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Shemot (Exodus)
shemot 1:1-6:1 |
Meaning
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Day Two
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Haftara
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B'rit Hadashah
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1 Our Father, we receive Your Words and hide Your commandments with us; 2 we incline our ear unto wisdom, and apply our hearts to understanding; 3 We cry after knowledge and lift up our voices for understanding; 4 we seek it as silver; and search for it as for hidden treasures; 5 We declare that we shall understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. Declaration of Proverbs 2:1-5
Exodus 2:1-25 (NASB)1
1 Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a daughter of Levi. 2 The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got him a wicker basket and covered it over with tar and pitch. Then she put the child into it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to find out what would happen to him. 5 The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the Nile, with her maidens walking alongside the Nile; and she saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid, and she brought it to her. 6 When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the boy was crying. And she had pity on him and said, "This is one of the Hebrews' children." 7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women that she may nurse the child for you?" 8 Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Go ahead." So the girl went and called the child's mother. 9 Then Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this child away and nurse him for me and I will give you your wages." So the woman took the child and nursed him. 10 The child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. And she named him Moses, and said, "Because I drew him out of the water."11 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. 12 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. 13 He went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews were fighting with each other; and he said to the offender, "Why are you striking your companion?" 14 But he said, "Who made you a prince or a judge over us? Are you intending to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and said, "Surely the matter has become known." 15 When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well. 16 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters; and they came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. 17 Then the shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and helped them and watered their flock. 18 When they came to Reuel their father, he said, "Why have you come back so soon today?" 19 So they said, "An Egyptian delivered us from the hand of the shepherds, and what is more, he even drew the water for us and watered the flock." 20 He said to his daughters, "Where is he then? Why is it that you have left the man behind? Invite him to have something to eat." 21 Moses was willing to dwell with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses. 22 Then she gave birth to a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, "I have been a sojourner in a foreign land." 23 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. 24 So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25 God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them.
How much did Moses know about his heritage? It sounds like he might have known it all. I wonder why the Hebrew name of Moses never came up. At the very moment that he was rejected by his fellows after the death of the Egyptian overseer, did this precipitate a personal crisis in Moses? He was never really Egyptian and he knew that. He was never really Hebrew and now this was confirmed when his countryman rejected him!
13 And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? 14 And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known. Exodus 2:13-14.
Yes, he was afraid of his life when he realized that his secret was known because he knew firsthand the wrath of the Egyptian pharaoh! He knew the inner workings of the court and he knew that the Pharaoh, his “grandfather” would look upon his slaying the Egyptian as the height of betrayal and insolence and in order to save his own life, it was necessary for him to run. He might have been the “adopted” son of the daughter of the Pharaoh, but he may always have been viewed as an “interloper” by her father. The Pharaoh may have simply “tolerated” him because of his daughter and he may even have been a possible successor for the throne but once he was a murderer, that all changed.
Did Moses know that it was “HE” who was to bring out his people? Perhaps when he lost it and killed that overseer, he abandoned that plan. Perhaps he said to himself, “It can’t be me after all—now I’m a criminal and have no access to the throne—I’m a nobody—just a Hebrew outcast and what could an outcast do?” In Hebrew lore, it states that Moses was a king in Ethiopia before he settled in that Midian locale and met his future wife at the well. It’s possible but as yet it is good to remember that no proof has surfaced. The story goes that he even wed the widow of the king who had favored him and given him his kingdom at his death but never had relations with her. After a time, relatives of this deceased king began disputing the eligibility for the throne since he was not related to the king even by marriage. His Ethiopian wife contended that he had never consummated their marriage and therefore, he wasn’t fit to rule. And the upshot of that was that Moses was ousted and on the run again, and that was when he met the daughter of Reuel at the well and was taken home for his bravery at that time. Is it not interesting that after all that time, Moses was willing to pass himself off as Egyptian? Surely he didn’t have the appearance of one but I suppose going as a Coptic male would suit his purposes well enough.
And so he settles in with a new wife and father in law but all the while, his past and all that he knew stayed there, in the past. He embarked upon a whole new life, far away from his heritage and his relatives.
21 And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter. 22 And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land. Exodus 2:21-22.
The most important phrase of the day is this one:
24 So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25 God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them. Exodus 2:24-25.
There is nothing wrong with the memory of Yah! There is one thing that we always have to remember and it really is part of the foundation of the “boot camp for believers” instruction manual. Our Father God is outside of time while we are ‘inside it’. And while this is so, and despite our chafing about it, the passage of time does appear to have its purposes in our Father God’s intents. Since we do work within the concepts of a timeline, we must accept that we have to “wait” and this was no different in the case of Israel in the iron grip of Egypt. It's like Joseph in jail, all over again. Only this time it's his descendants, and his brothers descendants as well. But Moses was also in 'galut' as was the whole of Israel. Galut is 'exile', and that was Moshe, even as comfortable as he was in his new life as a shepherd.
