THE RESCUE OF MOSES.
Exo 2:1-10.
We have said that the Old Testament history teems
with political wisdom, lessons of permanent instruction for mankind,
on the level of this life, yet godly, as all true lessons must be,
in a world of which Christ is King. These our religion must learn to
recognise and proclaim, if it is ever to win the respect of men of
affairs, and "leaven the whole lump" of human life with sacred
influence.
Such a lesson is the importance of the individual in
the history of nations. History, as read in Scripture, is indeed a
long relation of heroic resistance or of base compliance in the
presence of influences which are at work to debase modern peoples as
well as those of old. The holiness of Samuel, the gallant faith of
David, the splendour and wisdom of Solomon, the fervid zeal of
Elijah, the self-respecting righteousness of Nehemiah,--ignore
these, and the whole course of affairs becomes vague and
unintelligible. Most of all this is true of Moses, whose appearance
is now related.
In profane history it is the same. Alexander,
Mahomet, Luther, William the Silent, Napoleon,--will any one pretend
that Europe uninfluenced by these personalities would have become
the Europe that we know?
And this truth is not at all a speculative,
unpractical theory: it is vital. For now there is a fashion of
speaking about the tendency of the age, the time-spirit, as an
irresistible force which moulds men like potters' clay, crowning
those who discern and help it, but grinding to powder all who resist
its course. In reality there are always a hundred time-spirits and
tendencies competing for the mastery--some of them violent, selfish,
atheistic, or luxurious (as we see with our own eyes today)--and the
shrewdest judges are continually at fault as to which of them is to
be victorious, and recognised hereafter as the spirit of the age.
This modern pretence that men are nothing, and
streams of tendency are all, is plainly a gospel of capitulations,
of falsehood to one's private convictions, and of servile obedience
to the majority and the popular cry. For, if individual men are
nothing, what am I? If we are all bubbles floating down a stream, it
is folly to strive to breast the current. Much practical baseness
and servility is due to this base and servile creed. And the cure
for it is belief in another spirit than that of the present age,
trust in an inspiring God, who rescued a herd of slaves and their
fading convictions from the greatest nation upon earth by matching
one man, shrinking and reluctant yet obedient to his mission,
against Pharaoh and all the tendencies of the age.
And it is always so. God turns the scale of events
by the vast weight of a man, faithful and true, and sufficiently
aware of Him to refuse, to universal clamour, the surrender of his
liberty or his religion. In small matters, as in great, there is no
man, faithful to a lonely duty or conviction, understanding that to
have discerned it is a gift and a vocation, but makes the world
better and stronger, and works out part of the answer to that great
prayer "Thy will be done."
We have seen already that the religion of the
Hebrews in Egypt was corrupted and in danger of being lost. To this
process, however, there must have been bright exceptions; and the
mother of Moses bore witness, by her very name, to her fathers' God.
The first syllable of Jochebed is proof that the name of God, which
became the keynote of the new revelation, was not entirely new.
As yet the parents of Moses are not named; nor is
there any allusion to the close relationship which would have
forbidden their union at a later period (Exo 6:20). And throughout
all the story of his youth and early manhood there is no mention
whatever of God or of religion. Elsewhere it is not so. The Epistle
to the Hebrews declares that through faith the babe was hidden, and
through faith the man refused Egyptian rank. Stephen tells us that
he expected his brethren to know that God by his hand was giving
them deliverance. But the narrative in Exodus is wholly
untheological. If Moses were the author, we can see why he avoided
reflections which directly tended to glorify himself. But if the
story were a subsequent invention, why is the tone so cold, the
light so colourless?
Now, it is well that we are invited to look at all
these things from their human side, observing the play of human
affection, innocent subtlety, and pity. God commonly works through
the heart and brain which He has given us, and we do not glorify Him
at all by ignoring these. If in this case there were visible a
desire to suppress the human agents, in favour of the Divine
Preserver, we might suppose that a different historian would have
given a less wonderful account of the plagues, the crossing of the
Sea, and the revelation from Sinai. But since full weight is allowed
to second causes in the early life of Moses, the story is entitled
to the greater credit when it tells of the burning bush and the
flaming mountain.
