Exodus is a book that needs to constantly be looked at with Source criticism and Socio- Historical criticism because during this time there were many famines and people were forced to migrate in and out of Egypt. It is a book of constant movement.
Before Moses was born the King of Egypt told the Hebrew midwives to kill the boys born to Hebrew women and to let the girls live. The reason given for this is population control.
One line that stood out to me has to do with Moses and his sister. It is after the Levite woman he was born to places him in a basket-like creation and sets it on the banks of the river.
"His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him." (Ex:2.4)
Something about this line strikes up a strong emotion in me.
Pharaoh's daughter ends up taking the child under her wing.
"When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, 'because,' she said, 'I drew him out of the water." (Ex:2.10)
This is another reference to water being something holy. If we compare this to the information given at the beginning of genesis the similarities of water being connected to creation are indisputable. When God created the earth it was a watery mass, according to genesis. Baby Moses is pulled out of the water and given his name for that very reason.
"Moses, an Egyptian name meaning "give birth" and often part of Egyption names joined with the name of a god, is given a Hebrew etymology("he who draws out") in anticipation of Moses' role in drawing his people through the sea." (New Oxford Annotated Bible, 4th ed.)
The years Moses would have come of age are skipped over.
"One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and saw their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsfolk. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he went out the next day, he saw to Hebrews fighting; and he said to the one who was in the wrong, 'Why do you strike your fellow Hebrew?' He answered, 'Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?' Then Moses was afraid and thought, 'Surely the thing is known.' When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses." (Ed:2.11 - 15)
There is so much to look at in this passage. The first is that Moses kills the Egyptian beating the Hebrew slave. Since Moses sees no one before committing the act it can be inferred that perhaps the Hebrew slave is the one who spoke of it. Moses is forced to flee as the Pharaoh seeks to kill him. Was Moses' act just? Is Moses actually against the kind of labor his people are forced to endure or is he just against his own people being those who are forced into that kind of labor? I think it's the ladder.
Everything written in the Torah has to be seen through the eyes of people struggling to survive.
"But Moses fled from Pharaoh. He settled in the land of Midian, and sat down by a well. The priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to draw water, and filled the troughts to water their father's flock. But some shepherds came and drove them away. Moses got up and came to their defense and watered their flock." (Ex:2.15 - 18)
In this passage we see the connection again to water as well as the number seven. Out of these seven daughters Moses finds a wife named Zipporah.
"The Israelites groaned under their slavery, and cried out. Out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God. God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." (Ex:2.23 - 24)
Um... did God forget???
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