Exodus 2:10

She called his name Moses

Moses trained in Egypt-a lesson in providence

The great lesson of this incident, as of so much before, is the presence of God’s wonderful providence, working out its designs by all the play of human motives.

In accordance with a law, often seen in His dealings, it was needful that the deliverer should come from the heart of the system from which he was to set his brethren free. The same principle which sent Saul of Tarsus to be trained at the feet of Gamaliel, and made Luther a monk in the Augustinian convent at Erfurt, planted Moses in Pharaoh’s palace and taught him the wisdom of Egypt, against which he was to contend. It was a strange irony of Providence which put him so close to the throne which he was to shake. For his future work he needed to be lifted above his people, and to be familiar with the Egyptian court as well as with Egyptian learning. If he was to hate and to war against idolatry, and to rescue an unwilling people from it, he must know the rottenness of the system, and must have lived close enough to it to know what went on behind the scenes, and how foully it smelled when near. He would gain influence over his countrymen by his connection with Pharaoh, whilst his very separation from them would at once prevent his spirit from being broken by oppression, and would give him a keener sympathy with his people than if he had himself been crushed, by oppression. His culture, heathen as it was, supplied the material on which the Divine Spirit worked. God fashioned the vessel, and ,then filled it. Education is not the antagonist of inspiration. For the most part, the men whom God has used for His highest service have been trained in all the wisdom of their age. When it has been piled up into an altar, “then the fire of the Lord” falls. Our story teaches us that God’s chosen instruments are immortal till their work is done. No matter how forlorn may seem their outlook, how small the probabilities in their favour, how opposite the gaol may seem the road He leads them, He watches them. Around that frail ark, half lost among the reeds, is cast the impregnable shield of His purpose. All things serve that will. The current in the full river, the lie of the flags that stop it from being borne down, the hour of the princess’s bath, the direction of her idle glance, the cry of the child at the right moment, the impulse welling up in her heart, the swift resolve, the innocent diplomacy of the sister, the shelter of the happy mother’s breast, the safety of the palace--all these and a hundred more trivial and unrelated things are spun into the strong cable wherewith God draws slowly but surely His secret purpose into act. So ever His children are secure as long as He has work for them; and His mighty plan strides on to its accomplishment over all the barriers that men can raise. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Birth and training of Moses

I. The wonderful clearness of bible portraits. Some of the pictures of the men whom the world has united in calling masters are well-nigh indistinguishable. They are like an old manuscript which you must study out word by word.

II. The superior dignity and glory of the human life. Where now is the city Cain builded? What about the civil movements of that far-off day? its political revolutions? Who cares any thing about them? Learn from this, that it is human life fashioned by the Divine Artificer, and in His own image, which is the noblest thing altogether in this world.

III. The birth and training of moses.

1. The time of the birth. Pharaoh’s Joseph had gone. His bones only were now in Egypt--a poor part of any man. “Every son that is born of the Hebrews ye shall cast into the river.” And so Moses was doomed before he was born. “From his mother’s womb to the waters of the Nile,” ran the decree. And Moses did go to the Nile, but in God’s way--not in Pharaoh’s--as we shall see.

2. The goodliness, the beauty of the child. An infant child. Is there anything more beautiful? Look at its little hands. Can any sculptor match them? Behold the light of its eyes. Does any flower of earth open up with such a glory? Look upon the rose, the lily, the violet, as they first open their eyes upon this world. Ah I there is no such light in any of them. A man is far gone--a woman farther--when the child which comes to them--the immortal clasp of their two hearts--is not beautiful in their sight. Earth has no honour so great as the parentage of an immortal; heaven no higher dignity. But in Moses’ case beauty was to reach unto an end nobler than itself. It was to fill the mother’s heart with a subtler strategy, with a bolder daring. It was to fascinate the eyes of a princess. It was to work the deliverance of a mighty nation. So beauty, when not abused, ever beyond itself reaches unto a nobler end. And this beauty of the sunset, of the landscape and the flower, fruits in the human life. It emphasizes purity, it lifts up towards God. Ah, mothers t be not so anxious to keep your child from the looking-glass as to teach her that she holds a noble gift from God in that face, in that form, of hers.