Let us, however, put together the various narratives
and their lessons. At the outset we read of a marriage celebrated
between kinsfolk, when the storm of persecution was rising. And
hence we infer that courage or strong affection made the parents
worthy of him through whom God should show mercy unto thousands. The
first child was a girl, and therefore safe; but we may suppose,
although silence in Scripture proves little, that Aaron, three years
before the birth of Moses, had not come into equal peril with him.
Moses was therefore born just when the last atrocity was devised,
when trouble was at its height.
"At this time Moses was born," said Stephen.
Edifying inferences have been drawn from the statement in Exodus
that "the woman ... hid him." Perhaps the stronger man quailed, but
the maternal instinct was not at fault, and it was rewarded
abundantly. From which we only learn, in reality, not to overstrain
the words of Scripture; since the Epistle to the Hebrews distinctly
says that he "was hid three months by his parents"--both of them,
while naturally the mother is the active agent.
All the accounts agree that he was thus hidden,
"because they saw that he was a goodly child" (Heb 11:23). It is a
pathetic phrase. We see them, before the crisis, vaguely submitting
in theory to an unrealised atrocity, ignorant how imperiously their
nature would forbid the crime, not planning disobedience in advance,
nor led to it by any reasoning process. All is changed when the
little one gazes at them with that marvellous appeal in its
unconscious eyes, which is known to every parent, and helps him to
be a better man. There is a great difference between one's thought
about an infant, and one's feeling towards the actual baby. He was
their child, their beautiful child; and this it was that turned the
scale. For him they would now dare anything, "because they saw he
was a goodly child, and they were not afraid of the king's
commandment." Now, impulse is often a great power for evil, as when
appetite or fear, suddenly taking visible shape, overwhelms the
judgment and plunges men into guilt. But good impulses may be the
very voice of God, stirring whatever is noble and generous within
us. Nor are they accidental: loving and brave emotions belong to
warm and courageous hearts; they come of themselves, like song
birds, but they come surely where sunshine and still groves invite
them, not into clamour and foul air. Thus arose in their bosoms the
sublime thought of God as an active power to be reckoned upon. For
as certainly as every bad passion that we harbour preaches atheism,
so does all goodness tend to sustain itself by the consciousness of
a supreme Goodness in reserve. God had sent them their beautiful
child, and who was Pharaoh to forbid the gift? And so religion and
natural pity joined hands, their supreme convictions and their
yearning for their infant. "By faith Moses was hid ... because they
saw he was a goodly child, and they were not afraid of the king's
commandment."
Such, if we desire a real and actual salvation, is
always the faith which saves. Postpone salvation to an indefinite
future; make it no more than the escape from vaguely realised
penalties for sins which do not seem very hateful; and you may
suppose that faith in theories can obtain this indulgence; an
opinion may weigh against a misgiving. But feel that sin is not only
likely to entail damnation, but is really and in itself damnable
meanwhile, and then there will be no deliverance possible, but from
the hand of a divine Friend, strong to sustain and willing to guide
the life. We read that Amram lived a hundred and thirty and seven
years, and of all that period we only know that he helped to save
the deliverer of his race, by practical faith which made him not
afraid, and did not paralyse but stimulate his energies.
When the mother could no longer hide the child, she
devised the plan which has made her for ever famous. She placed him
in a covered ark, or casket,[3] plaited (after what we know to have
been the Egyptian fashion) of the papyrus reed, and rendered
watertight with bitumen, and this she laid among the rushes--a lower
vegetation, which would not, like the tall papyrus, hide her
treasure--in the well-known and secluded place where the daughter of
Pharaoh used to bathe. Something in the known character of the
princess may have inspired this ingenious device to move her pity;
but it is more likely that the woman's heart, in her extremity,
prompted a simple appeal to the woman who could help her if she
would. For an Egyptian princess was an important personage, with an
establishment of her own, and often possessed of much political
influence. The most sanguinary agent of a tyrant would be likely to
respect the client of such a patron.
