Exodus 2:1-15
Spectacular Failures

A man of the house of Levi went and took a daughter of Levi as his wife. The woman conceived, and bore a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. When she could no longer hide him, she took a papyrus basket for him, and coated it with tar and with pitch. She put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river's bank. His sister stood far off, to see what would be done to him. Pharaoh's daughter came down to bathe at the river. Her maidens walked along by the riverside. She saw the basket among the reeds, and sent her handmaid to get it. She opened it, and saw the child, and behold, the baby cried. She had compassion on him, and said, "This is one of the Hebrews' children."

Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Should I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for you?"

Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Go."

The maiden went and called the child's mother. Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this child away, and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages."

The woman took the child, and nursed it. The child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, and said, "Because I drew him out of the water."

It happened in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brothers, and looked at their burdens. He saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his brothers. He looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no one, he killed the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.

He went out the second day, and behold, two men of the Hebrews were fighting with each other. He said to him who did the wrong, "Why do you strike your fellow?"

He said, "Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you plan to kill me, as you killed the Egyptian?"

Moses was afraid, and said, "Surely this thing is known." Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and lived in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well.

World English Bible

Moses was a phenomenal man of God, strong in his faith, and faithful and persuasive in leading the Hebrew people under God's leadership. As a sign of Moses' significance as an obedient servant of God, read in Matthew 17 that at the Transfiguration, Jesus talked with Moses and Elijah, all three dressed in "dazzling white" on top of a mountain.

But the characters in the Bible were human, too, and Moses' life is full of reminders that he wasn't so different from you and me. Consider this account of the beginning of Moses' life:

When Moses was born, the Hebrew people were living in Egypt, as slaves of the Egyptians. Their birth rate was so high, the Egyptians feared they would become too numerous and stage a revolution, so the Pharaoh decreed that the male Hebrew infants should be killed.

Moses' mother tried everything she could to avoid death for her baby. After she had hidden the child for as long as she could, she in divine inspiration put the baby in the river in a basket. This appears to be an act of desperation, choosing death by starvation or wild animals for her son rather than execution by the Egyptian soldiers. Then again, if his mother had expected something terrible to happen, his sister would have not been assigned to watch…

God worked wonders, in that one of the Pharaoh's daughters happened to come by at that time, find the infant, and fall in love with him. With that miracle, God brought about the way for the savior of the Hebrew people to be spared from death and trained in the best schools of the day for his later task of leading the Hebrew people!

But Moses threw it all away—his access to powerful people, his privileges as a member of the royal family, his wealth, even his reputation. He acted deceitfully, as we see in the scriptures' account that he looked both ways to see if anyone was watching before he killed an Egyptian. He probably thought himself a hero for his action, but the next day, he found out the Hebrew slaves didn't see it that way at all. He also found out his "secret" was not a secret, and he ran for his life.

He must have been certain that was the end of his story. He had messed up so badly that he had to abandon all the opportunities God had given him. There was nothing he could do in Midian but start over again as a poor wandering laborer.

We all have felt that way, to at least some degree, at some point in our lives. Situations block us from opportunities we craved, and worse, we brought those situations on ourselves. Whatever the combination of our ignorance, our arrogance, and our sin, we threw away what we had been given, and we had no one else to blame.

But we know the rest of Moses' story, from the burning bush, the plagues on the Egyptians, the parting of the Red Sea, the pillars of fire and smoke representing God's presence, the ten commandments on stone tablets, and wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. Just as God had saved the infant Moses from extermination, God saved the calling of Moses as the leader of the Hebrews from his spectacular failure. How astonishing for God to use a murderer to save the Hebrew people!

God is still in the business of cleaning up our messes, of turning our failures into God's victories. It usually isn't until we give up hope in our ability to fix our situations that we allow God to work, and we see in this story that no situation is too desperate for God. Remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 19:26, "for God, all things are possible."