And when he was cast out, the daughter of Pharaoh took him up, and brought him up for herself [to be] for a son.
Moses was born under a royal death sentence, put out to die, and then raised as a son by the daughter of the king who signed it. What is a position like that for?
The phrase "when he was exposed" reads "cast out" in older translations. One writer traces the decree behind it, and names what kept Moses hidden for the three months before it:
The enemy had raised up a suitable instrument, another king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. Suffering became the portion of Israel, and a deadly blow was aimed at the promise in the person of their babies. The king's command was to expose them so that they would not survive. At that critical moment Moses was born, beautiful in God's sight, with a glorious career ahead of him, however dark its beginnings. He too came under the sentence of death. After three months of care in his father's house, he was cast out like the rest. But we have the highest authority for saying that his parents hid him for those three months "by faith," whatever their natural affection (Hebrews 11:23). "They were not afraid of the king's edict."
Pharaoh's own house took the child in. One writer reads this as the plan against Israel turned back on itself:
Who would have thought it? The man who had said, "If it is a son, you shall kill him," and again, "Every son that is born you shall cast into the Nile," had one of those very sons in his own court — and such a son. The devil's own weapon defeated him. He was using Pharaoh to frustrate the purpose of God. And God used that same Pharaoh to nourish and bring up Moses, who was to be His instrument in overthrowing the power of Satan.
"As her own son" was not a figure of speech. Adoption into that house carried a future with it:
From that time Pharaoh's daughter claimed the child, "and he became her son." She raised him from infancy to manhood as her own son. And what was the result? By the age of forty he was within direct reach of the throne of Egypt, with every prospect of taking it. Pharaoh had no son, and Pharaoh's daughter had no children. If she died, her adopted son would without doubt have come to the throne of Egypt and ruled the leading nation in the world at that moment.
The rescue that gave Moses a palace took him from the woman who bore him. One writer refuses to read that home as faith's reward:
While they had faith they hid him — they kept their beautiful child. At the end of three months they cast him out; they "could hide him no longer." Had they not come to the end of their faith?… But a home in Pharaoh's house is not presented to us as an answer to faith… One sees the desire of the heart granted — the child's life; but see what the mother loses. She is a hired nurse to Pharaoh's daughter. When the child is grown she loses him, and another woman names her child and has him for her son.… Faith was powerful as long as faith was there. When faith was gone, God's mercy was there, and it showed more clearly than in the day of faith.
Moses later refused the title this verse gave him. That refusal sets faith against every argument built on providence:
Providence had placed him in a distinguished position, unsought and unexpected. Educated to match it, he was "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," and mighty in words and deeds. Why not use his ability and his wisdom? Why not use the influence his high rank gave him, and his nearness to the most princely people in the realm? Why not wisely and thankfully turn such obvious gifts of providence to the service of God's people?… But no! Faith at once disposes of all such reasoning built on providences.
One writer names what that path would have proved:
But no: this would have been man's method and the world's wisdom, to the praise of Moses' genius and prudence, and in no way a foreshadowing of Christ.
- Cast out — Moses came under the same death sentence as every Hebrew boy. His parents hid him three months by faith, not fearing the king's edict.
- Taken up — rescue came from the very house that issued the decree. The plot against God's people preserved their deliverer.
- Brought up — as her own son, Moses grew up within reach of Egypt's throne. Its learning and influence were his for the taking.
- Given up — his mother gained his life but lost her son. One writer reads the palace as mercy after faith had run out, not as faith's reward.
- Walked out — providence carried him in, but faith led him out. Refusing the title made Moses a picture of Christ rather than a monument to his own genius.
And Moses was instructed in all [the] wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds.
Stephen is on trial for his life. Instead of defending himself, he retells Israel's story. Here he stops at the young Moses, raised in Pharaoh's palace with the finest education the world could offer. Do natural ability and training make a person fit for God's work?
Stephen credits Moses with words and deeds, not just learning.
Stephen said: "Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds." This tells us that he was what the world would call a man of genius. Many men are good talkers — they have gifts of speech, but are hardly men of action. Other men show their ability in what they do. Their actions are wise and powerful, but their powers of speech are small. The man who shines in both areas is a rarity.
Egypt's learning was no small thing, and it set Moses up for a brilliant future.
Moses was plainly a very clever man. He was "instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," and the Egyptians were not fools. It would puzzle our builders to do what they did — to put up the Pyramids… He was a scientific, accomplished, intellectual man; but more than that, "he was mighty in his words and deeds."… That man had everything in his favour. He had the world before him. He was not only the king's favourite, and the adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter, but was within reach of the throne.
Everything looked ready. God sent His man away for forty years instead.
Nature would say, What a fitted, prepared instrument God now has at hand! But this is exactly the thought that falls short of the mind of God. He will not, and does not, accept the qualifications of Egypt. He sends Moses to school (as we would say) for forty years. There he is fitted and prepared and qualified for the work God has for him to do. God's instruments must learn in God's school. There is no buying rank in His army; everyone must rise from the ranks.
The work ahead needed what no education could supply.
All this learning was of no use to him as the deliverer God chose. It was of no use to him as the king in Jeshurun (a name for Israel), guiding the course of the people of God in the wilderness. The "wisdom of Egypt" would have been baffled to make a way through the Red Sea, and had no resource at all to meet the demands of the wilderness. Egypt's learning could not have provided the ability to bring water out of the rock or provide the manna to meet the needs of that vast host in the wilderness.
Moses was well able to weigh his own prospects. That is what makes his choice remarkable.
No one can deny that Moses was capable of rightly judging the situation. He was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds. Yet he looked, not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. His eye was on the kingdom of God. He waited for the Messiah. He knew that the purposes of God centre in Christ, and that Israel was their inner circle on earth. So his affections were not with the court of Egypt, nor on the most brilliant future it could open to a man of his energy.
There is a puzzle here. The man Stephen calls mighty in words later told God he could not speak well. One writer explains it this way:
Knowing something of human nature in ourselves, we think it was not that he had really lost his powers of mighty speech. Instead, the forty years of discipline in the desert had completely broken his self-confidence. But he had also become taken up with himself, and so he was unwilling to answer God's call and commission.
None of this shuts ordinary people out of God's service.
Few of us have had an education like this, but then very few are needed for such great work. The point here is not secular education, but ability for the particular service God has appointed for us… It does not matter how clever we are by nature. If God is not using us, our efforts will be in vain. Nor does it matter how simple we may be. If God uses us, we will do His will. The question is, Are we using what God has given us to serve Him?
- Gifted. Moses had learning, speech and action together — a rare mix in one man. And the wisdom he learned in Egypt was real wisdom, not primitive.
- Positioned. That training put him within reach of Pharaoh's throne, with the world in front of him.
- Rejected. God did not accept Egypt's qualifications for His work. He sent Moses to His own school for forty years.
- Powerless. Egypt's wisdom could not open the Red Sea, draw water from the rock, or feed a nation in the desert.
- Redirected. Moses knew what he was giving up, and still fixed his eye on the unseen kingdom of God. The question left for us is whether we are using what God has given us to serve Him.