Chapter 2: Moses Escapes from Egypt

Exodus 2:11-15

Q1 - Moses had royal standing, so why did he not use his status to command the Egyptian to stop beating the Hebrew? What might have compelled Moses to kill the slave master?

A1 - Moses likely didn’t fit in well with either the Egyptians or Hebrews, meaning his royal standing may not have been recognized or honored by either group of people. We do know that Moses essentially renounced his Egyptian heritage and identified strongly with the Hebrew people from Hebrews 11:24–25 (NIV): “By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.”

By killing the Egyptian, Moses thought he was solving the problem at hand. Instead, he created an even greater problem for himself. Perhaps his anger got the better of him at that moment. Whatever motivated him to kill, he seems to have acted more on impulse rather than by rationally thinking over the situation.

Remember that at this point in his life, Moses had not personally encountered God. He only knew God from information passed down to him by his ancestors. Later on in his life, you will notice a real difference in the way he handled various situations. Although his anger caused him to break the tablets of stone and strike the rock at Meribah, for the most part he learned to listen to God, to depend on Him, and to accept His guidance.

Q2 - How many Pharaohs reigned during Moses’s life up until the Exodus? Ancient timelines vary, but it’s possible that the Pharaoh when Moses fled to Midian was not the same Pharaoh whose daughter had adopted Moses. Compare a Bible timeline, such as the "Bible Hub Bible Timeline” (http://biblehub.com/timeline), with a timeline of the Pharaohs, such as the “Pharaoh Timeline" (https://www.worldhistory.org/timeline/pharaoh). Dates differ among various timelines, so you might want to research several to get a broader picture of the time period.

A2 - The BibleHub timeline puts Moses's birth at around 1525 BC and his flight to Midian approximately forty years later at 1486 BC. The World History Pharaoh Timeline has Ahmose I as the pharaoh from 1550–1525 BC. This seems to make him the pharaoh who issued the decree to kill the male Hebrew babies. Then, right around Moses's birth, Amenhotep I became pharaoh from 1525–1504 BC. He was followed by Thutmose I as pharaoh from about 1504–1492 BC. Then, Thutmose II reigned from 1492–1479 BC, making him the pharaoh during the time that Moses killed the Egyptian and fled to Midian. Certainly, other timelines may offer different dates for the various events, but it’s unlikely that the same pharaoh ruled the entire time during the first forty years of Moses's life.

Q3 - The Law that was later given to Moses on Mount Sinai was the first written law given to God’s people. In the years prior to the Law being given, how did the Hebrews receive instruction from God? How did they learn about God, particularly while they lived as slaves in Egypt?

A3 - So far as is recorded in scriptures, the time between Jacob being told by God to go to Egypt and God calling to Moses from the burning bush was a silent period in which God did not communicate with anyone. So, the Hebrews evidently only knew God from information that had been passed down to them from their ancestors.

We know that at least from the time of Cain and Abel, people offered sacrifices to God (see Genesis 4:3–5). Noah built an altar and offered burnt offerings after coming off the ark (see Genesis 8:20). Abraham built several altars to worship God, and in Genesis 15 God told him which animals to bring when He made His covenant with him. Other than these instances, little is recorded about how and when people made sacrifices to God.

The fact that Moses found a home with a priest in Midian indicates that some amount of information concerning the worship of God had been passed down from generation to generation. Recall that Midian was one of Abraham’s sons by his wife, Keturah (see Genesis 25:1–2). So, it stands to reason that Abraham passed information on to his family members. However, there were no formal, written instructions from God until He gave His Law to Moses at Mount Sinai.