Exodus 3:1

_NOW MOSES KEPT THE FLOCK OF JETHRO HIS FATHER IN LAW, THE PRIEST OF MIDIAN: AND HE LED THE FLOCK TO THE BACKSIDE OF THE DESERT, AND CAME TO THE MOUNTAIN OF GOD, EVEN TO HOREB._ Now Moses kept the flock. This employment he had entered on in furtherance of his matrimonial views (see the note at Exodus 2:21); but it is probable he was continuing his services now on other terms, like Jacob during the latter years of his stay with Laban (Genesis 30:28). LED THE FLOCK TO THE BACK SIDE OF THE DESERT - i:e., on the west of the desert (Gesenius); and assuming Jethro's headquarters to have been at Dahab, the route by which Moses led his flock must have been west through the wide valley called by the Arabs Wady-es-Zugherah (Robinson), which conducted into the interior of the wilderness.

1._Now Moses kept the flock. _We have already said that he was occupied as a shepherd for a long time (viz., about forty years) before this vision appeared to him. The patience, then, of the holy man is commended by his continuance in this work; not that Moses had any intention of boastfully celebrating his own virtues, but that the Holy Spirit dictated what would be useful to us, and, as it were, suggested it to his mouth, that what he did and suffered might be an example for ever. For he must have had much mental struggle at this tedious delay, when old age, which weakens the body, came on, since even in those days few retained their activity after their eightieth year; and although he might have lived frugally, yet temperance could not protect even the most robust body against so many hardships, because it is given to very few persons to be able thus to live in the open air, and to be...

1-6 The years of the life of Moses are divided into three forties; the first forty he spent as a prince in Pharaoh's court, the second as a shepherd in Midian, the third as a king in Jeshurun. How changeable is the life of man! The first appearance of God to Moses, found him tending sheep. This seems a poor employment for a man of his parts and education, yet he rests satisfied with it; and thus learns meekness and contentment, for which he is more noted in sacred writ, than for all his learning. Satan loves to find us idle; God is pleased when he finds us employed. Being alone, is a good friend to our communion with God. To his great surprise, Moses saw a bush burning without fire to kindle it. The bush burned, and yet did not burn away; an emblem of the church in bondage in Egypt. And it fitly reminds us of the church in every age, under its severest persecutions kept by the presence...

CHAPTER III _Moses keeping the flock of_ Jethro _at_ Mount Horeb, _the angel of_ _the Lord appears to him in a burning bush_, 1, 2. _Astonished at the sight, he turns aside to examine it_, 3, _when God speaks to him out of the fire, and declares himself to_ _be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob_, 4-6; _announces his purpose of delivering the Israelites from their_ _oppression, and of bringing them into the promised land_, 7-9; _commissions him to go to Pharaoh, and to be leader of the_ _children of Israel from Egypt_, 10....

JETHRO HIS FATHER-IN-LAW - Or “brother-in-law.” The word in the Hebrew is a word signifying relative by marriage. When Moses arrived in Midian, Reuel was an elderly man Exodus 2:16; Exodus 40 years later (Exodus 2:23 note), Reuel’s son, Jethro, had probably succeeded him. THE BACKSIDE - i. e. “to the west of the district.” Among the Hebrews the East is before a man, the west behind him, the south and north on the right and left hand. DESERT - Or wilderness, not a barren waste, but a district supplying pasturage. The district near Sherm, on the west of the gulf of Akabah, where Jethro may have resided, is described as barren

THE CALL AND MISSION OF MOSES. EXPOSITION EXODUS 3:1 THE MISSION OF MOSES. After forty years of monotonous pastoral life, affording abundant opportunity for meditation, and for spiritual communion with God, and when he had attained to the great age of eighty years, and the hot blood of youth had given place to the calm serenity of advanced life, God at last revealed Himself to Moses "called him" (Exodus 3:4), and gave him a definite mission. The present chapter is' intimately connected with the next. Together, they contain an account of that extraordinary and indeed miraculous interchange of thought and speech between Moses and God himself, by which the son of Amram was induced to undertake

NOW MOSES KEPT THE FLOCK OF JETHRO HIS FATHER IN LAW, THE PRIEST OF MIDIAN,.... Who was either the same with Reuel or Raguel, spoken of in the preceding chapter; or, as others think, a son of his, the father being now dead; seeing it was now forty years since Moses came into Midian, Acts 7:30. Demetrius c, an Heathen writer, expressly says that Jothor a son of Raguel, and Zipporah or Sepphora, as he calls her, was his daughter, whom Moses married: now this was the business Moses was chiefly concerned in during his stay in Midian; keeping the sheep of his father-in-law, in which great personages have have employed, and who have afterwards been called to the kingly office, as David; and this was an emblem of his feeding and ruling the people of Israel, and in it he was an eminent type of Christ, the great shepherd and bishop of souls: no doubt there were other things besides this in which...

Exodus 3:1. _Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb._ It must have been a great change for Moses, after forty years in the court of Pharaoh, to be spending another forty years in the wilderness. But it was not waste time; it required the first two periods to make Moses fit for the grand life of the last forty. He must be a prince, and he must be a shepherd, that he might be both a ruler and a shepherd to God's people, Israel. He must be much alone; he must have many solitary communings with his own heart; he must be led to feel his own weakness. And this will be no loss of time to him; he will do more in the last forty years because of the two forties thus spent in preparation. And it is not lost time that a man takes in putting on his harness before he

CHAPTER 3 THE BURNING BUSH AND THE CALL AND COMMISSION OF MOSES _ 1. The vision of the burning bush (Exodus 3:1)_ 2. Jehovah speaks and calls Moses (Exodus 3:4) 3. Moses' answer (Exodus 3:11) 4. The name revealed (Exodus 3:13) 5. The commission of Moses (Exodus 3:15) 6. The promise (Exodus 3:19) The two last verses of the preceding chapter form the introduction to the great manifestation of Jehovah in the burning bush and the call

EXODUS 2:23 TO EXODUS 3:15. THE CALL OF MOSES ( FIRST ACCOUNT). Exodus 2:23_ a_, J, Exodus 2:23 _b_ - Exodus 2:25 P, Exodus 3:1 E, Exodus 3:2_ a,_ J, Exodus 3:4_ b_, E, Exodus 3:5 J,...