The Story of Moses I: From Prince to Fugitive to God's Messenger

This is the true story of a baby placed in the very waters meant to destroy him. A prince who killed a man and ran. A shepherd who spent forty years believing God had forgotten him.

Then one day, a fire appeared on a mountain. A bush that burned but was not consumed. And from inside it, a voice called his name.

GOD“Moses, Moses!”

MOSES“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?”

GOD“I AM WHO I AM.”

What God asked him to do next, no sane man would accept. And what God told him about how it would all end will stay with you long after this story is over.

Stay with us until the end, because you will see how two midwives outsmarted the most powerful king on earth, how a mother saved her son by letting him go, and how God answered every excuse a man could give with just four words: I will be with you.

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Let's begin.

[Take videos from Joseph episode from folder 'enhancedVideos'] \ A famine once threatened to destroy the entire land of Egypt. But God had placed a Hebrew man named Joseph inside Pharaoh's palace, and through him, Egypt survived. Pharaoh was so grateful that he invited Joseph's father, Jacob, and his entire family to leave Canaan and settle in Egypt. He gave them the land of Goshen, the richest pastureland in the kingdom. Jacob brought his sons and their families. Seventy people in all.

In the eastern delta, in a land given to them by a grateful king, the family of Jacob put down roots. They were fruitful and multiplied so greatly that the land was filled with them. (Exodus 1:7)

Then Joseph died. And his brothers died. And the entire generation that had known him passed away. And a new king rose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. (Exodus 1:6-8)

No record tell us this Pharaoh's name. But history preserved what he feared.

PHARAOH (to his advisors): "Look, the people of Israel are more and mightier than we are. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply even more, and if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land." (Exodus 1:9-10)

He set taskmasters over them and afflicted them with heavy burdens. They were forced to build Pithom and Raamses, Pharaoh's treasure cities, working in mortar and brick and in all kinds of labor in the field. (Exodus 1:11-14)

But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and spread, and the Egyptians began to fear the people of Israel. (Exodus 1:12)

Pharaoh needed a different solution. The one he chose next would be far worse than bricks and mortar.

Pharaoh summoned two Hebrew midwives. Their names were Shiphrah and Puah. These were the women whose hands delivered every Hebrew child.

PHARAOH (to the midwives): "When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live." (Exodus 1:16)

No armies. No public announcement. Just two women and an order to end a nation one boy at a time.

But the midwives feared God more than they feared Pharaoh. They did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, and they let the boys live. (Exodus 1:17)

Pharaoh called them back.

PHARAOH (to the midwives): "Why have you done this, and let the male children live?" (Exodus 1:18)

SHIPHRAH AND PUAH (to Pharaoh): "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them." (Exodus 1:19)

Pharaoh could not prove otherwise. And God dealt well with the midwives. Because they feared Him, He gave them families of their own. (Exodus 1:20-21)

But Pharaoh was not finished. If the midwives would not do it in secret, he would do it in the open. He issued a command to all his people.

PHARAOH (to all Egypt): "Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live." (Exodus 1:22)

The Nile, the river that fed Egypt's crops and sustained its people, would now be used to swallow Hebrew children. But into this decree, one mother was about to do something no one expected.

A man from the house of Levi married a Levite woman, and she gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him. For three months she kept him out of sight. But when she could hide him no longer, she took a basket woven from reeds, coated it with tar and pitch to keep the water out, placed the child inside, and set it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. (Exodus 2:1-3)

The baby's older sister stayed nearby, watching from a distance to see what would happen to him. (Exodus 2:4)

Then Pharaoh's daughter came down to bathe at the river, with her servants walking along the bank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent one of them to bring it. When she opened it, the baby was crying. She took pity on him.

PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER“This is one of the Hebrews' children.”— Exodus 2:6

She knew the decree. She knew what this child was. And she chose mercy. At that moment, the baby's sister, who had been watching everything from the reeds, came forward.

