5 MIDIAN

Moses had now passed the first forty years of his training in the court of Pharaoh for his life’s task of delivering Israel. He had received many advantages there. 1 Corinthians 4:7 says, “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” Just as we can do nothing without God’s help, so when He helps us we must acknowledge it was only possible through what we have received from God which enables us to do God’s work. God worked on Moses 80 years before He began to really use him.

Moses boldly acknowledges the cause of God’s people as verse 11 says, “One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor.” The best explanation of these words we have is from the inspired pen of the author of Hebrews who tells us that by faith Moses had a holy contempt of the honors and pleasures of the Egyptian court; he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing to throw his lot in with the Hebrew slaves. He had a good opportunity to make his fortune, and to have been serviceable to Israel too, with his position at court. He was obligated, in gratitude as well as interest, to Pharaoh’s daughter, and yet he obtained a glorious victory by faith over any desire for position in Egypt. He reckoned it much more his honor and advantage to be a son of Abraham than to be the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. His tender concern was for his poor brothers in bondage, with whom he chose to suffer affliction. He looked on their burdens as one that not only pitied them, but was resolved to venture with and for them. He could have easily avoided this inconvenience; this affliction. So could have Jesus, another Deliverer. And so can you. You can avoid the inconveniences of servant leadership, but you will never be what you can become unless you are willing to serve, identifying with the slaves to sin and needy persons around you.

Moses was afterwards active in bringing plagues to the Egyptians for the wrongs they had done to God’s Israel. Was it a sample of this that he killed the Egyptian who hit the Hebrew? Anyone who comes to be of great faith and accomplishment begins with little ones. This effort on Moses’ part failed. He was using his own strength, not God’s. Interestingly, Moses was afterwards to be greatly used not only in delivering but also in governing Israel. Perhaps as a hint of this, we see him here trying to end a controversy between two Hebrews. But, sadly, he is forced to experience their ingratitude and ill manners; Moses was in training. Later, too, he endured rejection and complaining again from the very ones he was delivering.

An unhappy quarrel occurred which Moses observed between two Hebrews. Scripture does not say what the occasion was; but, whatever it was, it was certainly very inappropriate for Hebrews to strive with one another when they were already oppressed and ruled with rigor by the Egyptians. Didn’t they already have enough beatings from the Egyptians? Must they beat one another? Even suffering together does not always unite God’s professing people to one another as much as one might reasonably expect. When God raises up Christian leaders for the church, they will find enough to do, not only with oppressing Egyptians, to restrain them, but also with quarrelsome Israelites, to reconcile them.

Let’s notice the way Moses took in dealing with the offender; he mildly reproved him and reasoned with him: “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?” The injurious Egyptian was killed, the injurious Hebrew was only reprimanded. What the former did was from a rooted malice, what the latter did we may guess was only from a sudden provocation. The wise God makes, and, according to His example, all wise governors make, a difference between one offender and another, according to the varied qualities of the same offense. Moses tried to make them friends which is a good service. Jesus also often reproved His disciples. Jesus was a prophet like Moses, a healing prophet, a peacemaker, who visited His brothers with a design to destroy hateful thoughts. The reproof Moses gave in this part of the story is still of use to us, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?” Hitting our fellow is bad in anyone, whether hitting with the tongue or a hand; whether in a way of persecution or in a way of strife and contention. Consider the person you hit; is it your team mate? Your fellow-creature? Your fellow-Christian? Is it your fellow-servant? Your fellow-sufferer? Consider the cause. Why? Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew? Perhaps it is for no cause at all, or no just cause, or none worth speaking of.

