Exodus 1
V. 8 Now a new king (Pharaoh) arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph.
This "new king" was not in the lineage of the "old king" whose family were all well acquainted with the stories of how Joseph had saved them all from starvation, their hero.
Now this "new king" came from somewhere else, and he just saw how this one family of foreigners seemed to be spreading out over the whole land. So through fear of their possibly aligning with an enemy, he decided to try to reduce their numbers by killing all the boys. We could call it: selective after-birth abortion.
Exodus 2
During this time when the Egyptians were wanting to kill all the male infants, Moses was born. So his mother hid him to keep him alive. Then when he was three months old, she put him in the papyrus basket among the reeds in the River Nile, with his sister Miriam watching to see what would happen to him.
And Pharaoh's daughter came down to bathe in the river and saw the basket floating there. When she opened it, the baby was crying, and she had pity on him.
When Miriam saw her response, she boldly stepped up and offered to find a nursing mother to feed him for her.
vs. 8b-9 So the girl went and called the child's mother. Then Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this child and nurse him for me, and I shall give you your wages." So the woman took the child and nursed him.
This is incredible. Not only does Jocabed get her son back, but is even being paid to care for him! So she was also able to teach him of his people, who he was, and of God. So by the time he was about 5 years old, he went back to Pharaoh's house to be taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians, to be groomed to be the next Pharaoh.
So Moses had a serious choice to make: would he go with the flow and the high living and be Pharaoh over the most powerful nation of the day; or would he remember what his mother taught him when he was a toddler?
This is a choice that would determine his whole life.
So how did he choose? It looks to me that he wanted the best of both worlds (see vs. 11-12).
Jesus told us that if we want to hold on to our lives, we will lose them (Matthew 10:39, Mark 8:35, Luke 17:33, and John 12:25). So when Moses took action according to his own thinking, he ended up losing both his Egyptian privileges and any place he would have had among his Hebrew people (vs. 13-15).
Now we find Moses out in the desert, living in a foreign land, marrying the daughter of the local priest; a man of no nation.
How often do I choose to do what would hang on to my life and my isolation, when I could just as well choose to do something new, to expand my horizons. When I just think of myself, I end up more isolated than ever. But when I reach out to others, loving others the way I'm commanded to do, putting their needs ahead of my own; that's when I realize more joy and satisfaction, rejoicing in the good in others' lives.
Moses had a lot to learn, and God took His time teaching him. He had been taught all the latest technologies and theories and theologies of the most advanced culture of the day, and he was also taught how the real God chose his biological family. Now he needs to learn that he is not some celebrity or powerful politician, but just an ordinary man, a shepherd, doing ordinary things. And it took about forty years for him to get it down.
O my Father, I do hope You don't need that long to teach me who I really am in You, to where I am ready to go out into this big, wide world, as Your servant, and do the task You will assign to me to accomplish for the furtherance of Your great Kingdom. Here I am, Lord, send me!
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