MIRIAM“Shall I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?”— Exodus 2:7

Pharaoh's daughter agreed. The girl ran, and she brought back her own mother, the very woman who had placed the baby in the river. Pharaoh's daughter did not know she was speaking to the child's mother.

PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER“Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.”— Exodus 2:9

The baby was now under the protection of the princess. He was no longer a hidden child under a death decree. His mother nursed him openly, paid by Pharaoh's own household, until the boy was old enough to be brought to the palace.

When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. (Exodus 2:10)

PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER (naming him): "I will call him Moses, because I drew him out of the water." (Exodus 2:10)

The boy now lived inside the palace of the king who had ordered his death. But he would not stay there forever.

Moses grew up in the palace. But one day, when he was a man, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Moses looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. (Exodus 2:11-12)

It was the first decision Moses made as a man. And it would cost him everything.

The next day he went out again and saw two Hebrews struggling with each other.

MOSES (to the one in the wrong): "Why do you strike your companion?" (Exodus 2:13)

THE HEBREW“Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”— Exodus 2:14

The secret was out. Moses was afraid.

MOSES (to himself): "Surely the thing is known." (Exodus 2:14)

When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. (Exodus 2:15) The prince who had grown up eating at Pharaoh's table, living under Pharaoh's roof, protected by Pharaoh's daughter, was now a wanted man in the very palace he had called home.

Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh. And the question the Hebrew had asked him would follow him for the next forty years: who made you a prince and a judge over us?

No one had. Not yet.

Moses fled east from Egypt, across the desert, to the land of Midian, hundreds of miles from the palace where he was raised. He sat down by a well. (Exodus 2:15)

The priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to the well to draw water for their father's flock. But shepherds came and drove them away. Moses stood up, helped them, and watered their flock. (Exodus 2:16-17)

When the daughters returned home to their father Reuel, he noticed something.

REUEL“How is it that you have come home so soon today?”— Exodus 2:18

REUEL'S DAUGHTERS“An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and he even drew water for us and watered the flock.”— Exodus 2:19

REUEL“Then where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.”— Exodus 2:20

Moses was content to stay with Reuel, also known as Jethro. He married his daughter Zipporah, and she gave him a son. He named the boy Gershom, which sounds like the Hebrew word for "a stranger there," because as Moses himself said:

MOSES“I have been a stranger in a foreign land.”— Exodus 2:22

Forty years passed. The prince of Egypt tended another man's sheep in the desert.

Then the king of Egypt died. And the people of Israel, crushed under their slavery, cried out for help. And God heard them. (Exodus 2:23-24)

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro. He led the sheep to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the middle of a bush. The bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. (Exodus 3:1-2)

MOSES“I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.”— Exodus 3:3

When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him out of the bush.

GOD“Moses, Moses!”

MOSES“Here I am.”

GOD“Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”— Exodus 3:4-6

Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Then God told him why He had come.

GOD“I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”— Exodus 3:7-8

Then came the command that would send an eighty-year-old shepherd back to the land he had fled from forty years ago.

GOD“Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”— Exodus 3:10

MOSES“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”— Exodus 3:11

GOD“But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”— Exodus 3:12

MOSES“If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is His name?' what shall I say to them?”— Exodus 3:13

GOD“I AM WHO I AM. Say this to the people of Israel: I AM has sent me to you. The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.”— Exodus 3:14-15

Every god in Egypt had a name tied to the sun, the river, or the sky. This God's name meant something different: He simply exists. He has no beginning, no creator, no explanation. He is.

God then gave Moses the plan. He was to gather the elders of Israel and go to the king of Egypt. They would ask Pharaoh for permission to travel three days into the wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord. (Exodus 3:16-18) But God already knew what would happen.

GOD“I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out My hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go.”— Exodus 3:19-20

The plan was laid out. But Moses was not done objecting.

MOSES“But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, 'The Lord did not appear to you.'”— Exodus 4:1

GOD“What is that in your hand?”

MOSES“A staff.”

