Moses Pays Attention

Exodus 2:11-17

Moses is watching his people, the Hebrews, work. He is overcome by the reality that all of them are enslaved, working as forced laborers. Exodus 1:8-11 notes the Egyptians oppressed the Hebrews in order to control their population and power. As Moses is paying attention to this unjust exploitation, he sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew person. Unable to stand by idly, Moses saves the Hebrew, killing the Egyptian and hiding him in the sand (2:12).

We might read this brief and deadly encounter and think, “Well, it’s great that he saved his brother, the Hebrew, but did he have to kill the Egyptian? Was that necessary?” This is a crucial question when we encounter violence of any type in biblical stories. We may be tempted to skip over such violent incidences or ignore them entirely because we honor Moses as a great hero—one who becomes aware of his people’s suffering and ultimately acts to help liberate them. But we need to pause and linger over this brutal event, not to justify the action but at least to contextualize it within the world of the Exodus story. We take this violence seriously by thinking deeply about its use here in the narrative and within the wider world.

Old Testament scholar Terence Fretheim says it’s important theologically to note how many of Moses’s actions here in Exodus are actually parallel with God’s actions later in the story (Exodus (Interpretation: Westminster John Knox, 1991), 42-43.) For instance, Moses sees Israel’s oppression in Exodus 2:11 just as God sees it in 2:25. Likewise, the same verb that is used to describe Moses striking the Egyptian in verse 12 is also used to describe God’s actions toward the Egyptians in Exodus 3:20 and 12:12-13, when God strikes Egypt with different plagues. Fretheim argues using the same verb (to strike) would not have been considered inappropriate by the narrator because it anticipates God’s subsequent actions. It foreshadows God’s more active resistance toward injustice in the coming chapters. Both God and Moses move from seeing to action. These literary observations, of course, do not ultimately validate the violence in this passage, and we will need still to sit with the discomfort of violence on a human level. It is important to ask the question of whether violence is ever an appropriate form of resistance to injustice. However, it is also important to note that our understanding of the use of violence may be culturally different than that of these ancient storytellers. The emphasis in this story seems to focus on Moses’s relationship with his “brothers” and his attention to their suffering.  Some readers may see Moses’s actions as a failure of leadership, and we would, of course, want to condemn homicide in the strongest terms; yet for the purposes of this study, we want to draw attention to Moses’s ability to see the injustice around him. His subsequent actions may not have been constructive, but his attention to exploitation is worthy of our attention.

“When Moses went out the next day, he was surprised to see two Hebrew people fighting…”

In Exodus 2:13, the next day, Moses again “sees” like God does, when Moses observes two Hebrews fighting. This time the enmity stems not from the Egyptians’ oppression, but from infighting between the Hebrews. Again, something does not seem right, and Moses is paying attention. Moses intervenes to address the injustice, confronting the person in the wrong, just as God will confront Pharaoh through Moses in the days ahead.

Next in the chapter, in 2:15-17, after he learns his violent deed is known, Moses flees to the land of Midian, where he sees shepherds driving away women from a well as they are drawing water for their father’s flock. Once again, something isn’t right about this scene, and Moses is paying attention. He immediately rushes to their rescue, and the same verb used when Moses saves these women from the shepherds is the verb used later in Exodus to describe how  God will ultimately rescue and save the people of Israel.

Over and over again, the text aligns Moses with God when Moses is paying attention. He notices when something isn’t right. He sees the injustices around him, and he can’t help but respond – even when it means risking his safety.

The story makes us wonder whether we are paying attention to the suffering around us with the same concern. Are we seeing the injustices in our community and our world? And, when we do see an injustice, are we tempted to ignore it or respond like Moses?  Ultimately, the practice of paying attention cannot leave us where we are. It calls us to action, guided by our confidence in a faithful God who liberates.

A Benediction (Or Miscellaneous Thoughts)

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