Israel had to learn what it was like to be fruitful and multiply and then be legislated and enslaved. They had to know what it was like to be worked into the ground so that they would always remember their time in Egypt and so would never enslave anyone else in the same manner. They were in great danger of assimilation by the Egyptians as long as they remained the status quo. Now there is a good lesson for boot camp believers if there ever was one! And the time while Israel slaved they weren’t the only ones who were being tempered and prepared for their emancipation. The man named Moses was being tried and prepared every bit as much as they. Perhaps the proof of this was established right at the beginning but nobody saw it then! When the child grew up, Jochebed brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son, a prince of Egypt. She named him Moses , "Because," she said, "I drew him out of the water" and is it turns out… A play on the word , which means, "to draw out, to save". This was in his name all along!
So God sent Moses, as a child into the family of a couple of the tribe of Levi. You have to wonder. This child was born in the middle of that “throw every male child into the Nile” period. His mother actually obeyed the Egyptian ruling to give her child “to the Nile! Every Hebrew male infant that was put or thrown into the Nile was considered a sacrifice to the god of that river (or the crocodile god), so that the river would always overflow its banks so that they could water their crops. The Egyptian ‘myth’ of their god Osiris and his voyage in a coffin up the Nile is oddly similar. Apparently Osiris was tricked by another god to lay in this coffin and when he did, the lid was slammed shut and his enemy literally, sent him “up the river”. Did the mother of this child mimic the ancient Egyptian story?
Now that we’re aware of this, it suggests a deeper appreciation of the sovereignty of our Father God! Why? In the previous years of our cycle, we grew to understand that at the time of the ten plagues, it was really Yahweh doing a ‘smack-down’ of the host of Egyptian false gods and proving HIS authority and power. And now when we consider this story of the Osiris in the coffin, it may be intimating that our Father God initiated His ‘smack-down’ of the Egyptian pantheon of gods a whole lot earlier than we thought! We understand from Hebrew language experts that Yah is partial to puns and there are many within the covers of the Bible if you read it in the original languages. A pun is a ‘jest’ or ‘joke’ consisting in the use of a word that has more than one sense or is easily confused in sound with another in a context where the suggestion of the wrong sense or the other word is both natural AND perhaps even foolish at the same time! This baby, sailing up the Nile in a waterproofed basket ranks up there as a master pun acted out by the mother of Moses!
Was she actually hoping that if any Egyptian saw the basket and opened it up they would automatically remember their teachings about their god Osiris and grant the child life on that basis? And when we consider that the Egyptian that did spot it and sent her servants to fetch it was the daughter of a pharaoh that was considered a ruling god in his own right? How punny AND ironic! Yah gives us a picture of the perfect pun and also illustrates irony, a mock adoption of another view. Was this the reason why the Pharaoh’s daughter was so intrigued with the Hebrew baby they found floating in the Nile that she adopted him? Even if it wasn’t and I’ve just gone up a very silly rabbit trail this morning, it’s still amazing that God sent a baby to overturn an entire culture wrapped in the dressings (the floating box) of one of their own religious constructs. WOWSERS and Hallelu-YAH!!
And this very same baby grew into a man with what we might label a dual citizenship. He’s an Israeli because he was nursed and earlier groomed by his natural mother and educated as an Egyptian in his youth by his adoptive mother. At some point he’s got to make a choice into which one he will submerse himself. His choice prompted by a rash action against an Egyptian overseer pretty much makes the choice for him to be neither. Ironically, he wasn't accepted by either and so he does a runner and hides himself from both. No matter where he travels he feels as if he’s a stranger, even after marrying and experiencing the birth of his first born son in the comfortable hidden life as a shepherd. But now he is equipped with gifting and talents and learned skills because of the way he was raised. God has a plan for him that nobody else could do. It was custom tailored for Moses just as our own lives are custom tailored to our time and location in God’s plan.
13 And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? 14 And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known. Exodus 2:13-14.
Yes, he was afraid of his life when he realized that his secret was known because he knew firsthand the wrath of the Egyptian pharaoh! He knew the inner workings of the court and he knew that the Pharaoh, his “grandfather” would look upon his slaying the Egyptian as the height of betrayal and insolence and in order to save his own life, it was necessary for him to run. He might have been the “adopted” son of the daughter of the Pharaoh, but he may always have been viewed as an “interloper” by her father. The Pharaoh may have simply “tolerated” him because of his daughter and he may even have been a possible successor for the throne but once he was a murderer, that all changed.
Did Moses know that it was “HE” who was to bring out his people? Perhaps when he lost it and killed that overseer, he abandoned that plan. Perhaps he said to himself, “It can’t be me after all—now I’m a criminal and have no access to the throne—I’m a nobody—just a Hebrew outcast and what could an outcast do?” In Hebrew lore, it states that Moses was a king in Ethiopia before he settled in that Midian locale and met his future wife at the well. It’s possible but as yet it is good to remember that no proof has surfaced. The story goes that he even wed the widow of the king who had favored him and given him his kingdom at his death but never had relations with her. After a time, relatives of this deceased king began disputing the eligibility for the throne since he was not related to the king even by marriage. His Ethiopian wife contended that he had never consummated their marriage and therefore, he wasn’t fit to rule. And the upshot of that was that Moses was ousted and on the run again, and that was when he met the daughter of Reuel at the well and was taken home for his bravery at that time. Is it not interesting that after all that time, Moses was willing to pass himself off as Egyptian? Surely he didn’t have the appearance of one but I suppose going as a Coptic male would suit his purposes well enough.