The heart of every woman was in a plot against the
cruelty of Pharaoh. Once already the midwives had defeated him; and
now, when his own daughter[4] unexpectedly found, in the water at
her very feet, a beautiful child sobbing silently (for she knew not
what was there until the ark was opened), her indignation is audible
enough in the words, "This is one of the Hebrews' children." She
means to say "This is only one specimen of the outrages that are
going on."
This was the chance for his sister, who had been set
in ambush, not prepared with the exquisite device which follows, but
simply "to know what would be done to him." Clearly the mother had
reckoned upon his being found, and neglected nothing, although
unable herself to endure the agony of watching, or less easily
hidden in that guarded spot. And her prudence had a rich reward.
Hitherto Miriam's duty had been to remain passive--that hard task so
often imposed upon the affection, especially of women, by sick-beds,
and also in many a more stirring hazard, and many a spiritual
crisis, where none can fight his brother's battle. It is a trying
time, when love can only hold its breath, and pray. But let not love
suppose that to watch is to do nothing. Often there comes a moment
when its word, made wise by the teaching of the heart, is the
all-important consideration in deciding mighty issues.
This girl sees the princess at once pitiful and
embarrassed, for how can she dispose of her strange charge? Let the
moment pass, and the movement of her heart subside, and all may be
lost; but Miriam is prompt and bold, and asks "Shall I go and call
to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child
for thee?" It is a daring stroke, for the princess must have
understood the position thoroughly, the moment the eager Hebrew girl
stepped forward. The disguise was very thin. And at least the heart
which pitied the infant must have known the mother when she saw her
face, pale with longing. It is therefore only as a form, exacted by
circumstances, but well enough though tacitly understood upon both
sides, that she bids her nurse the child for her, and promises
wages. What reward could equal that of clasping her child to her own
agitated bosom in safety, while the destroyers were around?
This incident teaches us that good is never to be
despaired of, since this kindly woman grew up in the family of the
persecutor.
And the promptitude and success of Miriam suggest a
reflection. Men do pity, when it is brought home to them, the
privation, suffering, and wrong, which lie around. Magnificent sums
are contributed yearly for their relief by the generous instincts of
the world. The misfortune is that sentiment is evoked only by
visible and pathetic griefs, and that it will not labour as readily
as it will subscribe. It is a harder task to investigate, to devise
appeals, to invent and work the machinery by which misery may be
relieved. Mere compassion will accomplish little, unless painstaking
affection supplement it. Who supplies that? Who enables common
humanity to relieve itself by simply paying "wages," and confiding
the wretched to a painstaking, laborious, loving guardian? The
streets would never have known Hospital Saturday, but for Hospital
Sunday in the churches. The orphanage is wholly a Christian
institution. And so is the lady nurse. The old-fashioned phrase has
almost sunk into a party cry, but in a large and noble sense it will
continue to be true to nature as long as bereavement, pain or
penitence requires a tender bosom and soothing touch, which speaks
of Mother Church.
Thus did God fulfil His mysterious plans. And
according to a sad but noble law, which operates widely, what was
best in Egypt worked with Him for the punishment of its own evil
race. The daughter of Pharaoh adopted the perilous foundling, and
educated him in the wisdom of Egypt.
THE CHOICE OF MOSES.
Exo 2:11-15.
God works even His miracles by means. As He fed the
multitude with barley-loaves, so He would emancipate Israel by human
agency. It was therefore necessary to educate one of the trampled
race "in all the learning of Egypt," and Moses was planted in the
court of Pharaoh, like the German Arminius in Rome. Wonderful
legends may be read in Josephus of his heroism, his wisdom, and his
victories; and these have some foundation in reality, for Stephen
tells us that he was mighty in his words and works. Might in words
need not mean the fluent utterance which he so earnestly disclaimed
(Exo 4:10), even if forty years' disuse of the language were not
enough to explain his later diffidence. It may have meant such power
of composition as appears in the hymn by the Red Sea, and in the
magnificent valediction to his people.
