The Story

We took the five books of Moses for our study, and we have reached the end of the first book, Genesis. It has told us of creation and Eden, of Noah and his descendants, of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. There are four more books of Moses: Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. You will know from its name that Exodus tells of the going out from Egypt; it tells, too, of the journey to Sinai, the receiving of the Commandments and the building of the tabernacle.

It is many years since Joseph died, and things have happened that have made great changes for the children of Israel. They are still in Egypt and the country is the same, but it has changed for them. They were happy in the land of Goshen while Joseph lived and for some time after, but now there was a king who "knew not Joseph." He was not friendly to them. The Egyptians treated them as slaves and set them to hard work in the fields and at making brick and building. And now Pharaoh commanded that the baby boys among the children of Israel should be thrown into the river. Our picture shows us people making bricks in Egypt, mixing the soft mud with a little chopped straw and pressing it into a mould, and then drying the bricks in the hot sun. The taskmasters hurried the children of Israel in their work, not giving them straw, but requiring of them the full number of bricks. The children of Israel were in great trouble, and the Lord raised up for them a leader, Moses, who should bring them out of Egypt.

Moses was a baby boy, a goodly child, and his mother loved him dearly. She hid him for three months. Then when she could no longer hide him, she made a little basket of papyrus, tall reeds with plumy heads, which grew in the water's edge, and daubed it to keep the water out, and made a cover for the basket. Then she put the baby into the basket and laid it among the plants in the edge of the river at a place where the princess and her maids would come to bathe. The baby's sister watched from a distance to see what would happen. Shall we call her Miriam? For we know that Moses had a sister Miriam. The princess came to the river and saw the basket, and sent her maid to fetch it. She opened the basket and the baby cried. She was sorry for the baby. His sister asked if she might find someone to take care of him. The princess said, "Yes," and she brought the baby's mother. So the boy grew in his mother's care, and afterward she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter to live perhaps at the palace and to be taught the wisdom of the Egyptians. The princess called him Moses, which means "drawn out," because he was drawn out of the water.

When Moses was a man, he left Egypt and came to the land of Midian. He had killed an Egyptian at his work. It became known, and Pharaoh wished to kill Moses. It was not safe for him in Egypt. The Midianites were shepherd people, living off across the desert. Moses met the daughters of the priest of Midian at a well and helped them water their flocks.

We have reached the end of Genesis. What other books of Moses have we to study? What shall we read about in the book of Exodus? We realize as we begin the new book that the whole scene has changed. Egypt is not the happy home for the children of Israel that it was, in the days of Joseph, but it has become a land of slavery, of hard work in the fields and in brick-making and building, to which the people were driven by taskmasters. The stay in Egypt is spoken of as four hundred or four hundred and thirty years, counted from Abram's first going into Egypt. (Gen. 15:13; Exod. 12:40; Acts 7:6) The people had increased so greatly that the Egyptians feared them. A Pharaoh arose who was not like the friendly Pharaoh of Joseph's time. He may have been one of the native Egyptian kings, living at Thebes, who after the time of Joseph drove out the Hyxos kings from the delta country and ruled all Egypt. Some of these kings, like Thothmes III and Rameses II, were great conquerors and carried their wars into distant countries. The children of Israel had to build for Pharaoh store cities in Goshen near the eastern border of the country, places for storing grain and supplies for his armies. Some of the chambers of Pithom have been uncovered, walled up with sun-dried brick. Then for fear that the people might become too many, it was commanded that the baby boys should be thrown into the river. We read more about the brick-making and the harsh treatment of the workmen in chapter 5. Someone turn to that chapter and read us verses 5-19. Old pictures on the walls in Egypt make the bondage of the Israelites real to us. They show the multitude of slaves at hard work in the fields, and making bricks, and hauling stones, with taskmasters, stick in hand, keeping them to their work. The people cried to God in their trouble.

Can you tell the story of the baby Moses? Read it again in Exod. 2:1-10, and make sure that you can tell it well. Have in mind, as you read, that Levi was one of the sons of Jacob, and that afterward the priests and helpers of the priests were from that tribe. The little "ark" was a basket made of papyrus stalks, which were plentiful in the edges of the river and the canals. It is a tall plant with a beautiful plumy top. Papyrus to write on was made by pressing the pith of this plant flat and thin. Our word "paper" comes from "papyrus." Slime used to make the basket tight was bitumen such as we learned of in Gen. 11:3 and 14:10. The washing at the river was perhaps a religious ceremony. Notice the meaning of the name Moses.

