out of Egypt they would worship at this mountain. God gave no sign how he was going to deliver the people from Egypt.

      “Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’, What shall I say to them?” God said to Moses “I AM WHO I AM” [translated roughly from Hebrew YHWH] and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.’ ” (Ex 3:10-15).

      Moses still maintained his objections to God’s call. He wanted another sign. So God had Moses throw his rod on the ground and it became a snake. Moses grabbed it again and it became a rod. God also said that Aaron his brother could be Moses’ mouthpiece due to his slowness of his speech. God began to get angry as Moses threw one excuse after another at God as to why he was the wrong man for the Job. This becomes a pattern in the scriptures of reluctant men being chosen vessels of Gods to do a job when they would have rather stayed home (Gideon, Jonah, Amos, David the lowly shepherd King Etc). God always chooses the least and weakest over the stronger. God judges not by outward appearance but by the heart.

      Paul said: “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties,  for Christ’s sake; for  when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10). “For behold your calling, brethren, that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are wise; and God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong; and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, did God choose, yea and the things that are not, that he might bring to nought the things that are: that no flesh should glory before God.( I Corinthians 1:26–31).