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Scripture does not tell us a great deal; indeed it tells us nothing about young Moses’ early days in Pharaoh’s household growing up as his grandson. But it is a reasonable inference that he would have played at, if not, on the Pharaoh’s knee and have the run of the house in his early days. As he grew older he would have been taught to fight with spear, sword and javelin; and he would have had access to the King’s own library, art and literature. As he grew older too, he would have seen his face in the mirror and found out that his was not a typical Egyptian face; but then again maybe his striking good looks overshadowed if not entirely concealed his Jewish ancestry. In addition he would have seen his suffering brethren and marked the physical similarity he had with them, and would have been left in no doubt that he was indeed a Hebrew. Then one day it all came to a head. He saw an Egyptian smiting one of his fellow Hebrews; and after looking around to make sure that no one was watching, he slew the Egyptian, one of Pharaoh’s servants and hid the body in the sand. Well no one saw him he thought; but someone did see him; not one of the Pharaoh’s soldiers, or one of his servants or one of his spies; but one of Moses very brethren out of regard for whom he had acted. So it came to pass that the very next day Moses went out and saw two Hebrews fighting, and he stepped in the middle and verbally chastised the aggressor. “Why are you beating up on your fellow,” Moses asked him, whereupon the aggressor turned on Moses and asked him, “Who made you a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me the way you killed the Egyptian?” Upon hearing that, Moses realized that his secret was no secret, and felt it was only a matter of time before the matter would reach the ears of the Pharaoh, whereupon his own life would be in grave danger. Sure enough, the Pharaoh did hear of the matter and wanted to kill Moses; but be this time, Moses had fled the country. More

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The Birth of Moses While the Children of Israel were laboring under the yoke of their hard task masters, and while the King’s edict was still in force whereby all the male children of the Hebrews were to be killed or cast into the river if they were born alive, a child was born to one of the daughters of Levi; and the child’s mother looked upon him and seeing he was an exceptionally beautiful child, hid him away in order to conceal his birth. In course of time however, the mother decided that the time had come to try and spirit the child away, as she could no longer keep him hidden; so she built an ark, and sealed the bottom thereof and placed the child in it and put the ark in among the reeds at the side of the river. The mother’s intention and her hope was that the little ark would somehow be borne safely away by the river and taken to some place beyond the jurisdiction of the Pharaoh; but while his sister was watching from afar, she saw that one of Pharaoh’s daughter’s maids had while walking along the river’s bank discovered the ark. The maid then took the ark to Pharaoh’s daughter and when she opened it, she found the child therein. As the child cried, Pharaoh’s daughter had compassion on it, even though she knew it was a child of the Hebrews. Pharaoh’s daughter then commanded that one of the Hebrew women be fetched to nurse the child and the messenger went and brought back the child’s very own mother. Then Pharaoh’s daughter contracted with the mother of the child that she should nurse and care for the child for wages. So the woman took the child and nursed it. When the child grew older, the mother brought the child to Pharaoh’s daughter and she accepted it as her very own son; and she called his name Moses, because she had taken him out of the water. More

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The new King of Egypt, as has been said above was troubled by the huge horde that the 70 descendants of Israel had become. The King felt they were a potential threat for said he, “Less as they multiply and in the event of an outbreak of war they should side with the enemy and by so doing overcome us and take over our land.” The solution, therefore, was to divide them up into small work groups and set taskmasters over each group and to give them onerous task to perform. To this end the Israelites were used as hard laborers to build cities for the Pharaoh. Overworking them and underfeeding them the King felt sure, was bound to stunt their growth. However, the more the Israelites were afflicted, the more they increased and grew in every respect. Seeing the way they continued to prosper, the Egyptians made their tasks even more rigorous; but nothing seemed to work. The king had an idea; if hard work could not stop or kill these people what about genocide? The adults were needed for the king’s work so he resorted to limited genocide, that is to say, killing only the infants born to the Hebrews. Therefore, the king gave orders to the two Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to kill all the male children born to the Hebrew women; but the midwives feared God and did not do as the King commanded them. When the King saw that sons of Hebrew women were being spared and not being killed as the king had commanded, he called the two midwives and demanded an explanation. Accordingly they had an answer prepared for the King. They told the king that the Hebrew women were not like Egyptian women. The Hebrew women, they told the King, were strong and would born their children without help of midwife; so that by the time they got the news that a birth was on its way, the child would be long born before the midwife could arrive at the scene, by which time it was too late to smother it. And so it was that God blessed and prospered the two Hebrew midwives because they had acted out of fear of God. And the Hebrews continued to grow into larger and larger numbers. At that stage the King became desperate; whereas the midwives were to kill the infant males while being delivered, to make them look like still-born births, the king now ordered all his people that every Hebrew male child that is born should be cast into the river, saving only the female new born only. More

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The story so far was taken from, and was a synopsis of the Book of Genesis. It does not assume to be an authoritative overview of the whole or even a part of that Book. It is merely a summary, and a brief summary at that. As we have seen Genesis is a Book of Beginnings. It tells of the Origination of the Nations generally, and the Origination of the Jewish nation in particular. Genesis may be regarded as the anchor in a relay race; it is the foundation for all the books that follow. Its three main purposes may be seen as (i) historical, (ii) doctrinal, and (iii) Christological. It is Historical in that it is the basis of knowledge of all human history from Eden to the present day. It is Doctrinal as it shows clearly the doctrine of God’s creative will and purpose over all men and all things, and also how He is able to superintend and protect those He chooses to be the beneficiaries of His providence and power. It is Christological in that Christ is seen foreshadowed throughout, including, the one who would bruise the serpent’s head, the scepter that would not depart from Judah; the betrayed brother, the suffering servant, sold for pieces of silver , the son loved of his father, who suffered for and forgave those who wronged him. So to continue, the story focuses briefly on the family of Israel living in Egypt after the deaths of Israel and Joseph, and expanding and prospering and growing exponentially to the point that the new King of Egypt not knowing Joseph, he been long dead, became very concerned about these peculiar people who were growing like a wild fire in his country; a people not like unto his own; a people who worshipped a strange God who lives in the sky; a God who seem to have the power to prosper them above all other people; and so the new King was alarmed and decided it was time to do something about them. This is the subject of the second Book, the Book of Exodus. More.

