Moses Flees to Midian

The event

By the time Moses reached adulthood, he clearly knew he was a Hebrew, not an Egyptian. Exodus 2 records the moment his identity came to a head: seeing an Egyptian beating one of his own people, Moses struck the man down and buried him in the sand. Word got out, Pharaoh sought his life, and Moses fled east into the land of Midian.

There, at a well, Moses defended the seven daughters of a Midianite priest named Reuel, also called Jethro, from a group of shepherds, and was welcomed into the family. He married Reuel's daughter Zipporah and settled into an entirely different life — forty years as a shepherd in the wilderness, far from the palace of Egypt.

It is worth pausing on the length and apparent obscurity of this chapter. The man who would confront Pharaoh and lead a nation out of slavery spent four decades tending sheep in obscurity first. Scripture treats this not as wasted time but as preparation: the very terrain and skills of desert shepherding would serve Moses well when he later led Israel's flock through that same wilderness.

Dating

Acts 7:23 states Moses was forty years old when he killed the Egyptian and fled, so this date follows from the traditional 1526 BC birth year, itself calculated from the 1446 BC Exodus. Under a late-date scheme this flight would fall roughly two centuries later. The recurring forty-year figures in Moses' life (forty in Egypt, forty in Midian, forty leading Israel) are attested consistently across Acts 7, Exodus, and Deuteronomy, and most evangelical scholars take them as real, round figures for a long life rather than a stylized number.

Scripture references

• Exodus 2:11-22
• Acts 7:23-29