Page 38 - Pentateuch

The birth story of Moses is well known. All the people involved are women. Besides the midwives, Shiprah
and Puah, other women are used by God to save his life. His mother is “a Levite woman” (2:1). His
unnamed sister stands guard over him in his Nile River basket (2:4). Pharaoh’s daughter and her attendants
rescue the boy (2:5) and secure proper help to rear him (2:9). His mother remains anonymous, “one of the
Hebrew women” (2:7), “the baby’s mother” (2:8), and “the woman” (2:9).

Moses himself is part Jacob and part Israel. He has compassion for people who are laboring so hard. He
intervenes on behalf of one slave who is receiving a beating and kills the Egyptian overseer (2:12). Faith in
God and the coming Messiah are at the root of his actions (Heb. 11:24-27). His deed is witnessed, and he is
rejected by his own people (2:14). Pharaoh understands the choice Moses has made to be identified with
slave-nation Israel, and Moses is forced to flee into Midian (2:15). He settles down in his new land, marries,
and has two sons (2:21-22). All this time, Israel has been in slavery, crying out to God. God hears and acts
on their behalf out of his own faithful nature, remembering his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Other people at that time were in slavery, yet they had not been promised.

Some forty years pass, and Moses is confronted by
God in a defining experience. The angel of the Lord
(the second person of the Trinity as recorded in John
8:58) appears to Moses out of a burning bush (3:2).
The place is holy ground. God introduces himself, “I
am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses
understands and hides his face, afraid to look upon
God (3:6). The experience is unforgettable. At the
end of his life, when he is blessing the tribes of
Israel, Moses refers to “the favor [good pleasure] of
him who dwelt in the burning bush” (Deut. 33:16).
At the time of Exodus chapter three, Moses is just
beginning to learn about God. It will take a lifetime
Fig. 23: Moses and Burning Bush, Saint Isaac’s and beyond to have a solid sense of the great grace
Cathedral. of this great God.

We now see a lengthy interchange between God
and Moses as God recruits him to bring Israel out of Egypt. Moses objects time and again. He feels his own
inadequacy (3:11). He had already experienced the rejection of his people when he intervened earlier in life
(3:13). He doubts their response to his leadership for so great a project (4:1). He begs to be released due to
his lack of eloquence, claiming to be slow of speech and tongue (4:10). And finally, he simply wants out of
the job, saying bluntly, “Please send someone else” (4:13).

The series of conversations, back and forth, highlights the testimony of Moses (referred to in later
Deuteronomy) to the grace of God. At any point, God would have been justified in executing Moses or, at
the very least, forgetting about him. God introduced himself as the faithful God who keeps his promises
(3:8-9). He reveals himself further to Moses than he had to the patriarchs (3:14) and lays out for him the
whole scenario of judgment on Egypt to come (3:18-20), including the favor of the Egyptians in giving to
Israel silver and gold to the extent of plunder (3:21-22). He authorizes Moses to use three distinct signs that
prove God’s presence. His rod becomes a snake and returns to rod form (4:4). His hand becomes leprous,
and health returns (4:7). He takes water out of the Nile, pours it on the ground, and it becomes blood (4:9).
He reminds Moses of his awareness of what the human body can do. After all, he is the Creator. He gave
mouths to humans and sight to the blind. As Moses tries God’s patience to the point of anger, the gracious
God also enlists Aaron, the brother of Moses, to do the speaking (4:14-17).
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