Study Desk

Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.

and he said, "When you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live."

Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a daughter of Levi.

And the woman conceived and gave birth to a son; and when she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months.

But when she could no longer hide him, she got him a papyrus basket and covered it with tar and pitch. Then she put the child in it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile.

And his sister stood at a distance to find out what would happen to him.

Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and call a woman for you who is nursing from the Hebrew women, so that she may nurse the child for you?"

Now it came about in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his fellow Hebrews and looked at their hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his fellow Hebrews.

But he said, "Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and said, "Surely the matter has become known!"

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

Then she gave birth to a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, "I have been a stranger in a foreign land."

Then the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not being consumed.

"So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

"So I said, I will bring you up out of the oppression of Egypt to the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, to a land flowing with milk and honey."'

"Then they will pay attention to what you say; and you with the elders of Israel will come to the king of Egypt, and you will say to him, 'The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. So now, please let us go a three days' journey into the wilderness, so that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.'

The LORD said to him, "What is that in your hand?" And he said, "A staff."

Then He said, "Throw it on the ground." So he threw it on the ground, and it turned into a serpent; and Moses fled from it.

But the LORD said to Moses, "Reach out with your hand and grasp it by its tail"—so he reached out with his hand and caught it, and it turned into a staff in his hand—

"He shall speak for you to the people; and he will be as a mouth for you and you will be as God to him.

So Moses took his wife and his sons and mounted them on a donkey, and returned to the land of Egypt. Moses also took the staff of God in his hand.