What is the context?
As an adult, Moses goes out to his own people and sees their hard labor. When he sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, he looks around, kills the Egyptian and hides the body. The next day he tries to stop two Hebrews fighting, but the man in the wrong challenges his authority and mentions the killing.
Moses realizes that the matter is known. Pharaoh seeks his life, and he flees to Midian. His concern for his people has brought him into danger, and they have not recognized him as their ruler or judge.
At a well he again encounters people being mistreated. Shepherds drive away the daughters of the priest of Midian, and Moses helps the women and waters their flock. They describe him to their father Reuel as an Egyptian who rescued them.
Moses is welcomed into the household, marries Zipporah and has a son. He names the child Gershom and explains that he has become a foreigner in a foreign land. The man raised in Egypt’s royal household now lives away from both the court and his own people.
How is this passage commonly understood?
The killing receives different moral explanations. Calvin and Wesley understand Moses as acting under a special divine calling to deliver his people. They distinguish that reading from a general permission for private people to use violence. David Guzik instead understands Moses’ secrecy as a troubled conscience and his action as an attempt to deliver Israel through his own strength. These are the teachers’ readings of his motives and calling.
The household names also receive different explanations. The USCCB notes identify Reuel with Jethro, the name used for Moses’ father-in-law in the next chapter. Wesley suggests that Reuel is the grandfather and Jethro is the immediate father. The narrative here names Reuel and centers on Moses finding welcome and a family in Midian.
Where does this fit in God's plan?
Hebrews 11:24–26 explains Moses’ choice to identify with God’s people through faith. It connects his willingness to suffer with disgrace for Christ and his hope of reward. That is the New Testament’s own connection between this part of his life and the larger purpose of God.
Acts 7:23–37 explains that Moses expected his people to recognize God’s deliverance through him. Stephen later returns to the challenge about who made him ruler and judge: the rejected Moses is the very one God sends to lead them out. Within Stephen’s address, that pattern leads toward his warning about resistance to God’s messengers and the betrayal of the Righteous One in verses 51–53. The rejection does not cancel God’s purpose for the deliverer.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.