The point is that among a nation originally
pastoral, and now sinking fast into the degraded animalism of
slaves, which afterwards betrayed itself in their complaining greed,
their sighs for the generous Egyptian dietary, and their impure
carouse under the mountain, one man should possess the culture and
mental grasp needed by a leader and lawgiver. "Could not the grace
of God have supplied the place of endowment and attainment?" Yes,
truly; and it was quite as likely to do this for one who came down
from His immediate presence with his face intolerably bright, as for
the last impudent enthusiast who declaims against the need of
education in sentences which at least prove that for him the want
has by no substitute been completely met. But the grace of God chose
to give the qualification, rather than replace it, alike to Moses
and St. Paul. Nor is there any conspicuous example among the saints
of a man being thrust into a rank for which he was not previously
made fit.
The painful contrast between his own refined tastes
and habits, and the coarser manners of his nation, was no doubt one
difficulty of the choice of Moses, and a lifelong trial to him
afterwards. He is an example not only to those whom wealth and power
would entangle, but to any who are too fastidious and sensitive for
the humble company of the people of God.
While the intellect of Moses was developing, it is
plain that his connection with his family was not entirely broken.
Such a tie as often binds a foster-child to its nurse may have been
permitted to associate him with his real parents. Some means were
evidently found to instruct him in the history and messianic hopes
of Israel, for he knew that their reproach was that of "the Christ,"
greater riches than all the treasure of Egypt, and fraught with a
reward for which he looked in faith (Heb 11:26). But what is meant
by naming as part of his burden their "reproach," as distinguished
from their sufferings?
We shall understand, if we reflect, that his open
rupture with Egypt was unlikely to be the work of a moment. Like all
the best workers, he was led forward gradually, at first unconscious
of his vocation. Many a protest he must have made against the cruel
and unjust policy that steeped the land in innocent blood. Many a
jealous councillor must have known how to weaken his dangerous
influence by some cautious taunt, some insinuated "reproach" of his
own Hebrew origin. The warnings put by Josephus into the lips of the
priests in his childhood, were likely enough to have been spoken by
some one before he was forty years old. At last, when driven to make
his choice, he "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter,"
a phrase, especially in its reference to the rejected title as
distinguished from "the pleasures of sin," which seems to imply a
more formal rupture than Exodus records.
We saw that the piety of his parents was not
unhelped by their emotions: they hid him by faith when they saw that
he was a goodly child. Such was also the faith by which Moses broke
with rank and fortune. He went out unto his brethren, and looked on
their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his
brethren. Twice the word of kinship is repeated; and Stephen tells
us that Moses himself used it in rebuking the dissensions of his
fellow-countrymen. Filled with yearning and pity for his trampled
brethren, and with the shame of generous natures who are at ease
while others suffer, he saw an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew. With that
blended caution and vehemence which belong to his nation still, he
looked and saw that there was no man, and slew the Egyptian. Like
most acts of passion, this was at once an impulse of the moment, and
an outcome of long gathering forces--just as the lightning flash,
sudden though it seem, has been prepared by the accumulated
electricity of weeks.
And this is the reason why God allows the issues of
a lifetime, perhaps of an eternity, to be decided by a sudden word,
a hasty blow. Men plead that if time had been given, they would have
stifled the impulse which ruined them. But what gave the impulse
such violent and dreadful force that it overwhelmed them before they
could reflect? The explosion in the coal-mine is not caused by the
sudden spark, without the accumulation of dangerous gases, and the
absence of such wholesome ventilation as would carry them away. It
is so in the breast where evil desires or tempers are harboured,
unsubdued by grace, until any accident puts them beyond control.