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Without stretching the imagination or the understanding, it should be evident that between Adam and Joseph, human history had completed a complete cycle; turned 360 degrees, as it it were from the cradle of Eden to the grave in Egypt. Adam was placed by his father in a cradle, in the garden of Eden where he fed and nurtured and communed with him; and Adam’s descendent Joseph died in Egypt and was placed in a coffin there completing the cycle of life. In between there were many important names and personalities which would be too many to mention here; but none of them quite like the man Joseph. There were men such as Cain and Abel and Seth, Adam’s sons and after that there were such men as Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, and of course Noah’s great grandson Nimrod the son of Cush his grandson. The next important name for our purposes is of course that of Abraham whom God called out of Ur of the Chaldees and promised to make a great nation and to make his name great. And out of Abraham came forth Ishmael although he was not the son of the promise and then Isaac who was. Then out of Isaac came forth Esau and Jacob, and here again the firstborn was not the one chosen of God, but the younger Jacob. As we have seen, Jacob whose name God changed to Israel had 12 sons the 11th of whom was Joseph, and it is to Joseph’s life, his fortunes and misfortunes, his ups and his downs, his humiliation and his glory that we now must turn our attention as we close this present chapter. It is often said by scholars, that Joseph was a type of Christ, a prefiguration of Messiah that would come at a later time. There are scores of similarities between the life of Joseph and that of Messiah; but just a few illustrations will serve to make the case. Parallels between Joseph and Jesus. Their father loved them dearly. Both were shepherds tending their father’s sheep. Both were sent by their father to their brothers. Both were hated by their brothers who plotted to kill them. Both were tempted and resisted temptation. Both were taken to Egypt Both had their robes taken. Both sold for twenty and thirty pieces of silver respectively. Both were bound in chains. Both were falsely accused. Both were confined with 2 other prisoners, one of whom was saved and the other not. Both were 30 years old at the beginning of public life. Both were exalted after suffering. Both forgave those who wronged them. Both saved their nation. In either case what men did to them for evil God turned to good.

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Having buried his father Jacob, Joseph and the whole company, including his own brothers and their family returned to Egypt. After that Joseph’s brothers began to fear him. They said among themselves that it was possible that Joseph had only shown kindness to them for their father Israel’s sake; but that now he was dead and gone, surely Joseph would turn on them, and perhaps take out vengeance on them for the evil they had done to him. So fearful of Joseph were his brothers that they did not have the courage to go to him in person; their guilty consciences continued to plague them; so they sent a messenger to Joseph to remind him that their father while he was yet alive, sought to intercede for them, and had even instructed them to go to Joseph and confess that they had done him great evil, and to ask him to forgive them their trespasses against him. Even after their emissary had gone to Joseph, they themselves appeared and bowed down and knelt before Joseph and prayed for his forgiveness; and when Joseph saw them prostrating themselves before him, he wept. Joseph also responded and told them that he was not God, neither could he take the place of God; and as such they had nothing to fear from him. It is true, he reminded them that they intended evil against him; but God turned that very evil around for the good of many people. Therefore he comforted them, “I will nourish and sustain you and your little ones;” you have nothing to fear from me, he told them. Thereafter, Joseph and his father’s household and his brethren lived in Egypt. And Joseph lived to a ripe old age and saw the children of his sons unto the third generation. And when he was one hundred and ten years old, Joseph said unto his brethren “I die, and God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land, and into the land that he swore to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. “As I live,” Joseph swore to his brethren, “God will surely visit you and you will carry up my bones from here.” And so Joseph died and was embalmed, and was buried in a coffin in Egypt. Do join me tomorrow for a summary of the lives of the people of God from Eden to the coffin in Egypt.

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After Joseph’s one hundred and ten days of mourning had past, he petitioned the Pharaoh that he should allow him to go to the burial place of his ancestors to bury his father there in accordance with his father’s dying wish; and the Pharaoh consented and told him, go and bury your father. And Joseph went up to bury his father, and with him went all of Pharaoh’s servants, and all the elders of his house and all the elders of the people of the land of Egypt. With him too, were his and his father’s own household and his brethren, the little ones and the flocks only were left behind. Accordingly, then, the only person of importance left behind in Egypt, who did not attend Joseph’s father’s funeral was the Pharaoh himself. Clearly the Pharaoh loved and had great regard for Joseph and his father; but it would seem that while it was fitting that due reverence be paid to a man of such high esteem such as Israel was, that though he was head of household, Israel was not then a state, but a tribe; as such he was not head of State, and it would seem that even way back then, protocol was that heads of State only attended the funerals of heads of State. Even so, the Pharaoh made sure that he was well represented, by causing his servants and elders to attend. The procession that left Egypt, then, to attend Israel’s funeral was a great company of horses and horsemen and chariots. Arriving at a certain threshing floor, which is beyond the Jordon they, decided to stop there. This place was in the land of Canaan, and there the whole company engaged in a period of solemn mourning lasting over a period of seven days. And after the final period of mourning was over, Israel’s sons bore their father to his final resting place; and there they buried him.