Lexicon :: Strong's G1161 - de

Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation eventually died.

But the Israelites were fruitful, increased rapidly, multiplied, and became extremely numerous so that the land was filled with them.

A new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.

He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and powerful than we are.

But the more they oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread so that the Egyptians came to dread[fn] the Israelites.

“When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them as they deliver. If the child is a son, kill him, but if it’s a daughter, she may live.”

The midwives, however, feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live.

So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this and let the boys live? ”

The midwives said to Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can get to them.”

So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very numerous.

Pharaoh then commanded all his people, “You must throw every son born to the Hebrews into the Nile, but let every daughter live.”

The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son; when she saw that he was beautiful,[fn] she hid him for three months.

But when she could no longer hide him, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with asphalt and pitch. She placed the child in it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile.

Pharaoh’s daughter went down to bathe at the Nile while her servant girls walked along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds, sent her slave girl, took it,

opened it, and saw him, the child ​— ​and there he was, a little boy, crying. She felt sorry for him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew boys.”

“Go,” Pharaoh’s daughter told her. So the girl went and called the boy’s mother.

Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.” So the woman took the boy and nursed him.

When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses,[fn] “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

Years later,[fn] after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people[fn] and observed their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his people.

Looking all around and seeing no one, he struck the Egyptian dead and hid him in the sand.

The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you attacking your neighbor? ”[fn]

“Who made you a commander and judge over us? ” the man replied. “Are you planning to kill me as you killed the Egyptian? ”

Then Moses became afraid and thought, “What I did is certainly known.”

When Pharaoh heard about this, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in the land of Midian, and sat down by a well.

Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock.

Then some shepherds arrived and drove them away, but Moses came to their rescue and watered their flock.

When they returned to their father Reuel,[fn] he asked, “Why have you come back so quickly today? ”

They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”

“So where is he? ” he asked his daughters. “Why then did you leave the man behind? Invite him to eat dinner.”

Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage.

She gave birth to a son whom he named Gershom,[fn] for he said, “I have been a resident alien in a foreign land.”

After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor, they cried out, and their cry for help because of the difficult labor ascended to God.

So Moses thought, “I must go over and look at this remarkable sight. Why isn’t the bush burning up? ”

When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called out to him from the bush, “Moses, Moses! ”

“Here I am,” he answered.

Then he continued, “I am the God of your father,[fn] the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.

Then the LORD said, “I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt, and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors. I know about their sufferings,

He answered, “I will certainly be with you, and this will be the sign to you that I am the one who sent you: when you bring the people out of Egypt, you will all worship[fn] God at this mountain.”

“However, I know that the king of Egypt will not allow you to go, even under force from a strong hand.

“And I will give these people such favor with the Egyptians that when you go, you will not go empty-handed.

The LORD asked him, “What is that in your hand? ”

“A staff,” he replied.

In addition the LORD said to him, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, his hand was diseased, resembling snow.[fn]

“If they will not believe you and will not respond to the evidence of the first sign, they may believe the evidence of the second sign.

But Moses replied to the LORD, “Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent ​— ​either in the past or recently or since you have been speaking to your servant ​— ​because my mouth and my tongue are sluggish.”[fn]

The LORD said to him, “Who placed a mouth on humans? Who makes a person mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?

“He will speak to the people for you. He will serve as a mouth for you, and you will serve as God to him.

Then Moses went back to his father-in-law, Jethro, and said to him, “Please let me return to my relatives in Egypt and see if they are still living.”

Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”

Now in Midian the LORD told Moses, “Return to Egypt, for all the men who wanted to kill you are dead.”