Moses flees to Midian
Exodus & Wilderness · Draft · BSB
Content revision: 155bcf5e47b10e59 · No editorial review date recorded
Date: c. 1486 BC · Moses aged 40 (Acts 7:23)
Grown up, Moses sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew and kills him. When the deed becomes known he flees to Midian, where he defends the daughters of the priest Reuel, marries Zipporah and tends flocks. Meanwhile God hears the Israelites groaning in their slavery and remembers his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Primary Scripture
2:11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people and observed their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people.
2:12 After looking this way and that and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand.
2:13 The next day Moses went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you attacking your companion?”
2:14 But the man replied, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you planning to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “This thing I have done has surely become known.”
2:15 When Pharaoh heard about this matter, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, where he sat down beside a well.
2:16 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock.
2:17 And when some shepherds came along and drove them away, Moses rose up to help them and watered their flock.
2:18 When the daughters returned to their father Reuel, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?”
2:19 “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds,” they replied. “He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”
2:20 “So where is he?” their father asked. “Why did you leave the man behind? Invite him to have something to eat.”
2:21 Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage.
2:22 And she gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.”
2:23 After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned and cried out under their burden of slavery, and their cry for deliverance from bondage ascended to God.
2:24 So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
2:25 God saw the Israelites and took notice.
Related Scripture
Stephen recalls Moses’ flight at forty.
Location evidence
Event map marker: Approximate region; [longitude, latitude] = [35.0122, 28.4947]. This is a teaching marker, not an exact event venue.
Midian: Approximate region. Coordinates [longitude, latitude]: [35.0122, 28.4947]. Classification source: editorial.
Illustrative regional extent: [[34.8,27],[36.6,29.3]]; not a measured confidence interval.
For the class
What has Moses still to learn before God sends him back?
Interpretation and reuse
Narrative order is a reading arrangement, not a proven chronology. Dates retain their stated uncertainty. An identified locality does not establish the exact venue or prove an event. Region extents and routes are illustrative, not surveyed boundaries or ancient roads. Draft material has not completed editorial review.
Record source: editorial (content/authored/exodus-wilderness.json)
Place coordinates from OpenBible.info Bible Geocoding Data, CC BY 4.0.
Teaching stops, summaries and regional extents are original editorial content of this atlas.
Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain. https://berean.bible/licensing.htm