After his babyhood, Moses was brought up as the princess' son. We think of him living at the palace, and learning from the priests in some great temple about public affairs and much of the wisdom of heavenly things which had been kept in Egypt from long ago. "And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." (Acts 7:22) We may believe that the holy book of the Ancient Word was preserved in a library of Egypt, from which under the Lord's guidance Moses copied the first chapters of our own Bible.

The description and the pictures of slavery in Egypt help us to understand the first of the Ten Commandments: "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." The Ten Commandments are for us and for all people. The bondage in Egypt must picture the bondage that we all are in when evil ways and worldly cares and interests are our masters and we their slaves.

Moses was about forty years old when he fled from Egypt, and he was away from his people another forty years. (Acts 7:23, 30; Exod. 7:7) During this time, he was with the Midianites, simple, shepherd people living on the east side of the peninsula of Sinai. They were related to the children of Israel, being descended from Abraham (Gen. 25:2), and Moses married the daughter of Jethro their priest and chief. He kept the sheep of Jethro, and led them to the green pasture spots among the mountains. What story that we have read before are you reminded of by Moses' coming to the well and watering the flocks for Jethro's daughters? (Gen. 29)

1. What picture of life in Egypt is given us in the last chapters of Genesis? In the first chapters of Exodus? What is the reason for this change?

2. Who was leader of the children of Israel in their happy days in Egypt? Who in the days of deliverance from bondage?

3. How was Moses saved when he was a baby?

4. How was he cared for as a young man?

5. Where was Moses safe after the killing of the Egyptian was known?

Spiritual Study

What is the spiritual meaning of the change in Egypt from a happy home to a place of bondage? Egypt always represents natural states; natural learning, worldly interests and pleasures. When these are enjoyed innocently and are made serviceable to spiritual life, and are guided by a knowledge of the Lord's presence, then Joseph is ruler in Egypt and it is a happy home for Israel. But when worldly interests and pleasures are made the chief things and spiritual life languishes, then a king arises who knows not Joseph, the Egyptians become masters and the children of Israel are made slaves and their children are destroyed. There is just this difference between following any worldly interest and enjoying any natural pleasure in the right or the wrong way. (A. 6651, 6652)

A new leader. Every leader of Israel taught them the Lord's will and represented the Lord in some way in which He may be known. Joseph represents a sense of the Lord's loving presence which leads us safely in gentle and innocent states. When we grow willful, and worldly interests and pleasures gain strong hold upon us, we need to know the Lord's presence in a sterner way; we must learn His commandments and laws and feel His power as we obey them. Moses stands for the Divine commandments and all the Word, in which the Lord is present with delivering and guiding power. (A. 6714, 6752) Follow this thought into some particulars of the story.

We have thought of stones used in building as representing sure facts on which we may safely rest our reasoning and our plans of life, and we have thought of bricks, which are made by people, as representing things not true, which an evil mind devises to justify and carry out its ends. Such falsities are represented by the bricks of Babel and of Egypt. The straw in the bricks is some small amount of truth or appearance of truth, perhaps from the letter of the Word, which is mixed with falsehood to give it acceptance. But when an evil motive is desperate it disregards even the appearance of truth in its falsehood; it makes bricks without straw. (A. 7112, 7113) Bricks in Scripture seem always to have a bad meaning. Yet possibly they may also have a better meaning, representing facts not necessarily so from the nature of things but made so by convention and by custom; artificial, but not necessarily false or evil.

Moses was put into an ark of rushes smeared with slime and pitch, to save him from the Egyptians. It represents the protection of the Lord's Word by the letter, composed of very simple truths and partaking even of the imperfection of human thought and feeling that it might not be rejected, but might come to people in a natural, worldly state. The whole letter of the Word is such an ark. It is interesting that papyrus, the same material on which the letter of the Word was written, also formed the ark for Moses. (A. 6719-6725)

Moses at the palace, kindly treated by the Egyptians, represents the Word preserved by worldly people for its natural wisdom and beauty, until it is seen to condemn the evil of their life. (A. 6750)

The shepherd people of Midian, far away from Egypt, represents those living in simple charity, who are more willing to hear and obey the Lord's Word than the learned. The Word strengthens their good affections, as Moses watered and kept the flock. (A. 6773-6781)

to next Lesson