This time Moses was an unsuccessful arbitrator. “Who made you ruler and judge over us?” The one that did the wrong quarreled with Moses, the injured party, it should seem, was inclined enough to peace, but the wrong-doer was touchy. It is a sign of guilt to resist reproof; and it is often easier to persuade the injured to bear the trouble of taking wrong than the injurious to bear the conviction of having done wrong. 1 Corinthians 6:7,8 says, “The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters.” It was a wise and mild reproof that Moses gave this quarrelsome Hebrew, but he could not bear it. The Hebrew slave challenges Moses’ authority: “Who made you ruler and judge over us?” A man needs no great authority to give a friendly reproof; it is an act of kindness. Yet this man will interpret the friendly reproof as an act of dominion, and represents his reprover as presumptuous and assuming. When people dislike good advice, or an appropriate admonition, they will call it preaching or criticism, as if a man could not speak a word for God and against sin. Yet Moses was indeed a prince and a judge, and knew it, and thought the Hebrews would have understood it, and joined in with him. But the offender maintained his dignity and pushed Moses aside. He criticized Moses with what he had done in killing the Egyptian: “Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” See what lowly thoughts malice puts on the best words and actions. Moses, for helpfully reproving him is immediately charged with a design to kill him. An attempt upon his sin was interpreted as an attempt on his life. Leaders sometimes must suffer misunderstandings this way.

Moses having killed the Egyptian was thought sufficiently evil to justify the resentment as if Moses made no difference between an Egyptian and a Hebrew. If Moses, to correct an injured Hebrew, had put his life in his hand and slain an Egyptian, the slave ought therefore to have appreciated it and submitted to Moses. This, not only as a friend to the Hebrews, but as a friend that had more than ordinary power and zeal. It was something that was bravely done and intended to demonstrate the promised deliverance. But instead, the Hebrew throws it in Moses’ teeth as a crime. If the Hebrews had taken the hint, and joined with Moses as their head and captain, it is possible, humanly speaking, they might have been delivered then. But, despising their deliverer, their deliverance was justly delayed and their bondage prolonged forty years. Ha! Even after that, their wrong thinking about Canaan kept them out of it another forty years! Eighty years of delay due to human error! God says, I would, but you would not. 

Men do not know what they do, nor what enemies they are to their own interest, when they resist and despise faithful reproofs and reprovers. When the Hebrews strove with Moses, God sent him away to Midian, and they never heard of him for forty years. The things that could have brought them peace were hidden from their eyes, because they did not  know the day of their visitation. As to Moses, we may look on it as a great discouragement to him. He was now choosing to suffer affliction with the people of God, and embracing the reproach of Christ, yet at his first attempt to meet with this affliction, he receives a reproach from them! He might have said, ‘If this is the attitude of the Hebrews, I will go to court again, and be the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.’ We must beware of being prejudiced against the ways and people of God by the follies and criticisms of some individual persons among them. Christian leader, it is no new thing for the church’s best friends to meet with opposition and discouragement in their well-intended efforts to heal and save. Jesus came to heal and save and He Himself was rejected by the builders, and is still rejected by those He would like to save.

As a consequence, Moses fled to Midian. The affront given him proved a kindness to him; it gave him to understand that his killing the Egyptian was discovered and so he had time to make his escape. If this had not happened, the wrath of Pharaoh might have surprised him and he would have been killed. God can overrule even the strife of tongues, so as, one way or other, to bring good to his chosen leaders. Information of Moses killing the Egyptian was evidently brought to Pharaoh. An arrest warrant was  out for apprehending Moses which forced Moses to shift for his own safety by flying to the land of Midian. Moses did this out of an understandable and even wise protection of his own life. If this first departure from Egypt is the one to which Hebrews 11 refers as done by faith, it teaches us that when we are at any time in trouble and danger for doing our duty, the grace of faith will be of good use to us in taking proper methods for our own preservation. Hebrews 11 probably, however, applies to the Exodus, not Moses’ fleeing at age 40 out of fear for his life. Later at age 80 he certainly did it by faith.

Yet even here he did not fear with a fear of doubt or faithlessness, which weakens and torments, but with a fear of diligence, which motivated him to take the way God opened to him for his own preservation. God ordered it for wise and holy ends. Developments were not yet ripe for Israel’s deliverance; the measure of Canaan’s iniquity was not yet full. The Hebrews were not sufficiently humbled, nor were they yet increased to such a multitude as God designed. Moses would be later further fitted for the service, and therefore is directed to withdraw for the present, until the set time to favor Israel should come. God guided Moses to Midian because the Midianites were also descendants of Abraham, and retained the worship of the true God. Moses would be accepted and safe there. Later it was through this territory Moses was to lead Israel. Living there acquainted him with the land. So he came to Midian, and sat down by a well, tired and thoughtful, somewhat at a loss, and waiting to see which way God would direct him. Events that may seem random, and purely accidental, afterwards appear to have been designed by the wisdom of God for very good purposes, and of great consequence to His people. This was such an event. It was a great change for Moses, since he was just the other day at ease in Pharaoh’s court. God tried his faith, and it was found to praise and honor.

