Exodus 2:12

2:11-15 Moses boldly owned the cause of God's people. It is plain from Heb 11. that this was done in faith, with the full purpose of leaving the honours, wealth, and pleasures of his rank among the Egyptians. By the grace of God he was a partaker of faith in Christ, which overcomes the world. He was willing, not only to risk all, but to suffer for his sake; being assured that Israel were the people of God. By special warrant from Heaven, which makes no rule for other cases, Moses slew an Egyptian, and rescued an oppressed Israelites. Also, he tried to end a dispute between two Hebrews. The reproof Moses gave, may still be of use. May we not apply it to disputants, who, by their fierce debates, divide and weaken the Christian church? They forget that they are brethren. He that did wrong quarreled with Moses. It is a sign of guilt to be angry at reproof. Men know not what they do, nor what enemies they are to themselves, when they resist and despise faithful reproofs and reprovers. Moses might have said, if this be the spirit of the Hebrews, I will go to court again, and be the son of Pharaoh's daughter. But we must take heed of being set against the ways and people of God, by the follies and peevishness of some persons that profess religion. Moses was obliged to flee into the land of Midian. God ordered this for wise and holy ends.

And he looked this way, and that way,.... All around, to observe if there were any within sight who could see what he did; which did not arise from any consciousness of any evil he was about to commit, but for his own preservation, lest if seen he should be accused to Pharaoh, and suffer for it: and when he saw that there was no man; near at hand, that could see what he did, and be a witness against him: he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand; in a sandy desert place hard by, where having slain him with his sword, he dug a hole, and put him into it; See Gill on Acts 7:24. Of the slaughter of the Egyptian, and the following controversy about it, Demetrius (g), an Heathen writer, treats of in perfect agreement with the sacred Scriptures. (g) Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 19. p. 439.

(12) He looked this way and that way. —To see that no one observed him. He slew the Egyptian.—Jewish commentators gloss over the act, or even eulogise it as patriotic and heroical. But it was clearly the deed of a hasty and undisciplined spirit. The offence did not deserve death, and if it had, Moses had neither legal office nor Divine call, justifying him in making himself an executioner. The result was, that, by his one wrong act, Moses put it out of his power to do anything towards alleviating the sufferings of his brethren for forty years. Hid him in the sand.—To the east of the Delta the sand creeps up close to the cultivated grounds. There are even patches of it within the Delta itself. Moses naturally remembered that he dug the grave “in the sand.” Any other writer would probably have said “in the ground.”

Looked this way and that way; not from conscience of guilt in what he intended, but from human and warrantable prudence. This action of Moses was extraordinary, and is not to be justified by the common right of defending the oppressed, which belongs not to private persons, Romans 12:19 ; but only by his Divine and special vocation to be the ruler and deliverer of Israel. Which call of his, howsoever manifested, whether by his father, as Josephus saith, or immediately to himself, was evident to his own conscience, and he gave this as a signal to make it evident to the people.

Verse 12. - He looked this way and that way . Passion did not so move him as to make him reckless. He looked round to see that he was not observed,, and then, when he saw there was no man, slew the Egyptian . A wrongful act, the outcome of an ardent but undisciplined spirit; not to be placed among the deeds "which history records as noble and magnanimous (Kalisch), but among those which are hasty and regrettable. A warm sympathetic nature, an indignant hatred of wrong-doing, may have lain at the root of the crime, but do not justify it, though they may qualify our condemnation of it. (See the remarks of St. Augustine quoted by Keil and Delitzsch, 'Commentary on the Pentateuch,' vol. 1. p. 451: "I affirm that the man, though criminal and really the offender, ought not to have been put to death by one who had no legal authority to do so. But minds that are capable of virtue often produce vices also, and show thereby for what virtue they would have been best adapted, if they had but been properely trained," etc.) And hid him in the sand . There is abundant "sand" in the "field of Zoan," and in all the more eastern portion of the land of Goshen. (See the 'Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund' for July, 1880, p. 140.) Exodus 2:12

The slaying of the Egyptian is not to be justified, or attributed to a divine inspiration, but it is to be judged with reference to the provocation, the impetuosity of Moses' natural character, perhaps also to the habits developed by his training at the court of Pharaoh. The act involved a complete severance from the Egyptians, but, far from expediting, it delayed for many years the deliverance of the Israelites. Forty years of a very different training prepared Moses for the execution of that appointed work.

12. he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand—This act of Moses may seem and indeed by some has been condemned as rash and unjustifiable—in plain terms, a deed of assassination. But we must not judge of his action in such a country and age by the standard of law and the notions of right which prevail in our Christian land; and, besides, not only is it not spoken of as a crime in Scripture or as distressing the perpetrator with remorse, but according to existing customs among nomadic tribes, he was bound to avenge the blood of a brother. The person he slew, however, being a government officer, he had rendered himself amenable to the laws of Egypt, and therefore he endeavored to screen himself from the consequences by concealment of the corpse.

Flight of Moses from Egypt to Midian. - The education of Moses at the Egyptian court could not extinguish the feeling that he belonged to the people of Israel. Our history does not inform us how this feeling, which was inherited from his parents and nourished in him when an infant by his mother's milk, was fostered still further after he had been handed over to Pharaoh's daughter, and grew into a firm, decided consciousness of will. All that is related is, how this consciousness broke forth at length in the full-grown man, in the slaying of the Egyptian who had injured a Hebrew ( Exodus 2:11 , Exodus 2:12 ), and in the attempt to reconcile two Hebrew men who were quarrelling ( Exodus 2:13 , Exodus 2:14 ). Both of these occurred "in those days," i.e., in the time of the Egyptian oppression, when Moses had become great (יגדּל as in Genesis 21:20 ), i.e., had grown to be a man. According to tradition he was then forty years old ( Acts 7:23 ). What impelled him to this was not "a carnal ambition and longing for action," or a desire to attract the attention of his brethren, but fiery love to his brethren or fellow-countrymen, as is shown in the expression, "One of his brethren" ( Exodus 2:11 ), and deep sympathy with them in their oppression and sufferings; whilst, at the same time, they undoubtedly displayed the fire of his impetuous nature, and the ground-work for his future calling.

It was from this point of view that Stephen cited these facts ( Acts 7:25-26 ), for the purpose of proving to the Jews of his own age, that they had been from time immemorial "stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears" ( Acts 7:51 ). And this view is the correct one. Not only did Moses intend to help his brethren when he thus appeared among them, but this forcible interference on behalf of his brethren could and should have aroused the thought in their minds, that God would send them salvation through him. "But they understood not" ( Acts 7:25 ). At the same time Moses thereby declared that he would no longer "be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; and chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt" ( Hebrews 11:24-26 ; see Delitzsch in loc.). And this had its roots in faith (πίστει). But his conduct presents another aspect also, which equally demands consideration. His zeal for the welfare of his brethren urged him forward to present himself as the umpire and judge of his brethren before God had called him to this, and drove him to the crime of murder, which cannot be excused as resulting from a sudden ebullition of wrath. (Note: The judgment of Augustine is really the true one. Thus, in his c.