...God is always with you...

11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and saw their forced labour. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsfolk. 12 He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 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?’ 14 He answered, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?’ Then Moses was afraid and thought, ‘Surely the thing is known.’ 15 When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. 

But Moses fled from Pharaoh. He settled in the land of Midian, and sat down by a well. 16 The priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to draw water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. 17 But some shepherds came and drove them away. Moses got up and came to their defence and watered their flock. 18 When they returned to their father Reuel, he said, ‘How is it that you have come back so soon today?’ 19 They said, ‘An Egyptian helped us against the shepherds; he even drew water for us and watered the flock.’ 20 He said to his daughters, ‘Where is he? Why did you leave the man? Invite him to break bread.’ 21 Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah in marriage. 22 She bore a son, and he named him Gershom; for he said, ‘I have been an alien residing in a foreign land.’

23 After a long time the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their slavery, and cried out. Out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God. 24 God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25 God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them” Exodus 2:11-22.

Dear friends, this part of the narrative takes the story of Moses from his own childhood to the birth of his (first) child, from living as a foreigner in an urban Egyptian royal household to living as a foreigner in a rural Midianite priestly household, and from the privilege of becoming a prince of the greatest nation of his world to the obscurity of criminal exile in the Sinai wilderness. It also brings us to the point of preparation for the exodus, with its concluding declaration by Moses of being “an alien in a foreign land” (v. 22).

But this story has many turns and twists, especially when Moses was in danger of death at various times by various persons. The earlier story of his rescue as a baby reflects a general attempt to kill Israelite male children, Moses included. Now he is sought for murder by an enraged Pharaoh, since testimony during the investigation of the crime pointed directly to Moses, and the king could hardly have been unmoved by the implications of a turncoat Hebrew-raised-as-an-Egyptian now killing Egyptian work supervisors! Later, Moses would be threatened with death from his own people (see, for example, Exodus 17:4), and his first born son, threatened by God himself (see Exodus 4:24–26).

But it’s the last three verses that are so important by returning our attention to Egypt, where God's people are trapped in crushing slavery and where God will on their behalf unleash His mighty deliverance. But pay attention to five important assertions that are made, each bearing implications for the events that follow.

1st, the pharaoh who sought Moses' life had died. 

2nd, the change in government produced no relief for the Israelites, whose painful slavery continued without pause. Their misery is emphasized noticeably by four terms, two of them verbs (“groaned,” “cried out”) and two nouns (“cry,” “groaning”).

3rd, the people of Israel began to pray. That is the point made by the language in v. 23 (“cried out … their cry … went up to God”) and v. 24 (“God heard their groaning”). This description of their prayer is central. Later, in Deut 26:7, Moses summarized: “Then we cried out to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression.” The exodus did not come about simply because people were in trouble; no, exodus came about as the result of a prayer of lament for rescue to the only one who could actually do something about it.   

4th, God “remembered his covenant.” The word  (“covenant”) occurs many times in Genesis; however, this is its first time in Exodus. The covenant in question is the “Abraham covenant” because it was made initially to Abraham and then simply renewed, without change in essentials, to both Isaac and Jacob.

5th, God was closely interested in his people and in the process of making himself known to them. Moses now mentioned God again for the first time since the account of the midwives in 1:17–20 — not because God had been disinterested or irrelevant but as a way of heightening the fact that God alone was the Israelite's hope in this situation.

What I hope you will se that God is always active in your life, even though the current events don’t always reveal God’s present activity. Remember that you might not always always be aware of God’s presence and actions in your life, but like Moses, we can always be assured that God is actively present in your life.

Take time today in prayer and open your heart to trusting in God’s active presence in your life.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.