Exodus
2:11 ¶ And it came to pass in those
days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on
their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.
12 And he looked this way and that way,
and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the
sand. 13 And when he went out the second
day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that
did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? 14 And he said, Who made thee a prince and a
judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And
Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known. 15 Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought
to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land
of Midian: and he sat down by a well.
Now,
we have evidence that Moses’ past and ethnicity were not kept from him. He went
out to see the burdens placed on his brethren. He had not grown up ignorant of
who he was and where he came from. We don’t know how this played out in his
life, if he was mocked or derided because of who he was or if the protection of
his adopted mother, Pharaoh’s daughter, prevented that.
He
saw an Egyptian hitting a Hebrew, one of
his brethren, and thinking no one saw him, killed the Egyptian and buried
his body. Clearly, Moses’ upbringing did not keep him from rage at the
injustice being done to his brethren. Like one of the slave rebels in the
Southern United States before the Civil War such as Nat Turner or Denmark
Vesey, to a lesser extent, his rage manifested itself in violence. Moses’ act
did not seem to involve premeditation, though, except that he looked first to
see if he was being observed and mistakenly thought he was not.
A
lesson is learned here for us that even when a member of a despised race is
given privilege in the oppressor culture it does not necessarily prevent them
from empathizing with their own people in their suffering. It’s a blood thing.
Moses,
the next day, cannot understand, as many African-American activists like
Malcolm X have commented on, why the Hebrews who are beaten down resort to
beating each other. But, instead of understanding he gets the accusation thrown
in his face, the acknowledgement that he is guilty of murder. There were
witnesses.
Here
in verse 14 we have a way the Bible defines itself presented to us as well as
evidence of the authority of an ancient ruler to lead and to judge. See in this
verse that a prince and a judge are synonyms. Note the
cross-reference here as the martyr, Stephen, inserts ruler for prince in this
allusion to verse 14;
Acts
7:27 But he that did his neighbour wrong
thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler
and a judge over us?
This
combined the roles of political leader and judge of civil matters is something
we have separated in our form of government. The Founders of America, basing
the idea of separation of powers on the writings of the French political writer
and Enlightenment philosopher Baron de Montesquieu in his book The Spirit of Laws, fell upon this idea
as essential to good governing. But, in the ancient world the absolute ruler
was not only a leader but he made laws and judged cases. See this reference to
God Himself in Isaiah.
Isaiah
33:22 For the LORD is our judge, the
LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us.
The
God of creation is the absolute ruler of the universe from whom flows all the
laws of physics and, indeed, all reality, and from whom there is no appeal. We
can only seek His favor, His blessing, His kindness, and His mercy.
It
probably did not take much to give the Pharaoh a justification to kill this
Hebrew upstart whom his daughter saved against his will and command years
before. But, Moses fled to the desert, to the land of Midian.
Midian
was the son of Abraham and Keturah, his wife after Sarah died. Strong, in his
dictionary, calls them Arabs. Some authorities say they dwelt in the
northwestern Arabian peninsula on the east coast of the Gulf of Aqaba, on the
northeastern tip of the Red Sea. This will be important later for the exodus
from Egypt. As the earth continued and continues even today to dry out from the
disaster of the Great Flood this desert region may have had more vegetation
then than it does today. Paleoclimatologists who study evidence of ancient
weather suggest that it was greener and wetter in years past than it is now.
Some of what are thought of as the oldest human remains have been found there.
In
the Bible, a desert is a wilderness, with sparse populations of
humans or none at all. See the synonymous relationship between desert and wilderness with solitary and
dry and desolate.
Exodus
19:2 For they were departed from
Rephidim, and were come to the desert of
Sinai, and had pitched in the
wilderness; and there Israel camped before the mount.
Deuteronomy
32:10 He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him
about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
Isaiah
35:1 The wilderness and the solitary
place shall be glad for them; and the
desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.
Jeremiah
50:12 Your mother shall be sore
confounded; she that bare you shall be ashamed: behold, the hindermost of the
nations shall be a wilderness, a dry
land, and a desert.
And
here, in this passage of prophecy against Israel that defines what without form, and void from Genesis 1:2
means, the unstable and empty earth, a wilderness, we see;
Jeremiah
4:23 I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was
without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. 24 I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they
trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. 25
I beheld, and, lo, there was no
man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. 26 I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities
thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger.
27 For thus hath the LORD said, The
whole land shall be desolate; yet
will I not make a full end.
Today, this area
is called the Tabuk province or region, one of the 13 provinces of Saudi
Arabia.
No comments:
Post a Comment