16
¶ Now the priest of Midian had seven
daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their
father’s flock. 17 And the shepherds
came and drove them away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their
flock. 18 And when they came to Reuel
their father, he said, How is it that ye are come so soon to day? 19 And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out
of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered
the flock. 20 And he said unto his
daughters, And where is he? why is it that ye have left the man? call him, that
he may eat bread. 21 And Moses was
content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter. 22 And she bare him a son, and he called his
name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.
The priest of Midian, we will come to know
as Reuel and as Jethro. It is not uncommon for a person to have two names. For
instance, my brother’s name is Douglas and also Brent as at different times of
his life, for various reasons, he has preferred one over the other. In
addition, we have seen that some names in the Bible that appear to be given names
are actually titles. It is possible that either Jethro or Reuel is a title or
it is likely that they are both names for the same person.
I suspect Reuel is a personal name, used
only once here, regarding his daughters, and Jethro, which we will come to
later, is a more formal name.
Moses, a bold man, probably skilled in the
warrior arts of Egypt, defended the daughters of the priest of Midian in their
efforts to feed their own flock of sheep against shepherds who apparently
bullied them. He was given sanctuary by
the priest of Midian and eventually a daughter to take as a wife, named
Zipporah. She bare him a son named Gershom, which in the context means a stranger in a strange land to be
understood as a foreigner. Moses suffers the worse kind of alienation. He did
not belong anywhere. As the adopted son of the Pharaoh’s daughter he was always
a Hebrew yet his own people regarded him as a member of the oppressing
Egyptians and now he has fled as a fugitive to seek refuge in a desert place with
people who were not his people. Sometimes, we know that God has to bring us to
a desert place in our lives to prepare us for His use, a state of mind where we
feel as if we have no place where we belong.
The stage is being set by God for some
great events in God’s plan of reconciling man to Himself, nothing like of which
has been seen since the Flood of Noah’s time or the dispersal at Babel.
23 ¶
And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and
the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and
their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. 24 And God heard their groaning, and God
remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 And God looked upon the children of Israel, and
God had respect unto them.
The Pharaoh that sought to kill Moses has
died. But, the descendants of Jacob are still struggling as slaves under hard
work. They prayed to God for deliverance. It must have been pretty painful. We
have only to look at our own experience with racial slavery in America to see
how awful it can be to live under those conditions; a despised, hated race
serving in hard bondage to masters and mistresses who can have you killed and
do whatever they wish to your person. But, God’s plan is unfolding in His own
time.
We do not know who these Pharaohs were
although many have tried to guess. One problem is that kings were not liable to
make monuments to their defeats only their victories. In fact, like the
communist North Vietnamese in the war with America and South Vietnam who
declared every defeat a victory, it is more likely that the ancient kings would
twist the truth to glorify themselves. Be careful about accepting scholarly
opinions which are based on limited and tainted evidence as most of the truth
of history is buried in the dust and no amount of archaeologists’ spades and
shovels will ever dig it up. Trust the Bible only, God’s preserved words given
to us for our learning and understanding. As Paul explained the purpose of
these histories of God’s ministry of reconciliation of man to Himself;
Romans
15:4 For whatsoever things were written
aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort
of the scriptures might have hope.
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