Hebrews 11:24-26 (HCSB)
By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter and chose to suffer with the people of God rather than to enjoy the short-lived pleasure of sin. For he considered the reproach because of the Messiah to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, since his attention was on the reward.
Moses hit an important crossroad in his life journey at age 40. For the first three months of his life, he was raised as a typical Israelite baby boy, although he was hidden by his parents due to Pharaoh’s edict that all newborn boys had to be thrown into the Nile (Exodus 1:22-2:2). Then, for the next three years, he was raised by his mother, but as the foster son of Pharaoh’s daughter who found him where his parents had hidden him, in a waterproofed basket in the reeds along the river’s edge (Exodus 2:3-10).
For the next 37 years, Moses was brought up as an Egyptian noble, and was well-educated in art, literature, poetry, music, and all the knowledge that the Egyptians possessed as an advanced civilization. As the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter, he even held a position in the line succession for the position of Pharaoh.
But during those first three years Moses’ mother and father told him about his own people. And his stepmother seems to have not kept his origins a secret from him either. And, as he saw Israelites throughout the land as he traveled in his official duties, he found his heart strangely drawn to these people that he knew were his own.
Moses’ heart went out to these people as he saw them abused and hard-pressed in their servitude under Pharaoh’s overseers. So, when he saw an Egyptian harshly beating one of the Israelites, he decided that he could not tolerate it. He did not lash out irrationally but acted in a cool and calculated manner to deliver the slave. He killed the Egyptian and buried his body in the sand (Exodus 2:11-12).
Moses vindicated himself in his own mind. He saw himself as the savior, the deliverer of his true people. But the Israelites didn’t see him in the same way. The next day he was rebuked by an Israelite when he tried to break up a fight. The man who was in the wrong told him that they all knew he had killed the Egyptian the day before (Exodus 2:13-14).
Moses had known at the time that killing the Egyptian was a capital offense, even for an Egyptian noble. But he had chosen to put his own life on the line in order to save one of his people who was also one of God’s people, risking arrest, exile, and even death to do what he felt God was calling him to do.
Some readers are puzzled by verse 26. How could Moses know Christ 1500 years before he arrived on earth? Even though Jesus had not yet arrived, the concept of the Messiah, the anointed deliverer promised to God’s people through His words to Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:15) was talked about among God’s people. And as one who had power and authority in Egypt, Moses saw himself as someone who, even if he were not the Messiah Himself, would surely play his own part in God’s plan, even if it meant leaving behind all he had known in Egypt.
Father, like all of us, Moses saw the small part of the future which he could see only dimly. But the outlines of Your plan were clear enough to move him to action. Even though the time was not yet right, and he would have to wait in exile for forty years until You called him, he was open to Your plan, and remained open to it and to his role in it all the remaining years of his life. Lord, the future You have planned sometimes seems brilliantly clear. At other times it seems murky and distant, befogged by present circumstances and events. Help me, like Moses, to keep what I have clearly seen of your plan in the very center of my heart so that, when the time is right, I can see the next steps you are calling me to, and so that I can take those steps in faith. Amen.