Exodus 2 – Study

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Exodus 2:1-10

1 Now a man of the tribe 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 river-bank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave 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. So 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’

A. Find Out:

1. From what family was the baby? v.1
2. How long did the mother hide the baby? v.2
3. In what did she leave the child? v.3
4. Who watched over the baby? v.4
5. Who found the baby? v.5
6. What arrangement was made for the baby? v.7-9
7. What happened to the child eventually? v.10

B. Think:

1. Why, do you think, the mother placed the baby in the River Nile?
2. What feelings did the Egyptian Princess have towards the baby?
3. How did the baby and family eventually come out of the story?

C. Comment:

      First, we should observe in passing that Moses came from the tribe of Levi, that was to become the priestly tribe. Next we observe that his mother acted completely righteously, for she did exactly what the law from the king required, she “threw” her son into the Nile , except she put him into a watertight basket! She did this at a place where people, almost certainly Egyptians, would come. Whether it was known that the Princess regularly bathed here is not made clear. If it was, then the mother was acting with great wisdom, counting on the Princess’s compassion.

      Leaving the baby’s sister to watch shows forethought and care. His sister acted courageously and wisely with the result that Moses survived and his family received an income from the king’s household. How ironic! Thus Moses grew up being taught his Israelite heritage and then, in the king’s household, learning their way of life. This child is being groomed for stardom but not in the way we might think!!! Perhaps there is no indication of the Lord’s hand behind all this, but it must surely be there.

D. Application?

1. Thank the Lord for the wisdom He promises we can have for daily difficult situations.  (Check out Jas 1:5) 
2. Commit such situations into His hand today.

Passage: Exodus 2:11-25

11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labour. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. 12 Looking 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, 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?’ Reuel 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 a foreigner in a foreign land.’

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.

A. Find Out:

1. To whom did Moses go? v.11
2. How did he seek to help them? v.12,13
3. How was this received? v.14
4. To where did Moses flee? v.15
5. What happened to him there? v.21,22
6. What did God remember and why? v.24,23

B. Think:

1. What desire was obviously within Moses at the start of this passage?
2. How were his actions misguided?
3. How was he shown to be both gracious and courageous?

C. Comment:

      The message of this passage must surely be “Don’t take the law into your own hands!” Moses must have had something within him that sought to see his own people again. As a member of the Pharaoh’s household, he had easy access to wherever he wanted. When he found his own people, he saw their plight and misguidedly sought to help them by killing one of the overseers.

     The end does not justify the means and deliverance must not come through human endeavour of the wrong kind! When, the next day, he saw two Hebrews fighting and sought to bring peace between them, he found his presence was most unwelcome and his actions of yesterday widely known. His only course of action was to flee the country.

      Across the Red Sea in Midian, he arrives at a well and helps some shepherd girls, is then welcomed into their home where he eventually marries one of them, a daughter of a priest of Midian. Here Moses spends the next forty years, possibly thinking, “What a waste of my life!” while Israel’s plight became worse and worse. However, God was still watching over the situation and was biding His time. This isn’t where Moses is destined to finish his life!!

D. Application?

1. Do we ever try to “do good” using our own resources without God’s help?  i.e. being godless.
2. Resolve to move with Him only.