GOD“Throw it on the ground.”— Exodus 4:2-3

Moses threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent. Moses ran from it. God told him to reach out and grab it by the tail. Moses obeyed, and it became a staff again in his hand. (Exodus 4:3-4)

Then God told him to put his hand inside his cloak. When Moses pulled it out, his hand was leprous, white as snow. He put it back and pulled it out again, and it was restored. God gave him a third sign: if neither of the first two convinced them, Moses was to take water from the Nile and pour it on dry ground, and it would become blood. (Exodus 4:6-9)

Three signs. And still Moses resisted.

MOSES“O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.”— Exodus 4:10

GOD“Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”— Exodus 4:11-12

MOSES“O my Lord, please send someone else.”— Exodus 4:13

The anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses. But even in His anger, God provided.

GOD“Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth. He shall speak for you to the people. And you shall take in your hand this staff, with which you shall do the signs.”— Exodus 4:14-17

Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law.

MOSES“Please let me go back to my brothers in Egypt to see whether they are still alive.”— Exodus 4:18

JETHRO“Go in peace.”— Exodus 4:18

Then the Lord spoke to Moses one more time.

GOD“Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.”— Exodus 4:19

The man who had fled Egypt as a wanted fugitive was no longer hunted. But God had more to say. He told Moses to perform all the signs before Pharaoh, and then gave him a warning: God Himself would harden Pharaoh's heart, and Pharaoh would not let the people go. When that happened, Moses was to deliver a message.

GOD“Thus you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the Lord, Israel is My firstborn son, and I say to you, let My son go that he may serve Me. If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.'”— Exodus 4:22-23

The last plague had been announced before the first one had even begun.

Moses took his wife and his son, set them on a donkey, and turned west toward Egypt. In his hand he carried the staff of God. (Exodus 4:20) The same desert he had crossed as a fugitive forty years earlier, he now crossed as God's messenger.

While Moses was crossing the desert, God spoke to Aaron in Egypt.

GOD“Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.”— Exodus 4:27

Aaron went. He met Moses at the mountain of God, and when he saw his brother, he kissed him. (Exodus 4:27)

Together they went into Egypt. Aaron spoke all the words of the Lord to the elders of Israel, and Moses performed the signs in the sight of the people. (Exodus 4:29-30)

And the people believed. When they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that He had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped. (Exodus 4:31)

Tomorrow, Moses would walk into Pharaoh's throne room.

This first chapter of Moses' life carries lessons that reach far beyond ancient Egypt.

First, courage can be as simple as saying no. Shiphrah and Puah had no army and no power. All they had was a choice: obey Pharaoh or fear God. They chose God, and an entire generation of Hebrew boys survived because of it. You do not need to be powerful to stand for what is right.

Second, letting go can be an act of faith, not defeat. Moses' mother placed her son in the Nile because holding on to him would have killed him. She built a basket, sealed it with tar, and trusted God with what she could not control. If you are holding on to something so tightly that it is breaking you, maybe the bravest step is to open your hands.

Third, God's timing is not your timing. Moses tried to deliver Israel his own way when he killed the Egyptian. It cost him forty years in the desert. But those forty years were not wasted. God was not late. He was preparing both the man and the moment. If you feel like you are waiting and nothing is happening, remember: Moses was eighty years old when his purpose finally began.

Fourth, God does not call the ready. He calls the reluctant. Moses gave God every excuse he had. I am nobody. I cannot speak. They will not believe me. Send someone else. And God answered every one of them not by removing the weakness but by promising His presence: I will be with you.

This is only the beginning. Moses has been called. Israel believes. But Pharaoh has not yet heard the name of the God of Israel. In the next episode, he will hear it ten times, once for each plague. You do not want to miss what comes next.

If you want to see what happens when Moses walks into Pharaoh's throne room and says "Let my people go," watch The Story of Moses II — it's right here on screen. Ten plagues. The Passover. The Red Sea. You do not want to miss it.

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