Day 48 – Moses & his Childhood

• Well now, hello Moses! That’s a name you’ll know well, I’m sure… but I suspect that you might not have known where to go to find his story in the scriptures. To be fair, there are lots of places you could go to read about Moses, but here’s where it all begins, as we see God orchestrating his life right from his very first cry.
• The first verse, today, gives us Moses’ family. He was as unremarkable as any other baby God could have chosen, but we’re told he came from the “house of Levi” (do you remember him? He was one of the twelve brothers). The “Levites” would later have a special role in the nation of Israel which is to come, and here we see Moses being prepared for a special role too.
• How did Moses get his name? What happened to keep him alive? What extraordinary event happened which meant Moses’ actual mother was paid to bring him up?
• The Gospel Transformation Bible shares some great things about this passage, and how Moses echoes several other figures in the Bible. Moses was a “child of promise” – like Isaac before him, and others like Samson (and Jesus, of course!) would be afterwards. We’re reminded of Noah, too, as Moses’ mini “ark” saved him on the waters. And Daniel (who you’ll know about from a well-known episode of his life in a certain lion’s den) also spent many years being taught by non-Hebrew teachers, just like Moses was brought up in Egyptian customs. It’s helpful to think about these links.
• What kind of relationship did Moses have with the Egyptians? What about the Hebrew people (Hebrews, otherwise known as Israelites, are everyone descended from Abraham)?
• Imagine you were Moses in the events of today’s passage in Exodus. What would it be like to be treated as royalty and watch your fellow Israelites being treated as slaves?
• What incident, when Moses was around 40 years old, led to him fleeing to the land of Midian? What happened to Moses in his new home?
• Exodus 2 ends with God “remembering” His people in slavery. What do you think this means? Did God forget about His promises for a while?
• What does the Acts passage add to the Exodus passage? At that point do you think Moses felt more Egyptian or Hebrew?

Have you ever tried to relate to a group of people that were very different from you, such as a different culture? What sort of challenges were there? Moses was brought up as an Egyptian but knew his heritage. Which do you think he was probably most comfortable with?

Today we see God starting to work, quietly, in the life of an otherwise insignificant man. With God’s help, Moses will come to do many great things to bring the Isrealites to within a whisker of the Promised Land. This, we can’t forget, is after 400 years of “silence” from God. He has His timings, and they are perfect, even if we can’t see them ourselves. Our passage in Exodus ends with God affirming that he saw the distress of the slaves in Egypt.

One final thing! Let it be said here and now that if any of you ever forget what’s in Hebrews 11 or Acts 7, then it won’t be for lack of reading it! We’ve dug into these chapters many, many times now and you should be familiar with their place in the bible, their authors and their message. It’s a wonderful thing to get a commanding grip of the Bible, and starting to store up in your minds where things are. It will serve you well in the future. So – Hebrews 11, with the heroes of faith, and Acts 7, with Stephen’s powerful speech to the Jewish leaders, should now be well and truly etched into your brains!