Thank God that such sudden movements do not belong to evil only! A
high soul is surprised into heroism, as often perhaps as a mean one
into theft or falsehood. In the case of Moses there was nothing
unworthy, but much that was unwarranted and presumptuous. The
decision it involved was on the right side, but the act was
self-willed and unwarranted, and it carried heavy penalties. "The
trespass originated not in inveterate cruelty," says St. Augustine,
"but in a hasty zeal which admitted of correction ... resentment
against injury was accompanied by love for a brother.... Here was
evil to be rooted out, but the heart with such capabilities, like
good soil, needed only cultivation to make it fruitful in virtue."
Stephen tells us, what is very natural, that Moses
expected the people to accept him as their heaven-born deliverer.
From which it appears that he cherished high expectations for
himself, from Israel if not from Egypt. When he interfered next day
between two Hebrews, his question as given in Exodus is somewhat
magisterial: "Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?" In Stephen's
version it dictates less, but it lectures a good deal: "Sirs, ye are
brethren, why do ye wrong one to another?" And it was natural enough
that they should dispute his pretensions, for God had not yet given
him the rank he claimed. He still needed a discipline almost as
sharp as that of Joseph, who, by talking too boastfully of his
dreams, postponed their fulfilment until he was chastened by slavery
and a dungeon. Even Saul of Tarsus, when converted, needed three
years of close seclusion for the transformation of his fiery ardour
into divine zeal, as iron to be tempered must be chilled as well as
heated. The precipitate and violent zeal of Moses entailed upon him
forty years of exile.
And yet his was a noble patriotism. There is a false
love of country, born of pride, which blinds one to her faults; and
there is a loftier passion which will brave estrangement and
denunciation to correct them. Such was the patriotism of Moses, and
of all whom God has ever truly called to lead their fellows.
Nevertheless he had to suffer for his error.
His first act had been a kind of manifesto, a claim
to lead, which he supposed that they would have understood; and yet,
when he found his deed was known, he feared and fled. His false step
told against him. One cannot but infer also that he was conscious of
having already forfeited court favour--that he had before this not
only made his choice, but announced it, and knew that the blow was
ready to fall on him at any provocation. We read that he dwelt in
the land of Midian, a name which was applied to various tracts
according to the nomadic wanderings of the tribe, but which plainly
included, at this time, some part of the peninsula formed by the
tongues of the Red Sea. For, as he fed his flocks, he came to the
Mount of God.
MOSES IN MIDIAN.
Exo 2:16-22
The interference of Moses on behalf of the daughters
of the priest of Midian is a pleasant trait, courteous, and
expressive of a refined nature. With this remark, and reflecting
that, like many courtesies, it brought its reward, we are often
content to pass it by. And yet it deserves a closer examination.
1. For it expresses great energy of character. He
might well have been in a state of collapse. He had smitten the
Egyptian for Israel's sake: he had appealed to his own people to
make common cause, like brethren, against the common foe; and he had
offered himself to them as their destined leader in the struggle.
But they had refused him the command, and he was rudely awakened to
the consciousness that his life was in danger through the garrulous
ingratitude of the man he rescued. Now he was a ruined man and an
exile, marked for destruction by the greatest of earthly monarchs,
with the habits and tastes of a great noble, but homeless among wild
races.
It was no common nature which was alert and
energetic at such a time. The greatest men have known a period of
prostration in calamity: it was enough for honour that they should
rally and re-collect their forces. Thinking of Frederick, after
Kunersdorf, resigning the command ("I have no resources more, and
will not survive the destruction of my country"), and of his
subsequent despatch, "I am now recovered from my illness"; and of
Napoleon, trembling and weeping on the road to Elba, one turns with
fresh admiration to the fallen prince, the baffled liberator,
sitting exhausted by the well, but as keen on behalf of liberty as
when Pharaoh trampled Israel, though now the oppressors are a group
of rude herdsmen, and the oppressed are Midianite women, driven from
the troughs which they have toiled to fill. One remembers Another,
sitting also exhausted by the well, defying social usage on behalf
of a despised woman, and thereby inspired and invigorated as with
meat to eat which His followers knew not of.
