Exodus 2 explained: A Rescued Baby Becomes a Refugee

A baby hidden and set afloat (vv. 1-4)

Pharaoh had ordered every Hebrew baby boy thrown into the Nile, so this mother hid her son as long as she could. Then she sealed a papyrus basket with tar and set it among the reeds at the river's edge, where his older sister kept watch.

Rescued by Pharaoh's daughter (vv. 5-10)

The river meant to kill him becomes his rescue, and the king's own daughter adopts him, while his sister cleverly gets his real mother paid to nurse him. The name Moses sounds like the Hebrew for "draw out" and also resembles an Egyptian word for "son."

Moses kills an Egyptian (vv. 11-14)

Raised as an Egyptian, Moses still sees the Hebrews as his people, and he kills a slave driver who is beating one of them, then hides the body. The text neither praises nor condemns him, and the next day a fellow Hebrew rejects his right to step in.

Flight and a new home (vv. 15-22)

With Pharaoh hunting him, Moses escapes to Midian, a desert region east of Egypt, where meeting women at a well echoes earlier family stories that led to marriage. He marries Zipporah, daughter of the local priest Reuel, and names his son Gershom, which sounds like the Hebrew for "a foreigner there."

God hears the cry (vv. 23-25)

Years pass, a new king rules, and the enslaved Israelites cry out. God "remembering" his covenant, the binding promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, means he is about to act on them, not that he had forgotten.

Key verse: Exodus 2:24

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on whether Moses' killing of the Egyptian was a justified defense of the oppressed or a rash act of violence, a question the chapter itself leaves open.

Something to think about

When someone sees cruelty and acts alone to stop it, as Moses did, where do you think the line falls between courage and causing new harm?