Exodus 2:12

World English Bible

Contextual Overview

¹¹ 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. ¹² 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. ¹³ 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?" ¹⁴ 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." ¹⁵ 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.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

he looked: Acts 7:24-26

slew: If the Egyptian killed the Hebrew, Moses only acted agreeably to the divine law - Genesis 9:6 in thus slaying the Egyptian; nor did he violate the law of Egypt; for, according to Diodorus Siculus - 1. 1. 17 "he who saw a man killed, or violently assaulted on the highway, and did not rescue him, if he could, was punished with death." Moses, therefore, in this transaction, acted as a brave and good man; especially as at this time there was little probability of obtaining justice on an Egyptian murderer.

Reciprocal: Exodus 2:17 - watered Acts 7:23 - when

Cross-References

Exodus 28:20
and the fourth row a chrysolite, an onyx, and a jasper: they shall be enclosed in gold in their settings.

Exodus 39:13
and the fourth row, a chrysolite, an onyx, and a jasper. They were enclosed in gold settings.

Numbers 11:7
The manna was like coriander seed, and the appearance of it as the appearance of bdellium.

Job 28:16
It can't be valued with the gold of Ophir, With the precious onyx, or the sapphire.

Ezekiel 28:13
You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, the sardius, the topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the emerald, and gold: the workmanship of your tambourines and of your pipes was in you; in the day that you were created they were prepared.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And he looked this way, and that way,.... All around, to observe if there were any within sight who could see what he did; which did not arise from any consciousness of any evil he was about to commit, but for his own preservation, lest if seen he should be accused to Pharaoh, and suffer for it:

and when he saw that there was no man; near at hand, that could see what he did, and be a witness against him:

he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand; in a sandy desert place hard by, where having slain him with his sword, he dug a hole, and put him into it; :-. Of the slaughter of the Egyptian, and the following controversy about it, Demetrius g, an Heathen writer, treats of in perfect agreement with the sacred Scriptures.

g Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 19. p. 439.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The slaying of the Egyptian is not to be justified, or attributed to a divine inspiration, but it is to be judged with reference to the provocation, the impetuosity of Moses’ natural character, perhaps also to the habits developed by his training at the court of Pharaoh. The act involved a complete severance from the Egyptians, but, far from expediting, it delayed for many years the deliverance of the Israelites. Forty years of a very different training prepared Moses for the execution of that appointed work.