2. Moreover there is disinterested bravery in the
act, since he hazards the opposition of the men of the land, among
whom he seeks refuge, on behalf of a group from which he can have
expected nothing. And here it is worth while to notice the
characteristic variations in three stories which have certain points
of contact. The servant of Abraham, servant-like, was well content
that Rebekah should draw for all his camels, while he stood still.
The prudent Jacob, anxious to introduce himself to his cousin,
rolled away the stone and watered her camels. Moses sat by the well,
but did not interfere while the troughs were being filled: it was
only the overt wrong which kindled him. But as in great things, so
it is in small: our actions never stand alone; having once
befriended them, he will do it thoroughly, "and moreover he drew
water for us, and watered the flock." Such details could hardly have
been thought out by a fabricator; a legend would not have allowed
Moses to be slower in courtesy than Jacob;[5] but the story fits the
case exactly: his eyes were with his heart, and that was far away,
until the injustice of the shepherds roused him.
And why was Moses thus energetic, fearless, and
chivalrous? Because he was sustained by the presence of the Unseen:
he endured as seeing Him who is invisible; and having, despite of
panic, by faith forsaken Egypt, he was free from the absorbing
anxieties which prevent men from caring for their fellows, free also
from the cynical misgivings which suspect that violence is more than
justice, that to be righteous over-much is to destroy oneself, and
that perhaps, after all, one may see a good deal of wrong without
being called upon to interfere. It would be a different world today,
if all who claim to be "the salt of the earth" were as eager to
repress injustice in its smaller and meaner forms as to make money
or influential friends. If all petty and cowardly oppression were
sternly trodden down, we should soon have a state of public opinion
in which gross and large tyranny would be almost impossible. And it
is very doubtful whether the flagrant wrongs, which must be
comparatively rare, cause as much real mental suffering as the
frequent small ones. Does mankind suffer more from wild beasts than
from insects? But how few that aspire to emancipate oppressed
nations would be content, in the hour of their overthrow, to assert
the rights of a handful of women against a trifling fraud, to which
indeed they were so well accustomed that its omission surprised
their father!
Is it only because we are reading a history, and not
a biography, that we find no touch of tenderness, like the love of
Jacob for Rachel, in the domestic relations of Moses?
Joseph also married in a strange land, yet he called
the name of his first son Manasseh, because God had made him to
forget his sorrows: but Moses remembered his. Neither wife nor child
could charm away his home sickness; he called his firstborn Gershom,
because he was a sojourner in a strange land. In truth, his whole
life seems to have been a lonely one. Miriam is called "the sister
of Aaron" even when joining in the song of Moses (xv. 20), and with
Aaron she made common cause against their greater brother (Num
12:1-2). Zipporah endangered his life rather than obey the covenant
of circumcision; she complied at last with a taunt (Exo 4:24-26),
and did not again join him until his victory over Amalek raised his
position to the utmost height (Exo 18:2).
His children are of no account, and his grandson is
the founder of a dangerous and enduring schism (Jdg 18:30, R.V.).
There is much reason to see here the earliest
example of the sad rule that a prophet is not without honour save in
his own house; that the law of compensations reaches farther into
life than men suppose; and high position and great powers are too
often counterbalanced by the isolation of the heart.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] The same word is used for Noah's ark, but not
elsewhere; not, for example, of the ark in the Temple, the name of
which occurs elsewhere in Scripture only of the "coffin" of Joseph,
and the "chest" for the Temple revenues (Gen 1:26; 2Ch 24:8, 2Ch
24:10-11.)
[4] Or his sister, the daughter of a former Pharaoh.
[5] Nor would it have made the women call their
deliverer "an Egyptian," for the Hebrew cast of features is very
dissimilar. But Moses wore Egyptian dress, and the Egyptians worked
mines in the peninsula, so that he was naturally taken for one of
them.