Moses
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for the kingdom while he lived. It was at once determined by the
monarch that he should die; but, becoming aware of his danger, he
made his escape and fled toward Arabia.
The Lord directed his course, and he found a home with Jethro, the
priest and prince of Midian, who was also a worshiper of God. After a
time Moses married one of the daughters of Jethro; and here, in the
service of his father-in-law, as keeper of his flocks, he remained forty
years.
In slaying the Egyptian, Moses had fallen into the same error so
often committed by his fathers, of taking into their own hands the
work that God had promised to do. It was not God’s will to deliver His
people by warfare, as Moses thought, but by His own mighty power,
that the glory might be ascribed to Him alone. Yet even this rash act
was overruled by God to accomplish His purposes. Moses was not
prepared for his great work. He had yet to learn the same lesson of faith
that Abraham and Jacob had been taught—not to rely upon human
strength or wisdom, but upon the power of God for the fulfillment of
His promises. And there were other lessons that, amid the solitude of
the mountains, Moses was to receive. In the school of self-denial and
hardship he was to learn patience, to temper his passions. Before he
could govern wisely, he must be trained to obey. His own heart must
be fully in harmony with God before he could teach the knowledge
of His will to Israel. By his own experience he must be prepared to
exercise a fatherly care over all who needed his help.
Man would have dispensed with that long period of toil and ob-
scurity, deeming it a great loss of time. But Infinite Wisdom called
him who was to become the leader of his people to spend forty years
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in the humble work of a shepherd. The habits of caretaking, of self-
forgetfulness and tender solicitude for his flock, thus developed, would
prepare him to become the compassionate, longsuffering shepherd
of Israel. No advantage that human training or culture could bestow,
could be a substitute for this experience.
Moses had been learning much that he must unlearn. The influ-
ences that had surrounded him in Egypt—the love of his foster mother,
his own high position as the king’s grandson, the dissipation on every
hand, the refinement, the subtlety, and the mysticism of a false religion,
the splendor of idolatrous worship, the solemn grandeur of architec-
ture and sculpture—all had left deep impressions upon his developing