Last time we left off at the point where…
…Moses had just fled Egypt due to his murder of an Egyptian guard.
Where did he end up fleeing to?
He certainly wouldn’t have been able to flee to Canaan because all the roads and cities there were heavily guarded by the Egyptian military.
Word of Moses’ crime had probably gotten out quickly and there would have been a warrant out for his arrest.
Moses had no choice but to escape to an area of such minor importance that no civilized or strong nation would be interested in it.
We’re talking about an area with no central government where only the bravest of souls would venture to live.
What area in the region would have fit this description?
The answer is…
…Moses traveled across the Sinai and crossed over a part of the Red Sea (known today as the Gulf of Aqaba) into a land called Midian which was inhabited primarily by Bedouin desert wanderers.
Upon arriving, we’re told Moses had an incident at a water well where he rescued some local girls from a couple of thugs.
Afterwards, a kind Midianite priest offered Moses shelter and later gave him his eldest daughter to be his wife.
And thus in one fell swoop, Moses was reduced from being a son of Pharaoh in one of the most prosperous nations in the world to becoming a shepherd of animals in an abandoned and primitive land.
Things must have been very hard for Moses as he struggled with loneliness and tried to forget the rich and privileged life he had lived in Pharaoh’s palace.
I’m sure he spent many hours just staring at the sand beneath his sandals as he contemplated with amazement how just one impulsive act could so totally turn his life upside down.
Yet it is circumstances like these that cause a man to start asking the deep questions about life and why things are the way they are.
During one of the many fireside chats Moses had with his father-in-law Jethro, he was told there is only one God and that all the gods of Egypt were false.
If so, who was this one God?
Where was he?
And how to explain all of the suffering of his Hebrew brethren back in Egypt?
We can see the Lord was using this time to humble Moses and make him moldable for the great plans He had in store for him.
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