Acts 7:23

Acts 7:23. And, when he was full forty years old. The Hebrews lived in a separate district of their own, and Moses, one of the royal family, the adopted son of the daughter of the Pharaoh, no doubt during these first forty years of his life had little to do with his kinsmen. In this verse and in Acts 7:30; Acts 7:36, Stephen divides the life of Moses into three exact periods, each of forty years. This division, afterwards current among the Jews, is not found in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 34:7 states that the whole age of Moses was 120 years. In Exodus 21:32, we hear that the time spent in the desert wanderings was forty years; and Exodus 7:7 mentions that when he stood before Pharaoh, he was eighty years old; but the Pentateuch gives no hint of the time that he spent in Egypt before his flight to Midian. In the Bereshith Rabba it is said, ‘Moses lived in the palace of Pharaoh forty years; in Midian, forty years; and for forty years he ministered to Israel.' This repeats the statement of Stephen, who doubtless quoted from the traditional history generally received in his times. Wordsworth, commenting on this verse, calls attention to the mystic triple division of the life of the great lawgiver, and points out how often the number forty occurs in the recital of the most important events of sacred history:

In the history of the flood, Genesis 7:4 Moses in the mount before the giving of the law, Exodus 24:18; Exodus 34:23 Elijah before coming to Horeb 1 Kings 19:8 The probation of Nineveh, Jonah 3:4 Before our Lord's presentation in the Temple, Luke 2:22 His fasting, Matthew 4:2 The resurrection-life between resurrection and ascension, Acts 1:3 It came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel. In the midst of all his busy life with the great ones of Egypt, while dwelling in the palace of the Pharaoh, the thought of his own race and people toiling at their hard tasks, building, as slaves for their masters, cities and fortresses, probably, too, among their works, some of those pyramids we know so well, he obeyed the impulse, and went and pondered over the life they were leading. While looking at one of the working parties of these Israelites toiling under the superintendence of Egyptian taskmasters, the episode related in the following verses took place. It is told almost word for word, though slightly abbreviated from the Exodus history.