And so he settles in with a new wife and father in law but all the while, his past and all that he knew stayed there, in the past. He embarked upon a whole new life, far away from his heritage and his relatives.
21 And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter. 22 And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land. Exodus 2:21-22.
The most important phrase of the day is this one:
24 So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25 God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them. Exodus 2:24-25.
There is nothing wrong with the memory of Yah! There is one thing that we always have to remember and it really is part of the foundation of the “boot camp for believers” instruction manual. Our Father God is outside of time while we are ‘inside it’. And while this is so, and despite our chafing about it, the passage of time does appear to have its purposes in our Father God’s intents. Since we do work within the concepts of a timeline, we must accept that we have to “wait” and this was no different in the case of Israel in the iron grip of Egypt. It's like Joseph in jail, all over again. Only this time it's his descendants, and his brothers descendants as well. But Moses was also in 'galut' as was the whole of Israel. Galut is 'exile', and that was Moshe, even as comfortable as he was in his new life as a shepherd.
Israel had to learn what it was like to be fruitful and multiply and then be legislated and enslaved. They had to know what it was like to be worked into the ground so that they would always remember their time in Egypt and so would never enslave anyone else in the same manner. They were in great danger of assimilation by the Egyptians as long as they remained the status quo. Now there is a good lesson for boot camp believers if there ever was one! And the time while Israel slaved they weren’t the only ones who were being tempered and prepared for their emancipation. The man named Moses was being tried and prepared every bit as much as they. Perhaps the proof of this was established right at the beginning but nobody saw it then! When the child grew up, Jochebed brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son, a prince of Egypt. She named him Moses , "Because," she said, "I drew him out of the water" and is it turns out… A play on the word , which means, "to draw out, to save". This was in his name all along!
So God sent Moses, as a child into the family of a couple of the tribe of Levi. You have to wonder. This child was born in the middle of that “throw every male child into the Nile” period. His mother actually obeyed the Egyptian ruling to give her child “to the Nile! Every Hebrew male infant that was put or thrown into the Nile was considered a sacrifice to the god of that river (or the crocodile god), so that the river would always overflow its banks so that they could water their crops. The Egyptian ‘myth’ of their god Osiris and his voyage in a coffin up the Nile is oddly similar. Apparently Osiris was tricked by another god to lay in this coffin and when he did, the lid was slammed shut and his enemy literally, sent him “up the river”. Did the mother of this child mimic the ancient Egyptian story?
Now that we’re aware of this, it suggests a deeper appreciation of the sovereignty of our Father God! Why? In the previous years of our cycle, we grew to understand that at the time of the ten plagues, it was really Yahweh doing a ‘smack-down’ of the host of Egyptian false gods and proving HIS authority and power. And now when we consider this story of the Osiris in the coffin, it may be intimating that our Father God initiated His ‘smack-down’ of the Egyptian pantheon of gods a whole lot earlier than we thought! We understand from Hebrew language experts that Yah is partial to puns and there are many within the covers of the Bible if you read it in the original languages. A pun is a ‘jest’ or ‘joke’ consisting in the use of a word that has more than one sense or is easily confused in sound with another in a context where the suggestion of the wrong sense or the other word is both natural AND perhaps even foolish at the same time! This baby, sailing up the Nile in a waterproofed basket ranks up there as a master pun acted out by the mother of Moses!
Was she actually hoping that if any Egyptian saw the basket and opened it up they would automatically remember their teachings about their god Osiris and grant the child life on that basis? And when we consider that the Egyptian that did spot it and sent her servants to fetch it was the daughter of a pharaoh that was considered a ruling god in his own right? How punny AND ironic! Yah gives us a picture of the perfect pun and also illustrates irony, a mock adoption of another view. Was this the reason why the Pharaoh’s daughter was so intrigued with the Hebrew baby they found floating in the Nile that she adopted him? Even if it wasn’t and I’ve just gone up a very silly rabbit trail this morning, it’s still amazing that God sent a baby to overturn an entire culture wrapped in the dressings (the floating box) of one of their own religious constructs. WOWSERS and Hallelu-YAH!!
And this very same baby grew into a man with what we might label a dual citizenship. He’s an Israeli because he was nursed and earlier groomed by his natural mother and educated as an Egyptian in his youth by his adoptive mother. At some point he’s got to make a choice into which one he will submerse himself. His choice prompted by a rash action against an Egyptian overseer pretty much makes the choice for him to be neither. Ironically, he wasn't accepted by either and so he does a runner and hides himself from both. No matter where he travels he feels as if he’s a stranger, even after marrying and experiencing the birth of his first born son in the comfortable hidden life as a shepherd. But now he is equipped with gifting and talents and learned skills because of the way he was raised. God has a plan for him that nobody else could do. It was custom tailored for Moses just as our own lives are custom tailored to our time and location in God’s plan.
23 And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. 24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them. Exodus 2:23-25.
1 Scripture reading from the NASB www.lockman.org and KJV unless otherwise stated.
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