Exodus 2:16 - Meaning and Application

Moses found a settled life in Midian, just as his father Jacob had once found one in Syria (Genesis 29:2 and following). Both events should encourage us to trust God’s providence and follow where it leads. Things that seem small or accidental often turn out, later, to have been wisely arranged by God for great good. A brief, ordinary event can sometimes bring the biggest and happiest change in a person’s life.

Notice first the seven daughters of Reuel, the priest or prince of Midian. They were humble and hard-working, because they drew water for their father’s flock (Exodus 2:16). If their father was a prince, this teaches that even people of high birth and rank should still do useful work and put their strength into it. Laziness is never an honor. If their father was a priest, it also teaches that ministers’ children should especially be examples of humility and diligence.

They were also modest, and they would not bring this strange Egyptian home with them, even though he was handsome and looked like a court official, until their father called for him. Modesty is a true ornament for a woman.

Now think about Moses. He was taken for an Egyptian (Exodus 2:19), and strangers must be content to be misunderstood. Still, it is worth noting how ready he was to help Reuel’s daughters water their flocks. Though he had been raised in learning and at court, he still knew how to do this kind of work when it was needed. He had not learned from the Egyptians to look down on shepherds.

Those who have had a good education should still not be strangers to humble work. They do not know what need God may one day place them in, or what chance he may give them to help others. These young women seem to have run into some resistance in their work, more than they and their servants could handle. Some think it was shepherds from a nearby ruler; others think they were idle men pretending to be shepherds. Moses, though sad and in trouble himself, stepped in and helped them, first to drive off the shepherds and then to water the flock.

He did this not only out of kindness to Reuel’s daughters, though that was fitting enough, but also because of what was in his heart. He loved justice, and he wanted to defend people who were being wronged, as far as he could. He also loved to do good. Wherever God places us, we should want to be useful there. When we cannot do all the good we would like, we must be ready to do the good we can. The one who is faithful in small things will be trusted with more.

Moses was also well rewarded for his helpfulness. When the young women told their father about the kindness they had received from this stranger, Reuel sent for Moses, invited him into his house, and treated him kindly (Exodus 2:20). In this way God repays kindness shown to his children. Such service will never lose its reward. Moses soon won the respect and affection of this prince of Midian, who took him into his home and, in time, gave him one of his daughters in marriage (Exodus 2:21). She bore him a son, whom he named Gershom, meaning that he was a stranger there (Exodus 2:22). The name reminded Moses that if God ever gave him a true home of his own, he should remember the land where he had lived as a foreigner.

This settling in Midian was arranged by God for two reasons. First, it gave Moses shelter for the moment. God finds hiding places for his people in their day of trouble. More than that, he himself becomes a little sanctuary to them and keeps them safe, whether on earth or in heaven. Second, it prepared Moses for the great work still ahead of him.

His life in Midian, where he kept his father-in-law’s flock because he had none of his own, trained him in ways he would later need. It taught him hardship and poverty, so he learned how to go without as well as how to have enough. God often humbles those he intends to lift up. It also taught him reflection and devotion. Egypt had prepared him as a scholar, a gentleman, a statesman, and a soldier, and all of that would later be useful. But he still lacked one thing, and Egypt could not supply it.

The man who would do everything by God’s direct revelation needed long experience of living in close fellowship with God. The quiet and loneliness of a shepherd’s life in Midian helped him learn that. By his earlier training, he was prepared to rule in Jeshurun, that is, among God’s people. By his later, simpler life, he was prepared to speak with God on Mount Horeb, near the mountain where he spent much of his time. Those who know what it is to be alone with God in holy exercises know a better joy than Moses ever knew at Pharaoh’s court.