3. The exposed and endangered condition of the babe. For a while the mother hid him; hid him from the eyes of Pharaoh and his minions. But the powers that be have many eyes. “And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein, and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink.” Did ever mother launch such a craft before? Ay, often. Every day they do it. Every day, every hour, some mother is committing her child to the currents of this world, than which the waters of the Nile were not more cruel. Think of harlotry, the painted devil. Think of intemperance, the destroying fiend. Think of dishonour, the consuming fire. Are not these worse than all the crocodiles that ever opened jaw in river of earth? And yet must they do it! Upon the angry surface of this world’s danger must mothers launch their hopes; their only consolation being--God is strong, and a Father to defend. I can imagine the mother of Moses weaving her little ark of bulrushes. Love makes her hands to be full of skill as ever shipbuilder’s were. So mothers now. The ark which they make is the covenant with their God; its lining, tile world-resisting element of a mother’s prayers; and then with eyes that cannot see for tears, and with heart-strings breaking, they push forth their little craft--their heart’s hope--their world. And now may God defend the boy, for the mother may not--cannot longer.

IV. The training of Moses. Note the elements of this.

1. He had his mother. Sure I am, if Pharaoh’s daughter could have glanced into that home just then, she would have thought that she had happened upon a most excellent nurse. “Very affectionate, surely,” she would have said, “and I hope she has judgment.” Yes, princess; never fear. Your nurse has excellent judgment, too. Her strange love will make her very wise. This was the first element of Moses’ training. A human life, like any other life, needs training. And for this work there is no one like the mother. Interest makes her wise. Love makes her unwearying. Were the Israelites accustomed to point to that “hated throne”? If so, all this story would filter through a mother’s heart into the mind of the growing child. She would tell it him as he lay upon her lap. She would sing it to him as she rocked him to sleep. Talk it to him as he played about the house. The sympathetic instinct between mother and child would be a syphon, through which, with every hour of the day, would flow the story of Israel’s bitter wrong. And did the promise of the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and Jacob linger in the darkened minds of their enslaved descendants, keeping hope alive there, and the expectation of deliverance? If so, with this hope the mother would feed the mind and fill the heart of her growing boy. With the word freedom, she would daily stir his ambition.

2. His home in the palace of Pharaoh. “And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son.” He was to break the chains of slavery, not to be bound by them. Therefore he must be lifted up to the greatness of his work. Two most necessary elements of preparation he gained by going into the home of the Pharaoh. The first was knowledge. Moses, we read, was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. And this he got as the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter. Good impulses, a noble spirit, is not enough. Knowledge is power, and necessary power, save when God works by miracles. Therefore Moses was homed in the palace. He goes to study the throne which he is yet to shake. Out of Pharaoh’s armoury he will gird himself for the coming contest with Pharaoh. His residence at court would serve to impress him with the immense power with which the Hebrews contended, and the heel of which was upon their necks. And yet he must know this, or he will not be prepared for his work.

3. The desert. “He that believeth shall not make haste.” So he that worketh for God shall not make haste. These forty years had taught him something. His first failure had taught him something. So had his desert life, in which he had been alone with God. Moses at eighty years of age, in his own estimation, was not nearly so much of a man as at forty. So of all growing men always. There are many now in the world, not yet out of their teens, who are a deal wiser and mightier, and fitter to cope with error and wrong, than they will be twenty years hence; that is, provided they keep on growing these twenty years. But God has a school ready for such (that is, if they are worth the schooling), and one which they will not be long in entering. It is the school of mistakes--of failure; the school in which many a man spells out this lesson, “What a big fool I was!” This was the training which God now gives to Moses. He allows him, in the impulse of youth, to strike a blow, and then gives him forty years in the desert t.o meditate upon its folly.

In conclusion, note some of the great lessons which our subject teaches.

1. We learn how low, oftentimes, God permits the true cause to sink. The world has often seen the lust stronghold of human rights defended by the might of one solitary arm. So it was here. Yes, Israel’s hope floated in the little ark of bulrushes among the flags upon the river’s brink. And yet Israel’s cause was safe enough. With faith in God, we need never fear. Suppose there is left but one human life for defence. God and such a one are always a majority.

2. We learn the measureless importance of one single human life. God often throws into the balance of the moral world a single life, to keep it even. Think of this, ye teachers, and count no life committed to your care common or unclean.

