we are broken winged butterflies after the storm drawing july 9, 2005

July 12, 2005

Moses Ex 2:1-15a

A certain man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, who conceived and bore a son.
Seeing that he was a goodly child, she hid him for three months. When she could hide him no longer, she took a papyrus basket, daubed it with bitumen and pitch, and putting the child in it,
placed it among the reeds on the river bank. His sister stationed herself at a distance to find out what would happen to him.

Pharaoh's daughter came down to the river to bathe, while her maids walked along the river bank. Noticing the basket among the reeds, she sent her handmaid to fetch it. On opening it, she looked, and lo, there was a baby boy, crying! She was moved with pity for him and said, "It is one of the Hebrews' children." Then his sister asked Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and call one of the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?" "Yes, do so," she answered. So the maiden went and called the child's own mother. Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will repay you." The woman therefore took the child and nursed it. When the child grew, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, who adopted him as her son and called him Moses; for she said, "I drew him out of the water."

On one occasion, after Moses had grown up, when he visited his kinsmen and witnessed their forced labor, he saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his own kinsmen. Looking about and seeing no one, he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out again, and now two Hebrews were fighting! So he asked the culprit, "Why are you striking your fellow Hebrew?" But the culprit replied, "Who has appointed you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses became afraid and thought,
"The affair must certainly be known."

Pharaoh, too, heard of the affair and sought to put Moses to death. But Moses fled from him and stayed in the land of Midian.

The life of Moses is like our lives as baptised. We were almost dead, then pulled out of the water, given a new life. A chance to live a blessed life. I do not understand why Moses felt he had to kill the Egyptian. Forced labor is an injustice, yet murder is against God's commandments. Moses at first thought the murder was hidden and a secret, but learned the next day that all including the Pharaoh knew of it. Perhaps it was part of God's plan that Moses would leave the land of Pharaoh, but I can not understand the murder. Perhaps it is to show how weak and sinful the leader of the Israelites is.