God raised up Moses to be a leader for His people. In the middle of all of the turmoil and oppression, in all of the fear-mongering and the infanticide that is going on, Moses was born.

When it comes to God’s people, there is ALWAYS someone who will rise up. But it never happens when we think it should, and it always seems like the situation is never going to improve.

But God always comes through in His time. And His time is the only time that matters.

God’s Leaders Have the Right Background to Lead

Read Exodus 2:1-10

Look what happened here! Can you see how this would be ideal for a leader of Israel to grow up in the house of Egyptians? And not just any Egyptian–this was Pharaoh’s own household!

But there are some ironies here that we will see. The advantage might not play out like we THINK it will. It will play out the way GOD makes it play out.

Because of her love, his mother hid Moses so that no one would kill him. This shows how far the community has gone.

The Israelites lived isolated from the Egyptians. (Here is a podcast directly related to the problems in this area.) The Egyptians would not want to be in their communities because not only were the Israelites shepherds (and revolting to them) but also slaves. But there would be people in and out from Egypt, especially the oppressive taskmasters.

Things Did not Look Good for Moses at First

Could it also be possible that the oppression was so great that people of Israel also began to kill babies when they were born? It is not inconceivable. But Moses’ mother, whose name was Jochebed, did not respect or fear the King’s decree and hid him away.

The situation became worse though, presumably because babies cry and people may have started asking questions when they realized she was no longer pregnant. So she created a small container from bullrushes and pitch so that it would float. Did Jochebed know that the someone would find him? Or did she fear her life and decide that she would put let the baby die on the Nile? I don’t know. His sister did not know either. She stood and watched to see what would happen to the boy.

And Pharaoh’s daughter just happened to see the small ark. She had compassion on Moses because he was crying. The sister of Moses saw what happened and asked if she could go find a nurse for the baby. And she brought Moses’ own mother to nurse him and help raise him. She weaned Moses and then brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her own.

She is the one who named him Moses. The word means, “drawn out”.

It’s the perfect name for him considering his future of being drawn out to become the great leader and founder of the nation of Israel. But he didn’t automatically become that. There were many life lessons to come first.

And this is how God operates. He raises up people not by simply calling them, but by preparing them and creating situations where they will be trusted and followed. It always happens. And that is because God is in control.

Moses Was Trained in the Ways of God

We can see in Exodus 2:11-12 that Moses clearly understood his origin. No doubt his mother spent time teaching him who he was so that he did not become too influenced and turn against his own people...