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(Heb. 11: 22), was nearly due to be performed. God had said that Israel would be
afflicted, but at the set time He would bring them out, and Moses" faith, like our own,
rested upon "the Word of God" (Rom. 10: 17).
By the time Moses was born, a new dispensation had dawned; "a new king that knew
not Joseph" occupied the throne. So the apostle would press upon the consciences of the
Hebrews the necessity to weigh the change of dispensation ushered in by the rejection of
their Messiah. They had to "forsake", "go forth unto Him without the camp", rather than
continue in those things that had ceased to be the will of God.
By faith he forsook Egypt.
We must now consider a difficult passage.
"By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as
seeing Him Who is invisible" (Heb. 11: 27).
It is generally reckoned that this cannot refer to the time when Moses fled unto
Midian, but to the second time that he left Egypt, victoriously at the time of the exodus.
There is no need to comment upon the obvious "faith" that enabled Moses to lead Israel
out of Egypt, so we ask a moment's attention while we look once again at that earlier
flight from Egypt.
"Not fearing the wrath of the king." When we have read through the chapters of
Exodus detailing the attitude of Moses towards Pharaoh, the mighty miracles that were
wrought, the power that moved heaven and earth and even the angel of death, it seems
rather tame to say of that triumphant departure from Egypt, the Israelites loaded with the
"spoil" thrust upon them, that Moses "forsook" Egypt, and did not "fear" the wrath of the
king. He had forsaken Egypt forty years before, and his return was with the express
purpose of leading Israel out, not with any intention of settling down himself. Time after
time he stood before Pharaoh, calm, unflinching, master of the situation. There was no
wrath of the king to fear when, at the last, Israel moved out of the land, and the attempt of
Pharaoh to overtake them at the Red Sea hardly fits the passage in the chapter we are
considering.
There are several points of contact between Heb. 11: & Stephen's speech in Acts 7:
Stephen gives a very full account of the occasion that led to Moses" flight from Egypt:
"And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the
children of Israel. And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged
him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian: for he supposed his brethren would
have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not.
And the next day he shewed himself unto them as they strove, and would have set them
at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren, why do ye wrong one to another? But he that
did his neighbour wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge
over us? Wilt thou kill me, as thou didst the Egyptian yesterday? Then fled Moses"
(Acts 7: 23-29).