3. The grand work of man-building. This is what God, the Great Architect., is for ever engaged in. It is that which some--yes, all of us, are called to do. Time itself, with all its centuries, is only one of many hands engaged in this sublime work. Everything else in this world, all sorrow, all joy, all wars, all peace, all slavery, all liberty, all learning, all art, is only so much scaffolding. The slavery of the Hebrews; the cruel despotism of Pharaoh; the mother’s love and the mother’s fear; the princess, the Nile; ay, even the bulrushes which grew by its brink--all these were used of God in building up His servant, the man Moses. Up, up, upward unto God, rises the immortal man. His are the glory and power of an endless life.

4. We learn how easy it is for God to fashion a human life to suit His purpose. “To the Nile with it,” shouts Pharaoh from his throne. “To the Nile,” responds the power of Egypt. “Yes,” says God, “to the Nile; but from it too; from it, unto a home, unto the palace, unto the headship of a mighty nation, unto Sinai, unto Pisgah.” In the very palace of the Pharaohs, God nurses a life for the overthrow of the Pharaohs. With such delightful facility does God model and mould human life. (S. S. Mitchell, D. D.)

Moses

I. The child of poverty. You and I will draw near and look upon this strange nest and nestling. He was a foundling, that is, a child left by its parents and found by some passer-by. His name means water-saved. I knew a foundling who was called Horace Nelson, because he was found, one winter morning, on Glasgow Green near Nelson’s monument. He was named from the monument, which was not harder than his mother’s heart; and so Moses was named from the water out of which he was drawn. Each seemed to be nobody’s child; and so the one was named as the child of the water, and the other as the child of the monument. That slave’s child in the ark seems the poorest of the poor. Left as a prey to flood and famine, to crocodiles and vultures, was ever poor child in sadder plight? Yet his fame now fills the world as the man of men next to the Messias, the Conqueror of Pharaoh, the Leader of Israel, and the Giver of the Law to all mankind. At Moses’ cradle learn never to scorn a poor child because he is poor. Often the child of poverty has, like Moses, stood before kings, and proved himself kinglier than they. Let not the poor be discouraged; let not the rich be proud. But it is very sinful as well as very senseless to despise the poor. God never does so. Before leaving it, take another look at Moses’ cradle. Ah, the baby’s beauty makes us glad! ‘Tis the human face divine. He is “a goodly child”; “exceeding fair”; he has an heavenly beauty. I have come to know hundreds of our poorest children, and have often been struck with their beauty, which shone through all their hardships. What fine powers of body and mind and heart many of them have! What cleverness! what wit! what kindly feeling I In their beautiful eyes you may notice the beamings of a promising soul. Indeed, I have sometimes wondered whether God’s bounty had not endowed them so richly with these better gifts in order to make up for the want of what money can buy. Imitate Pharaoh’s daughter whom you bless and admire. Turn not proudly or coldly away from the forsaken child.

II. The child of providence. God’s providence is God’s forethought, or foresight; His kind care over us in all things. I wish you would think about the wonders of providence. Take an instance from your school books. This nineteenth century has been shaped by the battle of Waterloo. And God did it all with a few drops of rain. The rain on the night before the battle made the clayey soil slippery, so that the French could not get their guns forward till the sun had dried the ground. But for the rain, Napoleon would probably have won. God’s providence brings about the greatest things by means of the smallest. The dangers around the child Moses were very great. The Nile might drown him; the sun by day or the moon by night might smite him; the crocodiles were around, and the vultures above him; there seemed no hope for the darling boy. The dangers around the most favoured children are perhaps as great, though not so easily seen. Believe firmly, then, that God is on earth as well as in heaven, and that His hand is in small things no less than in great. And think how much you owe to His fatherly providence. Your mother may have done all a mother could, your Miriam may have watched over you, but it was God’s providence that placed you in the ark of safety which has carried you on to this good hour. And you should thank Him also for unseen and unknown deliverances. The whole web of your life is woven with mercies.

