The God who sees and sends: Moses from the Nile to the bush

1These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: ²Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; ³Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; ⁴Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. ⁵The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all, including Joseph, who was already in Egypt. ⁶Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, ⁷but the Israelites were fruitful and increased rapidly; they multiplied and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them. ⁸Then a new king, who did not know Joseph, came to power in Egypt. ⁹“Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become too numerous and too powerful for us. ¹⁰Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase even more; and if a war breaks out, they may join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country.” ¹¹So the Egyptians appointed taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor. As a result, they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. ¹²But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and flourished; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. ¹³They worked the Israelites ruthlessly ¹⁴and made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar, and with all kinds of work in the fields. Every service they imposed was harsh. ¹⁵Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, ¹⁶“When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them on the birthstools. If the child is a son, kill him; but if it is a daughter, let her live.” ¹⁷The midwives, however, feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had instructed; they let the boys live. ¹⁸So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?” ¹⁹The midwives answered Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before a midwife arrives.” ²⁰So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied and became even more numerous. ²¹And because the midwives feared God, He gave them families of their own. ²²Then Pharaoh commanded all his people: “Every son born to the Hebrews you must throw into the Nile, but every daughter you may allow to live.”

2Now a man of the house of Levi married a daughter of Levi, ²and she conceived and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him for three months. ³But when she could no longer hide him, she got him a papyrus basket and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in the basket and set it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. ⁴And his sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. ⁵Soon the daughter of Pharaoh went down to bathe in the Nile, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. And when she saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her maidservant to retrieve it. ⁶When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the little boy was crying. So she had compassion on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew children.” ⁷Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call one of the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” ⁸“Go ahead,” Pharaoh’s daughter told her. And the girl went and called the boy’s mother. ⁹Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.” So the woman took the boy and nursed him. ¹⁰When the child had grown older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses and explained, “I drew him out of the water.” ¹¹One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people and observed their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. ¹²After looking this way and that and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand. ¹³The next day Moses went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you attacking your companion?” ¹⁴But the man replied, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you planning to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “This thing I have done has surely become known.” ¹⁵When Pharaoh heard about this matter, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, where he sat down beside a well. ¹⁶Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. ¹⁷And when some shepherds came along and drove them away, Moses rose up to help them and watered their flock. ¹⁸When the daughters returned to their father Reuel, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?” ¹⁹“An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds,” they replied. “He even drew water for us and watered the flock.” ²⁰“So where is he?” their father asked. “Why did you leave the man behind? Invite him to have something to eat.” ²¹Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. ²²And she gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.” ²³After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned and cried out under their burden of slavery, and their cry for deliverance from bondage ascended to God. ²⁴So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ²⁵God saw the Israelites and took notice.

3Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. ²There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from within a bush. Moses saw the bush ablaze with fire, but it was not consumed. ³So Moses thought, “I must go over and see this marvelous sight. Why is the bush not burning up?” ⁴When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called out to him from within the bush, “Moses, Moses!” “Here I am,” he answered. ⁵“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” ⁶Then He said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. ⁷The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the affliction of My people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their oppressors, and I am aware of their sufferings. ⁸I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. ⁹And now the cry of the Israelites has reached Me, and I have seen how severely the Egyptians are oppressing them. ¹⁰Therefore, go! I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring My people the Israelites out of Egypt.” ¹¹But Moses asked God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” ¹²“I will surely be with you,” God said, “and this will be the sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, all of you will worship God on this mountain.” ¹³Then Moses asked God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ What should I tell them?” ¹⁴God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” ¹⁵God also told Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is how I am to be remembered in every generation. ¹⁶Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—has appeared to me and said: I have surely attended to you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt. ¹⁷And I have promised to bring you up out of your affliction in Egypt, into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.’ ¹⁸The elders of Israel will listen to what you say, and you must go with them to the king of Egypt and tell him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now please let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness, so that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.’ ¹⁹But I know that the king of Egypt will not allow you to go unless a mighty hand compels him. ²⁰So I will stretch out My hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders I will perform among them. And after that, he will release you. ²¹And I will grant this people such favor in the sight of the Egyptians that when you leave, you will not go away empty-handed. ²²Every woman shall ask her neighbor and any woman staying in her house for silver and gold jewelry and clothing, and you will put them on your sons and daughters. So you will plunder the Egyptians.”

4Then Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to my voice? For they may say, ‘The LORD has not appeared to you.’” ²And the LORD asked him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied. ³“Throw it on the ground,” said the LORD. So Moses threw it on the ground, and it became a snake, and he ran from it. ⁴“Stretch out your hand and grab it by the tail,” the LORD said to Moses, who reached out his hand and caught the snake, and it turned back into a staff in his hand. ⁵“This is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.” ⁶Furthermore, the LORD said to Moses, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, his hand was leprous, white as snow. ⁷“Put your hand back inside your cloak,” said the LORD. So Moses put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his skin. ⁸And the LORD said, “If they refuse to believe you or heed the witness of the first sign, they may believe that of the second. ⁹But if they do not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. Then the water you take from the Nile will become blood on the ground.” ¹⁰“Please, Lord,” Moses replied, “I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since You have spoken to Your servant, for I am slow of speech and tongue.” ¹¹And the LORD said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Or who makes the mute or the deaf, the sighted or the blind? Is it not I, the LORD? ¹²Now go! I will help you as you speak, and I will teach you what to say.” ¹³But Moses replied, “Please, Lord, send someone else.” ¹⁴Then the anger of the LORD burned against Moses, and He said, “Is not Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well, and he is now on his way to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. ¹⁵You are to speak to him and put the words in his mouth. I will help both of you to speak, and I will teach you what to do. ¹⁶He will speak to the people for you. He will be your spokesman, and it will be as if you were God to him. ¹⁷But take this staff in your hand so you can perform signs with it.” ¹⁸Then Moses went back to his father-in-law Jethro and said to him, “Please let me return to my brothers in Egypt to see if they are still alive.” “Go in peace,” Jethro replied. ¹⁹Now the LORD had said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who sought to kill you are dead.” ²⁰So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey, and headed back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand. ²¹The LORD instructed Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders that I have put within your power. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. ²²Then tell Pharaoh that this is what the LORD says: ‘Israel is My firstborn son, ²³and I told you to let My son go so that he may worship Me. But since you have refused to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son!’” ²⁴Now at a lodging place along the way, the LORD met Moses and was about to kill him. ²⁵But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched it to Moses’ feet. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said. ²⁶So the LORD let him alone. (When she said, “bridegroom of blood,” she was referring to the circumcision.) ²⁷Meanwhile, the LORD had said to Aaron, “Go and meet Moses in the wilderness.” So he went and met Moses at the mountain of God and kissed him. ²⁸And Moses told Aaron everything the LORD had sent him to say, and all the signs He had commanded him to perform. ²⁹Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the Israelites, ³⁰and Aaron relayed everything the LORD had said to Moses. And Moses performed the signs before the people, ³¹and they believed. And when they heard that the LORD had attended to the Israelites and had seen their affliction, they bowed down and worshiped.