Exodus 2:1

THE CHILD MOSES. -- Exodus 2:1-10.

GOLDEN TEXT. -- The Lord is thy keeper. -- Psalms 121:5. TIME. --The Birth of Moses is placed about B. C. 1571. PLACES. --Probably the city of Zoan, also called Tanis, situated on. branch of the Nile. HELPFUL READINGS. -- Exodus 1:12-22; Psalms 121:1-8; Hebrews 11:24-27. LESSON ANALYSIS. --1. The Babe in the Ark; 2. The Daughter of Pharaoh; 3. The Son of Pharaoh's Daughter.

INTRODUCTION.

It should be noted that the bondage of the Hebrews differs from modern slavery in one respect--that the bondmen were held by the king and the nation in their national capacity, and not by individuals. They were not held as private, but as public property. The king and the nation therefore, as such bore the guilt and the responsibility of this oppression, and God let his judgments for the most part smite them in such. way as to indicate their sin.. second feature of the oppression was the king's cruel edict to murder the male infants. This was first enjoined on the Hebrew midwives. Fearing God more than the Egyptian king, they evaded obedience, whereupon the king commanded all the male infants to be cast into the river. The reason assigned for both these measures was public policy, to prevent the rapid increase of the Hebrew population which, the king assumed, might be dangerous to his throne and people in case of. foreign invasion.-- Cowles.

Here begins the history of one of the great souls of the earth. In original endowments, in the grandeur of his mission, and in the permanence of his influence, no other man has been more highly honored of God. In law and literature, as well as in religion, in the world of action, as well as of thought, in the Occident as well as the Orient, what name outshines the name of Moses? No other man ever touched the world at so many points as he, and through no other did God ever so move the world. We must accept his claim to inspiration, or leave him. riddle unsolved.-- F. H. Newhall.

The proceeding detailed is. beautiful illustration of the connection which should always exist between the diligent use of means and. pious trust in Providence. Instead of sitting down in sullen despair or passive reliance on Divine interposition, everything is done which can be done by human agency to secure the wished-for result. The careful mother pitches every seam and chink of the frail vessel as anxiously as if its precious deposit were to owe its preservation solely to her care and diligence. Nor even yet does she think she has done enough. Miriam, her daughter, must go and at. distance watch the event, and strange would it be if she did not herself in the meantime take. station where she could watch the watcher. And here we behold all the parties standing precisely upon the line where the province of human sagacity, foresight and industry ends, and providential succor begins. The mother had done her part; the rushes, the slime, and the pitch were her prudent and necessary preparations; and the great God has been at the same time preparing his materials and arranging his instruments. He causes everything to concur, not by miraculous influence, but by the simple and natural operation of second causes, to bring about the issue designed in his counsels from everlasting. The state of the weather, the flux of the current, the promenade of Pharaoh's daughter, the state of her feelings, the steps of her attendants, are all so overruled at that particular juncture as to lead to the discovery, the rescue, and the disposal of the child.-- Bush.

The monuments and the narratives of ancient writers show us in the Nile of Egypt in old times. stream bordered by flags and reeds, the covert of abundant wild fowl, and bearing on its waters the fragrant flowers of the various-colored lotus. Now in Egypt scarcely any reeds or water-plants--the famous papyrus being nearly if not quite extinct, and the lotus almost unknown--are to be seen, excepting in the marshes near the Mediterranean.-- Smith.

I. THE. ABE IN THE. RK.

1. There went. man of the house of Levi.

His name was Amram, and his wife, Jochebed, was also of his own tribe. We know that two children, Miriam and Aaron, were born before Moses, though the birth of the latter is the only one here given. At this time Miriam was probably thirteen and Aaron three years old. As it is certain that Aaron was three years old at the birth of Moses, and we have no intimation that his infancy was in any way exposed to peril, we may decide that the edict to destroy the male children was issued not long before the birth of Moses. To what extent the murderous edict was carried, or how long it was in force, we are not informed. When we consider that the love of offspring was an absorbing passion with the Israelites, inasmuch as all their future hopes depended on and were connected with. numerous issue, we can easily conceive the horror which must have hung over the people as long as the bloody statute was unrepealed.