Exodus 2:11-15 And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out to his brothers, and looked on their burdens… We must certainly attribute the killing of the Egyptian, not to Divine inspiration, but to the natural impetuosity of Moses' character. At this stage Moses had zeal, but it was without knowledge. His heart burned with indignation at the wrongs of his brethren. He longed to be their deliverer. Something told him that "God by his hand would deliver them" (Acts 7:25). But how to proceed he knew not. His plans had taken no definite shape. There was no revelation, and perhaps one was not expected. So, acting under impulse, he struck the blow which killed the Egyptian, but did no service to the cause he had at heart. That he did not act with moral clearness is manifest from the perturbation with which he did the deed, and from his subsequent attempt to hide the traces of it. It completed his discomfiture when, next day, he learned that the deed was known, and that his brethren, instead of welcoming his interposition, were disposed to resent it. He had involved himself in murder. He had sown the seeds of later troubles. Yet he had gained no end by it. How true it is that violence seldom leads to happy issues! "The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God" (James 1:20). An exhibition of violence on our own part is a bad preparation for interfering in the quarrels of others. He that does the wrong will rarely fail to remind us of it. Learn lessons from the narrative - I. AS TO THE CHARACTER OF MOSES. Moses, like every man of true, powerful, and loving nature, was capable of vehement and burning anger. He was a man of great natural impetuosity. This casts light upon the sin of Meribah (Numbers 20:10). An outbreak of the old, long-conquered failing (cf. Exodus 4:13). The holier side of the same disposition is seen in the anger with which he broke in pieces the Tables of the Law (Exodus 32:19). It casts light also on his meekness, and teaches us to distinguish meekness from mere natural placableness and amiability. Meekness - the meekness for which Moses is famed (Numbers 12:3) - was not. a gift of nature, but the result of passions, naturally strong, conquered and controlled - of long and studied self-repression. II. AS TO UNPURIFIED ZEAL. 1. Unpurified zeal leads to hasty action. It is ungoverned. It acts from impulse. It is not schooled to bearing and waiting. It cannot bide God's time, nor keep to God's ways. 2. Unpurified zeal unfits for God's service. It relies too much on self. It takes events into its own hand. Hence Moses is sent to Midian to spend forty years in learning humility and patience - in acquiring power of self-control. He has to learn that the work is not his, but God's, and that only God can accomplish it. 3. Unpurified zeal, by its hasty action, retards, rather than furthers, the accomplishment of God's purposes. By driving Moses into Midian, it probably put back the hour of Israel's deliverance. - J.O. Parallel Verses KJV: And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. |
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