Introduction
A Hebrew boy has been adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter Bithiah, and brought up to be an Egyptian prince named Moses. But to save the life of one of his own Israelite people, he has committed murder, and has been forced to flee the country with Bithiah.
MOSES fled to Midian,* and took a wife;* but if Moses forgot Egypt, God did not forget Israel.
Moses was shepherding his father-in-law’s flocks on the slopes of Mount Horeb when he saw a bush all in flame, yet quite unharmed. Curious, he approached; but a Voice came out of it telling him to put off his shoes, as this was holy ground. The Voice went on to tell him to go back to Egypt and persuade the Israelites to leave, so they could worship the God of their forefathers in a land flowing with milk and honey.
‘What is his name?’ asked Moses.
‘I am that I am’ replied the Voice simply. ‘Tell them, I AM has sent you.’*
Moses took some convincing,* even when God gave him a staff that could turn into a snake, and promised to send Moses’s more eloquent brother Aaron to back him up.* For God knew that delivering the Israelites from slavery would require the most stubborn persistence.
Moses fled eastward into the Sinai Peninsula, the V-shaped wedge that lies between the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba, two northerly arms of the Red Sea. Egyptian regional power was at its weakest at its southern end, where Mount Horeb/Sinai has traditionally been located.
Moses’s wife was named Zipporah. Moses’s father-in-law, Jethro, was a Midianite priest, who pastured his flocks around Mount Horeb in the southern end of the Sinai Peninsula. The Bible uses Horeb and Sinai as two names for the same mountain.
In one of the most spine-tingling scenes in St John’s Gospel, the Jews scoff at Jesus for suggesting that he knew Abraham personally. “Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?” they laughed. “Verily, verily,” replied Jesus, “I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I AM”. The implication so shocked them that they tried to stone him, on the spot, for blasphemy. See John 8:58.
Moses protested: “I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue”. But St Stephen in Acts 7:22 described him as “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and mighty in words and in deeds”.
Aaron was Moses’s elder brother, by three years (Moses himself was eighty, according to Exodus 7:7). Aaron was to say only what Moses told him to say, and anything the two brothers said was to come from God anyway. “Thou shalt speak unto him, and put words in his mouth”, God instructed: “and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do”.
Archive
Word Games
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Deliver. Holy. Send.
2 Reply. Saw. You.
3 Flame. Forefather. Would.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
Homonyms Find in Think and Speak
Each of the words below has more than one possible meaning. Compose your own sentences to show what those different meanings are.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1. Ground. 2. Even. 3. See. 4. Left. 5. Saw. 6. Mount.
Verb and Noun Find in Think and Speak
Many words can serve as noun or verb depending on context: see if you can prove this with the examples below. Nouns go well with words such as the/a, or his/her; verbs go well after I/you/he etc..
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Flow. 2 Name. 3 Voice. 4 Shoe. 5 Milk. 6 Promise. 7 Back. 8 Staff. 9 Turn.
Variations: 1.if possible, use your noun in the plural, e.g. cat → cats. 2.use your verb in a past form, e.g. go → went. 3.use your noun in a sentence with one of these words: any, enough, fewer, less, no, some.
Add Vowels Find in Think and Speak
Make words by adding vowels to each group of consonants below. You may add as many vowels as you like before, between or after the consonants, but you may not add any consonants or change the order of those you have been given. See if you can beat our target of common words.
dnts (5)
daunts. denotes. dents. donates. donuts.
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