"Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" (Isa. 6:8)

These articles are in nowise an attempt to portray a "Life of Moses,", but to call attention to some outstanding occasions in a life so pregnant with spiritual energy, and calling for such exceptional meekness and patience, as well as inflexible firmness and decision. In the main we shall consider these epochs historically and in their practical bearing, rather than in a dispensational and typical way.

1. A GOOD START

While the lives of the children of Israel are being embittered by bondage in the land of Egypt, and after an edict has come from Pharaoh that all males of the enslaved race are to be destroyed at birth, a son is born to Amram who has married Jochebed – both of them Levites. The parents having faith to perceive that he is "a proper child," one who furnishes a special satisfaction to God, disregard the King's mandate, and hide him for three months. But unable to conceal him longer, his mother puts him afloat on the Nile in an ark of bulrushes daubed with slime and pitch, whence he is rescued by Pharaoh's daughter, who has come down to bathe at the river, accompanied by her maidens. The child's sister, on the watch, hearing the words, "This is one of the Hebrews' children!" spoken compassionately by the royal lady as "the babe wept," offers to secure a Hebrew nurse, and, obtaining permission, fetches the mother, who is engaged at wages to nurse the babe. In this we may see one of the most striking interventions of divine providence in the history of mankind.

After his weaning he is brought to the abode of Pharaoh's daughter, who names him Moses, which means "Drawn out!" In this way the growing boy is continually reminded by his very name of the Providence that had intervened on his behalf and, like another of whom we read in the Gospels, it is possible that in this story he heard something which he "kept" in his heart. But of his early life we only know that his education was thoroughly attended to, for Stephen tells us sixteen centuries later that he "was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds" (Acts 7:22). And although later at the age of eighty, after forty years' desert experience, he reveals himself as a silent man, "not eloquent," but "slow of speech, and of a slow tongue," one averse to contact with people (Exod. 4:Id-13), we gather from Stephen's words that the younger man of forty was a scholar, a powerful orator, and a skillful man of affairs. He was a splendid specimen of a highly-polished civilization.

Knowing however his kinship with Israel, he doubtless deplores their misery and wonders how he can relieve them. It may be natural for him to suppose that his adoption by Pharaoh's daughter is the divine method of placing him where he can secure results. But faith leads him at the age of forty to renounce what Providence had conferred upon him; he "refused to be called the son of pharaoh's daughter" (Heb. 11:24). One of the evidences of "new birth" (in John 3:3) is that its subject gets his eyes opened, and apart from this he "cannot see" what God is doing. He is blind spiritually. But whether the work of God began in Moses when he was very young or somewhat later, we may observe that at the age of forty he is learning to appraise values; his eyes are opened so widely that he sees things as they really are. It is of course certain that he does not realize all that is involved in the step he takes, but the Holy Ghost selects words that reveals it, saying:"Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt:for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward" (Heb. 11:25, 26). All this was involved in the "good start" he had made in the way that is really life.

But having so decided a character, we now discover him endeavoring to expand his recent decision into a thing that "works" for the prosperity of God's interests among His people. Consequently, as the witness of an intolerable situation, he proceeds to kill a brutal Egyptian. On the next day, however, he witnesses a scene that urges him to attempt the making of peace between "brethren." But he finds this latter to be more difficult than killing an Egyptian, and the upshot of his well-meant activity is flight to the land of Midian. Commenting upon this occasion, and informing us of the thoughts passing through the young man's mind at this time, Stephen says he "supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them:but they understood not" (Acts 7:25). They had no conception of the self-denial and purpose of heart that brought him from the King's court to their side, nor did they understand that he was the chosen vessel of blessing among them.

However, if the children of Israel are not ready to be delivered it is evident that Moses, although he has "the root of the matter" in him, has much to learn before he can serve them as effectively as God desires, hence his flight is overruled for good, for it places him where he can learn to advantage what he needs to know.

Nevertheless, as his decision to renounce Egypt's treasures for God's interests is portrayed (in Hebrews 11) apart from fleshly admixture, so is his forsaking Egypt described as the fearless act of one whose eye is upon .God. "By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the King:for he endured, as seeing Him who is invisible." The entire summary of events in this passage omits any reference to the sojourn in Midian, and passes from Moses at forty to Moses at eighty; for God, who reads the intention of the heart, and knows the end from the beginning, accredits at the outset all that is involved in the "good start" His servant makes when he refuses to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. R. J. Reid

(To be continued, D.V.)