Exodus 5:22-23

Exodus 5:22

When Moses saw the vision at Horeb, he had passed many more years in the world than Jacob at the time of his vision at Bethel; he knew much of which Jacob was ignorant, and had experienced a kind of sorrow which had never reached him. He had passed through the sore trial of feeling himself the member of an utterly degraded race, which he had dreamed of helping and could not help; in the very sufferings of which he was not allowed to share. He had an early inward intimation that he might unite and deliver this people. The intimation had come to nothing. He might call himself an Egyptian, a Midianite, an Ethiopian, as well as a Hebrew.

I. This education in an Egyptian court, in the family of a Midianitish priest, in an Ethiopian desert, was just the one which was to prepare him for understanding the vocation of a Hebrew in the world; just the one which was to make him fit for a deliverer and lawgiver of his people.

It required that he should be far from kinsmen and from country from every external association with the covenant of his fathers that he might hear and understand the words, "I AM THAT I AM;" that he might receive the assurance, "I AM hath sent thee."

II. Moses was called to be the deliverer and founder of a nation. Either that nation stood upon this Divine Name,or it and all that has grown out of it are mockeries and lies from first to last. "The Lord God of the Hebrews, the God of our nation, the God of our family, has established and upholds the order of human existence and all nature," this is the truth which Moses learnt at the bush; the only one which could bring the Jews or any people out of slavery into manly freedom and true obedience.

F. D. Maurice, Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament,p. 154.

References: Exodus 5:22; Exodus 5:23. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. viii., p. 141; Congregationalist,vol. vii., p. 208. 5-11. (14) J. Monro Gibson, The Mosaic Era,p. 31.Exodus 6:1. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxiv., No. 1440. Exodus 6:2; Exodus 6:3. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. x., p. 93; Homiletic Magazine,vol. viii., p. 211.Exodus 6:3. A. M. Fairbairn, The City of God,p. 123; Parker, vol. ii., p. 310. Exodus 6:6. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. xii., p. 145.