The Bible is full of hidden treasures. Rich insights await those who seek God's word “between the lines.”
Exodus 2:11–15 Moses learned that injustice
is a human problem, not an Egyptian one.
The education of Moses
Vernon Law, a baseball pitcher nicknamed the “Preacher” by his teammates, once commented, “Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.” Perhaps Moses could have said the same.
When we first meet Moses as an adult in Exodus 2:11–15, we know nothing of his religious convictions. He is a convict on the run. Just prior to these verses we read about his miraculous survival of infanticide and adoption by Pharaoh’s daughter (Exodus 1:8–2:10). Thus, even before Moses says or does anything, we know he is destined for greatness. And sure enough, the books of Exodus through Deuteronomy establish Moses as one of the most significant religious leaders in history.
It is because of Moses’ greatness that we find his first deeds unsettling: “One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and saw their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsfolk. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand” (Exodus 2:11–12).
Think about the irony in this text! The man chosen to see God face to face and deliver the commandments starts out as a murderer, convicted by one of the very laws he later will bring to his people: “You shall not murder” (20:13). On a positive note, there is encouragement and grace in knowing that this great prophet begins his journey of faith as a murderer and a fugitive.
When Moses sees—as if for the first time in his life—the way his people are oppressed by the Egyptians, he awakens to the injustices of his world. He recognizes the Egyptian as the oppressor, and finds himself in compassionate solidarity with the beaten Hebrew. This leads him to an ambivalent moment of self-discovery and action: Moses, the grandson of the Pharaoh, who grew up in the lap of luxury, takes on the cause of the oppressed Hebrews, siding with the powerless. Even if we do not condone his actions, we still may understand them as a kind of “righteous anger.”
But the text goes on to teach Moses—and us—further truths about human suffering, ethnic identity and social injustice.
The second day’s lesson
If what happened on the first day upset Moses, he must have been shocked by the incident described in verse 13: “When he went out the next day, he saw two Hebrews fighting; and he said to the one who was in the wrong, ‘Why do you strike your fellow Hebrew?’”
A college religion professor of mine once commented, “The oppressed are not by default righteous.” This notion was particularly poignant, because my professor was a Jew teaching about suffering and oppression in Exodus to a lecture hall full of bright young adults who mostly thought ourselves enlightened about injustice.
My professor’s point was that every oppressed person or group is a potential oppressor of others. On the second day Moses was caught off guard to discover that a Hebrew would beat another Hebrew. He needed the lessons of both days: the first for the empowerment to fight the injustices of a tyrannical Egypt; the second for the wisdom to help the Hebrews unlearn habits engendered by the injustice they themselves had suffered. Moses learned that injustice is a human problem, not an Egyptian one.
God’s liberating law
The events in Exodus 2:11–15 foreshadow God’s liberating and compassionate laws that follow. In noticeable contrast with the legal traditions of other ancient Near Eastern cultures, the Mosaic law is remarkably egalitarian, emphasizing the impartiality of justice, and calling for fair treatment of all, “whether citizen or resident alien” (Deuteronomy 1:16–17). Writing within that Mosaic tradition, Paul insists in Galatians 3:28 that in Christ “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female” (cf. Colossians 3:11).
Isn’t it easier for us to point out the wrongs of slave owners than to recognize that slaves can commit wrongs against each other? Are we, like Moses, too busy decrying the world’s oppressors to realize that our understanding of justice may be incomplete? The Exodus text bids us to stay for one more lesson. |
