Exodus 2:10 And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said… I. THE WONDERFUL CLEARNESS OF BIBLE PORTRAITS. Some of the pictures of the men whom the world has united in calling masters are well-nigh indistinguishable. They are like an old manuscript which you must study out word by word. II. THE SUPERIOR DIGNITY AND GLORY OF THE HUMAN LIFE. Where now is the city Cain builded? What about the civil movements of that far-off day? its political revolutions? Who cares any thing about them? Learn from this, that it is human life fashioned by the Divine Artificer, and in His own image, which is the noblest thing altogether in this world. III. THE BIRTH AND TRAINING OF MOSES. 1. The time of the birth. Pharaoh's Joseph had gone. His bones only were now in Egypt — a poor part of any man. "Every son that is born of the Hebrews ye shall cast into the river." And so Moses was doomed before he was born. "From his mother's womb to the waters of the Nile," ran the decree. And Moses did go to the Nile, but in God's way — not in Pharaoh's — as we shall see. 2. The goodliness, the beauty of the child. An infant child. Is there anything more beautiful? Look at its little hands. Can any sculptor match them? Behold the light of its eyes. Does any flower of earth open up with such a glory? Look upon the rose, the lily, the violet, as they first open their eyes upon this world. Ah I there is no such light in any of them. A man is far gone — a woman farther — when the child which comes to them — the immortal clasp of their two hearts — is not beautiful in their sight. Earth has no honour so great as the parentage of an immortal; heaven no higher dignity. But in Moses' case beauty was to reach unto an end nobler than itself. It was to fill the mother's heart with a subtler strategy, with a bolder daring. It was to fascinate the eyes of a princess. It was to work the deliverance of a mighty nation. So beauty, when not abused, ever beyond itself reaches unto a nobler end. And this beauty of the sunset, of the landscape and the flower, fruits in the human life. It emphasizes purity, it lifts up towards God. Ah, mothers t be not so anxious to keep your child from the looking-glass as to teach her that she holds a noble gift from God in that face, in that form, of hers. 3. The exposed and endangered condition of the babe. For a while the mother hid him; hid him from the eyes of Pharaoh and his minions. But the powers that be have many eyes. "And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein, and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink." Did ever mother launch such a craft before? Ay, often. Every day they do it. Every day, every hour, some mother is committing her child to the currents of this world, than which the waters of the Nile were not more cruel. Think of harlotry, the painted devil. Think of intemperance, the destroying fiend. Think of dishonour, the consuming fire. Are not these worse than all the crocodiles that ever opened jaw in river of earth? And yet must they do it! Upon the angry surface of this world's danger must mothers launch their hopes; their only consolation being — God is strong, and a Father to defend. I can imagine the mother of Moses weaving her little ark of bulrushes. Love makes her hands to be full of skill as ever shipbuilder's were. So mothers now. The ark which they make is the covenant with their God; its lining, the world-resisting element of a mother's prayers; and then with eyes that cannot see for tears, and with heart-strings breaking, they push forth their little craft — their heart's hope — their world. And now may God defend the boy, for the mother may not — cannot longer. IV. THE TRAINING OF MOSES. Note the elements of this. 1. He had his mother. Sure I am, if Pharaoh's daughter could have glanced into that home just then, she would have thought that she had happened upon a most excellent nurse. "Very affectionate, surely," she would have said, "and I hope she has judgment." Yes, princess; never fear. Your nurse has excellent judgment, too. Her strange love will make her very wise. This was the first element of Moses' training. A human life, like any other life, needs training. And for this work there is no one like the mother. Interest makes her wise. Love makes her unwearying. Were the Israelites accustomed to point to that "hated throne"? If so, all this story would filter through a mother's heart into the mind of the growing child. She would tell it him as he lay upon her lap. She would sing it to him as she rocked him to sleep. Talk it to him as he played about the house. The sympathetic instinct between mother and child would be a syphon, through which, with every hour of the day, would flow the story of Israel's bitter wrong. And did the promise of the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and Jacob linger in the darkened minds of their enslaved descendants, keeping hope alive there, and the expectation of deliverance? If so, with this hope the mother would feed the mind and fill the heart of her growing boy. With the word freedom, she would daily stir his ambition. 2. His home in the palace of Pharaoh. "And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son." He was to break the chains of slavery, not to be bound by them. Therefore he must be lifted up to the greatness of his work. Two most necessary elements of preparation he gained by going into the home of the Pharaoh. The first was knowledge. Moses, we read, was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. And this he got as the adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter. Good impulses, a noble spirit, is not enough. Knowledge is power, and necessary power, save when God works by miracles. Therefore Moses was homed in the palace. He goes to study the throne which he is yet to shake. Out of Pharaoh's armoury he will gird himself for the coming contest with Pharaoh. His residence at court would serve to impress him with the immense power with which the Hebrews contended, and the heel of which was upon their necks. And yet he must know this, or he will not be prepared for his work. 3. The desert. "He that believeth shall not make haste." So he that worketh for God shall not make haste. These forty years had taught him something. His first failure had taught him something. So had his desert life, in which he had been alone with God. Moses at eighty years of age, in his own estimation, was not nearly so much of a man as at forty. So of all growing men always. There are many now in the world, not yet out of their teens, who are a deal wiser and mightier, and fitter to cope with error and wrong, than they will be twenty years hence; that is, provided they keep on growing these twenty years. But God has a school ready for such (that is, if they are worth the schooling), and one which they will not be long in entering. It is the school of mistakes — of failure; the school in which many a man spells out this lesson, "What a big fool I was!" This was the training which God now gives to Moses. He allows him, in the impulse of youth, to strike a blow, and then gives him forty years in the desert t.o meditate upon its folly.In conclusion, note some of the great lessons which our subject teaches. 1. We learn how low, oftentimes, God permits the true cause to sink. The world has often seen the lust stronghold of human rights defended by the might of one solitary arm. So it was here. Yes, Israel's hope floated in the little ark of bulrushes among the flags upon the river's brink. And yet Israel's cause was safe enough. With faith in God, we need never fear. Suppose there is left but one human life for defence. God and such a one are always a majority. 2. We learn the measureless importance of one single human life. God often throws into the balance of the moral world a single life, to keep it even. Think of this, ye teachers, and count no life committed to your care common or unclean. 3. The grand work of man-building. This is what God, the Great Architect., is for ever engaged in. It is that which some — yes, all of us, are called to do. Time itself, with all its centuries, is only one of many hands engaged in this sublime work. Everything else in this world, all sorrow, all joy, all wars, all peace, all slavery, all liberty, all learning, all art, is only so much scaffolding. The slavery of the Hebrews; the cruel despotism of Pharaoh; the mother's love and the mother's fear; the princess, the Nile; ay, even the bulrushes which grew by its brink — all these were used of God in building up His servant, the man Moses. Up, up, upward unto God, rises the immortal man. His are the glory and power of an endless life. 4. We learn how easy it is for God to fashion a human life to suit His purpose. "To the Nile with it," shouts Pharaoh from his throne. "To the Nile," responds the power of Egypt. "Yes," says God, "to the Nile; but from it too; from it, unto a home, unto the palace, unto the headship of a mighty nation, unto Sinai, unto Pisgah." In the very palace of the Pharaohs, God nurses a life for the overthrow of the Pharaohs. With such delightful facility does God model and mould human life. (S. S. Mitchell, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water. |
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