III. The child of grace. Grace saved him from his greatest dangers. Through the palace a dark river ran, drowning men’s souls in perdition. Vices more deadly than the crocodiles were rife around him. He found plagues in Pharaoh’s court more frightful than any he afterwards sent into it. I imagine that no youth ever had greater temptations than Moses (Hebrews 11:24). His character was formed by that choice: his blessed life was a harvest from that one seed. The choice you make between Christ and the world, makes you. Notice that Moses’ choice was most reasonable, though to the Egyptians it seemed sheer madness. Moses’ was also a joyous choice. Think not that he was the most wretched youth in Egypt when he forsook Egypt’s gods. Ah, no. His choice would pain him in many ways; but then he had the deep satisfaction of having done what was right. He had better joys than the Egyptians dreamt of. And he must have made in his boyhood this choice which he publicly confessed as soon as he came of age. Like him, choose Christ in youth, and declare your choice. You gather fresh flowers for your friends; and will you offer Christ only an old withered flower, that has lost all its beauty and perfume? (J. Wells.)

Child growth

Physically-mentally-morally.

1. Important to families--leaving home.

2. Interesting to strangers--princess.

3. Important to nations--Egypt. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Child nomenclature

1. Perpetuating the memory of a cruel edict.

2. Perpetuating the memory of a loving mother.

3. Perpetuating the memory of a kindly providence.

4. Perpetuating the memory of a compassionate stranger.

Home life exchanged for palace life.

(1) It would be at first unwelcome--stranger.

(2) It would gradually become a temptation--its gaiety.

(3) It would forcefully become a discipline. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Adoption by royalty

Suppose that you were to see the child of a beggar in the streets, or the child of a criminal in prison, and it so happened that the emperor of Russia or the queen of England were to see this little unfortunate creature and exclaim, “I will adopt it as my own,” and were to have it taken to a palace, clad in rich dresses, fed at the royal table, brought up under the royal care, and even prepared for a throne. “Oh,” you would think, “what a change of life! what happiness for this child!” And if it were an angel, or an archangel, or a seraph that adopted it, in order to make it, if it were possible, an angel that should never die; that would be a thousand times more glorious still. Think, now, what it is to become a child of God; and this is, nevertheless, what all of us may become by faith in Jesus Christ. What wonderful glory! what marvellous happiness! Thus St. John exclaims, “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” And it is by faith that we become the children of God. “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” (Prof. Gaussen.)

Moses’ education in Egypt

The adopted son of the daughter of an Egyptian king must have been trained in all the wisdom of Egypt. This is also in harmony with the tradition reported by Manethe, which makes Moses a priest of Heliopolis, and therefore presupposes a priestly education. It was precisely this education in the wisdom of the Egyptians, which was the ultimate design of God in all the leadings of His providence, not only with reference to the boy, but, we might say, to the whole of Israel. For it was in order to appropriate the wisdom and culture of Egypt, and to take possession of them as a human basis for Divine instruction and direction, that Jacob’s family left the land of their father’s pilgrimage, and their descendants’ hope and promise. But the guidance and fate of the whole of Israel were at this time concentrated in Moses. As Joseph’s elevation to the post of grand vizier of Egypt placed him in a position to provide for his father’s house in the time of famine, so was Moses fitted by the Egyptian training received at Pharaoh’s court to become the leader and law-giver of his people. (M. Baumgarten, D. D.)

Moses’ choice

There can be no doubt that the foster-son of the king’s daughter, the highly-gifted and well-educated youth, had the most brilliant course open before him in the Egyptian state. Had he desired it, he would most likely have been able to rise like Joseph to the highest honours. But affairs were very different now, Moses could not enter on such a course as, this without sacrificing his nation, his convictions, his hopes, his faith, and his vocation. But that he neither would, nor durst, nor could. (J. H. Kurtz, D. D.)

An incident expressed in a name

Admiral Bythesea, V.C., C.B., who has just retired after having for many years been the Consulting Naval Officer to the Government of India, was picked up as an infant far out at sea, lashed to a bale of goods. A lady--presumably his mother--was with him, but she was dead, and there was no evidence of any kind by which the name of the waif could be traced. The officers of the man-of-war which picked up the poor little infant did all they could to find out his relations, and, finding all their attempts futile, they determined to adopt the child, to whom they gave the name of “By the Sea.” He was sent to a naval school, and when old enough joined the navy. By a happy coincidence the first ship in which he served was the one which had saved his life as an infant. He took to his profession, and during the Crimean war distinguished himself at the Island of Wardo, where he earned the Victoria Cross and the decoration of C.B. Later on his services in India gave him the Companionship of the order of the Indian Empire, and he now retiree from the service with the rank of admiral--a consummation little dreamed of by the kind-hearted officers who rescued and educated him.