Biblical Oddities: Moses The Deliverer

The story of Moses is one of the most familiar ones in the Bible. If you ask people about it they can do a pretty good job of covering the basics: Moses was raised as the child of Pharaoh’s daughter. One day he killed an Egyptian, and because of that he had to flee the country and live in the wilderness for the next 40 years. Then, when he was 80, God called him to go and deliver Israel from bondage.

That is the story that we’re familiar with – but that’s not the story that Stephen tells in the book of Acts. What he has to say about it is quite different:

Acts 7:22: “And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.
23 And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel.
24 And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian:
25 For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not.
26 And the next day he shewed himself unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?
27 But he that did his neighbour wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?
28 Wilt thou kill me, as thou diddest the Egyptian yesterday?
29 Then fled Moses at this saying, and was a stranger in the land of Madian, where he begat two sons.”

Stephen is telling us that the reason Moses killed the Egyptian is because Moses was trying to deliver Israel. He knew that God was going to use him to free the Israelites and he was actively trying to help them. The reason Moses had to flee the country is because Israel rejected him.

Stop and think about it: when Moses killed that Egyptian, the only people who knew about it were Moses and the Israelite that he helped. If word got out, then the Israelite that Moses rescued must have done it. The people who pointed the finger at Moses and got him into trouble was not the Egyptians, but the nation of Israel. They were the ones who refused their deliverer and almost got him killed. Centuries later, God would send another Deliverer (named Jesus) to Israel, and they would also refuse and kill Him.

That, in fact, is Acts 7 in a nutshell: Israel hated and rejected the deliverer Moses, and they also hated and rejected the deliverer Jesus. They treated Jesus the same way they treated Moses and the prophets. The Pharisees kept saying “Moses this” and “Moses that”, but the truth is that Israel hated Moses:

Acts 7:39: “To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt,
40 Saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us: for as for this Moses, which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.”

Israel would not obey Moses. They criticized him, and attacked him, and made his life so awful that Moses actually asked God to kill him because he just couldn’t take it anymore (Numbers 11:15).

After Moses killed the Egyptian and fled for his life, Moses did not return to deliver Israel for another 40 years. When he did come back and deliver them, Moses brought them to Canaan – only to see the entire nation refuse to enter the land. Things were so bad that Israel actually decided to kill Moses and return to Egypt (Numbers 14:10). How did God punish them? By commanding Israel to wander around in the wilderness for 40 years until that entire generation had died:

Numbers 14:32: “But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness.
33 And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.
34 After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.”

When Israel rejected Moses as their deliverer the first time and forced him to flee, Moses stayed away for 40 years. When Israel rejected Moses as their deliverer the second time and plotted to kill him, God commanded that they wander around for 40 years until they all dropped dead. In other words, there were two generations of Israelites who rejected Moses and who died for it.

What would have happened if Israel had not rebelled against God at the border of Canaan – or if they had not rejected Moses when he tried to deliver them the first time? There is really no way to tell. The one thing we do know is that history would certainly have played out differently.