Exodus 2 Devotional

Rescue Belongs to God

“So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”Exodus 2:24 (BSB)

A mother hides her baby for three months, then sets him in a basket among the reeds of the Nile (2:2-3), the very river Pharaoh had chosen as the grave for Hebrew sons. Pharaoh's own daughter finds him, has compassion on him, and even pays the boy's mother to nurse him (2:6-9). The child condemned by Pharaoh's law grows up in Pharaoh's house.

Grown, Moses tries to rescue his people himself. He kills an Egyptian, the next day a fellow Hebrew challenges his right to judge them, and he ends up a foreigner in Midian (2:11-15, 22). Stephen later says Moses assumed his brothers would see that God was delivering them through him, but they did not (Acts 7:25). The real turning point comes at the end of the chapter. Israel cries out, and God hears, remembers his covenant, sees, and takes notice (2:23-25). Deliverance would come, but on God's terms and in God's time. When rescue seems slow, no cry that rises to him is wasted.

To think about: What are you trying to fix in your own strength that you could bring to God in prayer today?