... maybe they didn’t need Moses’ help. Maybe they giggled at the way he drew water – more brute strength than efficient technique, but a sweet act all the same. More importantly, maybe they had some lessons that would help him
Exodus 2:11-21a
July 14, 2024
Dr. Todd R. Wright
When we left off last week, young Moses, was living in Pharoah’s household thanks to the quick thinking of Miriam, his big sister, and the willing collusion of Bithiah, the Pharoah’s daughter.
Those childhood years go so fast – but we can imagine him growing like most children, full of energy and questions, all elbows and knees, delightfully silly and surprisingly clever.
But in Defiant, Kelley Nikondeha notes that he grew up as the adopted son of Bithiah. She writes, “As an adopted person, I’ve lived with the reality of a hidden history. My story remains unknown to me, sealed by a court order for almost fifty years now. I know little about my birth mother – just that she was Mexican and an accountant at the time of my birth.”[1]
That makes her sensitive to Moses’ story. Like him, Nikondeha was three months old when her mother gave her up. She says she grew up with tortillas and hot sauce… because they lived in California, but for all practical purposes she was a white evangelical. So when she was in a mixed group recently and they divided into two groups for discussion, she wasn’t sure whether she would be welcomed by the Latinas or should hang out with the whites.
Moses had a different experience as an adoptee. Because Jochebed was permitted to nurse her baby until he was weaned, Moses seems to have been gifted with a dual heritage. He heard Hebrew spoken in stories and songs and prayers. And it seems he never forgot. Not even after years of growing up in Pharoah’s court, learning the language and the ways of power, learning military tactics and the tone used for giving orders; learning both the racism and the fear behind Pharoah’s order to kill of all Hebrew baby boys; and learning his grandfather had both god-like power and the ordinary weaknesses of any human, like toothaches and springtime allergies.
Still, being adopted can mean never being sure where you fit.
We are told that Moses went out of the palace to the fields and brickyards and saw the forced labor of “his people.” Raised as a prince, he had not forgotten he was born a Hebrew. When an Egyptian begins to beat a slave, Moses chooses to protect his blood-kin, killing the abuser and burying him in the sand.
He is claiming his roots. But all the Hebrews can see when they look at him is an Egyptian.
It must have left him confused.
Pharoah is not confused. He is angry. Exodus says, “he sought to kill him”
That’s Pharoah’s go-to solution to any problem: too many Hebrews? Kill them!
So, what is going on here?
Moses seems to just have done what Pharoah would have done – solve a problem by resorting to killing. Why is Pharoah angry?
It cannot be that he values human life or feels a need to see justice done. Being Pharoah means you are above the law. Even his household is above the law.
It must be that he is angry because he feels betrayed. Moses has grown up in his household under his protection. He has been given the best of everything Egypt has to offer. But he has chosen his Hebrew roots. That is a slap in the face! No wonder Pharoah is angry!
So, Moses has to flee. Away from the palace where he grew up; away from the Hebrews.
Where do you go when no one claims you?
Exodus says he went to Midian, to the land of the nomadic descendants of Abraham’s son,
Ishmael. This would have meant crossing the Sinai desert to the other side of the Gulf of Aqaba, probably by following the trade route from Egypt to Tayma in what is modern day Saudi Arabia.
In short, this is about as far away from the place of his birth as possible!
He was running for his life. And it was there, in Midian, that he finally stopped beside a well, exhausted and heartbroken, footsore and homesick.
I think singer Dave Matthews captures his mood there beside the well:
“Oh, Deep water, black and cold like the night.
I stand with my arms wide open. I’ve run a twisted mile.
I’m a stranger in the eyes of the Maker.”[2]
Moses is a stranger in a strange land, a stranger even to himself, but that will change.
Seven sisters came to water their father’s flock. Nikondeha imagines the scene: “He must have dozed off in the warmth of the morning sun. He awoke to the sounds of sheep bleating and women organizing. He counted seven women working the flock – a few guarding the edges of the mob while others drew up the water and filled the troughs. The musculature of the women revealed that they did this work daily. These weren’t the wispy waifs he imagined when he heard his mother tell stories about Jacob [meeting] the winsome Rachel [at a well].”[3]
Exodus says some other shepherds came and drove the sisters away.
If you’ve been paying attention, you know what will happen next: Moses will rush in. That’s what he does. He is impulsive, but that impulse is to defend those who need help. And despite all those years in the palace, he is not afraid to get his hands dirty. Scripture says that after he drove the other shepherds away, he watered the sisters’ flock.
I’ve always imagined that scene as showing Moses as a gentleman, maybe even heroic!
But Nikondeha makes me wonder. When she imagines the seven sisters, she writes,
“They are seven hard working women. In a world of wild beasts, harassing shepherds, and limited resources, it wasn’t easy to be a shepherdess. Survival required skill, strength, and solidarity. They learned to work together, building on one another’s strengths. They banded together to survive the worst in an unsure climate. Think of their calloused hands and strong backs from repairing fences and pulling lambs out of birth canals, muscular arms from daily drawing water from stingy wells. Imagine them as good shepherds, leading the herd to green pastures and [still] waters. Protecting their sheep from predators, fending off those who came to steal, kill, and destroy. The sheep would have known the sound of their voices.”[4]
Her comments make me wonder if maybe they didn’t need Moses’ help. Maybe they giggled at the way he drew water – more brute strength than efficient technique, but a sweet act all the same. More importantly, maybe they had some lessons that would help him, like…
the power of working together, since he seems to only know how to act alone;
or the importance of not losing your temper, when you’ll face the same impatient men tomorrow;
or the joy of knowing that you belong in a family that loves you.
Maureen is one of three sisters, not seven, but I still remember how touched I was when they welcomed me into the family with the gift of a Cincinnati Reds cap!
I suspect Moses must have felt similarly welcomed when the sisters invited him to join them for dinner, when their father invite him to stay on, when he found a new place to call home!
Dave Matthew has another verse that sums up Moses’ changed circumstance:
“My body is bent and broken, by long and dangerous sleep.
I can work in the fields of Abraham and turn my head away.
I am not a stranger in the hands of the Maker.”
May you know the joy of being welcomed by sisters and brothers in this place; may you find a place that feels like home for your fleeing, wandering, seeking soul; and, as a result, may you rest easy in the hands of your Maker! Amen
[1] Here and following, from Defiant, pages 125-128
[2] Here and at the end of the sermon, from his song, “The Maker”
[3] From Defiant, page 117
[4] Ibid, page 119
Commentaires