Reuel the priest or prince of Midian had seven daughters. They were humble, and industrious and drew water for their father’s flock. If their father was a prince, it teaches us that even those who are honorably born, and are of quality and distinction in their country, should yet apply themselves to some useful business, and do what their hand finds to do with all their might. Idleness can be no one’s honor. If their father was a priest, his example teaches us that ministers’ should raise their children correctly to be humble and industrious workers.  The were modest, and would not ask this strange Egyptian to come home with them until their father sent for him. Modesty is the ornament of woman.

Moses was taken for an Egyptian and strangers must be content to be sometimes misunderstood, but it is noteworthy how ready he was to help Reuel’s daughters to water their flocks. Though raised in learning and at court, yet he was willing to use his hand to such work as this when there was a need for it. He had not learned from the Egyptians to despise shepherds. Those that have had a liberal education yet should not be strangers to common labor. The young women, it seems, met with some opposition in their employment, more than they and their servants could overpower. The shepherds of some neighbors drove away their flocks. But Moses, though himself in distress, stood up and helped them, not only to get clear of the shepherds, but, when that was done, to water the flocks. He did this, not only to be kind to the daughters of Reuel, though that was good, but because wherever Moses was, as occasion offered itself, evidently he did good. He loved to be doing justice, and appearing in the defense of any he saw injured, which every man ought to do as far as it is in the power of his hand to do it. He loved to be doing good. Wherever the plan of God puts us we should desire and try to be useful. Even when we cannot do the good we would like to do, we must be ready to do the good we can do. He that is faithful in a little will be entrusted with more. He was paid well for his services since Reuel invited him to his house. God rewards kindness. Eventually, Reuel (Jethro) gave Moses his daughter in marriage. When they had a son, Moses called him Gershom, a stranger there that if ever God should give him a home of his own he might remember the land in which he had been a stranger. This settlement of Moses in Midian was designed by God, to shelter him for the present. God will find hiding-places for His people in the day of their distress. He will Himself be to them a little sanctuary, and will secure them, either under heaven or in heaven. This part of Moses’ experience taught him to think; he developed the ability for contemplation and devotion. Egypt made him a scholar, a gentleman, a statesman, a soldier, all which accomplishments would afterwards be of use to him. But he lacked one thing the court of Egypt could not give him. He who was to do much by divine revelation must know, by experience, what it was to live a life of communion with God. In this he would be helped by the solitude and retirement of a shepherd’s life in Midian. By the former he was prepared to rule Israel, but by the latter he was prepared to converse with God in Mount Horeb. Anyone who knows the benefits of being alone with God are acquainted with better delights than Moses ever tasted in the court of Pharaoh.

Meanwhile the Israelites’ bondage continued in Egypt. The Egyptians now were evidently content with their increase, finding that Egypt was enriched by their labour as slaves. They did not seem now to care how many they were. They were intent, to keep them all at work, and make the best they could of their labour. If Moses, in Midian, began to think how much better his condition might have been had he stayed in Egypt’s court, he must also think about how much worse it would have been if he had remained with his brother slaves. It may have been a humiliation to him to be keeping sheep in Midian, but better so than making bricks in Egypt! The consideration of our brothers’ afflictions helps to reconcile us to our own. “God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them” (25). Moses looked on them and pitied them, but God looked on them and helped them. The frequent repetition of the name of God here suggests that now we may expect something great, A work worthy of God. God’s eyes, which run to and fro through the earth, are now fixed on Israel, to show Himself strong, to show Himself as their God in their behalf. This is why He was developing Moses to be a leader, even in Midian. And this is also why He is developing you.