Moses

Moses in the Bible

ACTS 7 COMMENTARY ◄
Acts 7:17-19 King of Egypt

Acts 7:20-35 Moses

ACTS 7:20-21 20 “At this time Moses was born, and was well pleasing to God; and he was brought up in his father’s house for three months. 21 But when he was set out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him away and brought him up as her own son.

How did Pharaoh's daughter take away Moses to bring up as her own?
When Moses' mother could no longer hide him, she floated him down the river in a covered basket, watched by Moses' older sister. When Pharaoh's daughter found the basket and Moses in it, his sister offered to find a nurse for Pharaoh's daughter and brought her mother - i.e., Moses' mother - whom Pharaoh's daughter offered to pay to nurse Moses for her. So Moses' mother ended up getting paid to nurse her own son. (see Exodus 2:1-10)

ACTS 7:22-23 22 “And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds. 23 “Now when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel.

What was Moses like at forty years of age?
"Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds." (Acts 7:22)

ACTS 7:24-29 24 “And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppressed, and struck down the Egyptian. 25 For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand. 26 And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting, and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brethren; why do you wrong one another?’ 27 But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me as you did the Egyptian yesterday?’ 29 Then, at this saying, Moses fled and became a dweller in the land of Midian, where he had two sons.

Why did Moses flee at the Hebrew's words?
Moses had killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand, thinking that nobody had witnessed the murder. When he learned that his crime was known, he fled to escape being arrested and executed by Pharaoh (see Exodus 2:11-15).

ACTS 7:30-35 30 “And when forty years had passed, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush, in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. 31 When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight; and as he drew near to observe, the voice of the Lord came to him, 32 saying, ‘I am the God of your fathers - the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and dared not look. 33 ‘Then the Lord said to him, “Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. 34 I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt; I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.”’ 35 This Moses whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ is the one God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the Angel who appeared to him in the bush.

How did Moses react when God told him that He would send him to Egypt to deliver the Hebrews?
At first, he resisted: "Then Moses said to the LORD, 'O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue'" (Exodus 4:10).

Since Acts 7:22 says that he was "mighty in words," was Moses lying to God about being "slow of speech and slow of tongue"?
No, the Moses who was "mighty in words" had become "slow of speech and slow of tongue" after 40 years of being a shepherd, and this wasn't by accident. Relying on the "wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts 7:22) and his own words and deeds, Moses had "supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand" (Acts 7:25). The result was failure, murder and self-exile. God may have intended for the forty years to be a period during which Moses is cleansed of the 'wisdom' of Egypt, as well as his self-reliance, pride and 'natural' skills, so that there would be no mistake later that Israel was delivered by the supernatural power of God.