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Hebrews 11:23-29– The Faith of Moses

Moses was fortunate to have believing parents. For them to hide their baby son from the authorities was certainly an act of faith. Exodus 2 describes the hiding of Moses by his parents. Hebrews 11 mentions two features of the parents’ actions (v. 23). First, they saw that Moses was no ordinary child, sensing something in him which destined him for future spiritual greatness. Second, although Pharaoh had commanded death for the male children (Exod. 1:22), Moses’ parents were not afraid of the king’s edict. They trusted God to save Moses, and God rewarded their faith (Exod. 2:8–9). Though godly parents cannot pass on their faith as they do family traits, they can certainly create an atmosphere of faith at home and be examples to their children. A home should be the first school of faith for a child.

These verses commend Moses’ faith. When Moses became an adult, he made a deliberate choice to leave the comforts of living as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. Moses must have known that God had called him to a difficult task. Leaving the splendor of life in the Egyptian court, he chose to stick with God’s people in suffering. He refused the temporary pleasures which comfort and sin could have provided


23 By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. 24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the temporary pleasures of sin, 26 considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he persevered, as though seeing Him who is unseen. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch them. 29 By faith they passed through the Red Sea as through dry land; and the Egyptians, when they attempted it, were drowned. (NASB)

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

  • As the adopted son of the Egyptian princess, Moses could have led an easy life in the palace. But his faith moved him to refuse that kind of life. He chose to identify with God’s suffering people. True faith causes a believer to hold the right values and make the right decisions.
  • Moses identified with the Jewish slaves. Men and women of faith often have to bear reproach and suffering. The Apostles suffered for their faith. The Christian life is not easy, but God will help us endure.
  • The reward of faith. God always rewards true faith—if not immediately, at least ultimately. Moses’ faith enabled him to face Pharaoh unafraid, and to trust God to deal with the enemy. The endurance of Moses was not a natural gift, for by nature Moses was hesitant and retiring. This endurance and courage came as the reward of his faith.

CLOSER LOOK:

Verse 23: With this transition to the life of Moses, the writer began to focus on the way faith confronts opposition and hostility, a subject familiar to the readers. It was by faith that Moses was hidden by his parents and his life was thus preserved. Delighted by the precious gift of a beautiful (“Beautiful” is the Greek word asteion, which occurs in the NT only here and in Acts 7:20, which also refers to Moses.) son which God had given them, they evidently believed God had something better for this lovely baby than death. Not fearing Pharaoh’s edict, they kept him alive, and God rewarded their faith by their son’s illustrious career.

In this section, when we look at verses 23-28, ask yourself, where does the career of Moses stop? What event marks the end of the story here for Moses? It is the Red Sea. The writer takes Moses from his birth to the Red Sea and stops. What then is omitted? The Law and Mount Sinai. Think about that. Doesn’t that strike you as interesting? There seems to potentially be a point the writer is making here. The writer keeps talking about “by faith….by faith…by faith,” all before the Law. Abraham received approval before the Law was ever given. The writer does not even mention the Law. It is a fantastic stroke of genius. Nothing is said about Mount Sinai or after that, nothing. Faith came before the Law. Faith made Moses great.

Verses 24–26: In a classic presentation of the way faith chooses between the attractive but “temporary pleasures of sin” and the prospect of reproach (or disgrace) for the sake of Christ, the writer showed Moses to be a real hero of faith who had an intelligent regard for the eschatological hopes of the nation of Israel. Verse 25 talks about Moses choosing to endure ill treatment with the people of God, rather than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. The implication is that if he did not identify with Israel, he would have been sinning. The implication is he would have just stayed in the household of Pharaoh. The text does not say it that clearly, but that’s the implication. He would have enjoyed the pleasures of sin, which would have been out of the will of God. The verse does not say he would be committing immorality, it just says enjoying the pleasures of sin. This is not the hardest part of the section. That comes in verse 27.

The readers also were to accept “reproach” and reject “the pleasures of sin,” and they would do so if they, like Moses, anticipated their reward.

In what sense can we say that Moses suffered for the sake of Christ (“considering the reproach of Christ”)? This could mean that he received the same type of persecution which Christ later received. Or the writer thought of Christ as being identified with suffering Old Testament saints. Isaiah could say that God was distressed when His people suffered distress (Isa. 63:9). In the same way Christ also identified with the sufferings of His people. When Moses suffered, he suffered with the same Christ whom the writer urged his readers to identify. We do not know how much Moses understood about Christ. We can understand that the writer of Hebrews was calling the readers to identify with the attitudes and experiences of Moses.

When it says “the reproach of Christ” in verse 26, is that from the author of Hebrews perspective? Yes, probably so. Here you come across the old conundrum—how much did the Old Testament believers know? Or more importantly how were the Old Testament saints justified? Many take it that the Old Testament saints were justified by believing. Simply by believing the information God had given up to that point. How much information they had we do not know, but the reason I say that is because of Genesis 15. “God said to Abraham, ‘Look toward the stars, so shall your seed be.’” And Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. There is no substitutionary atonement there. There is no coming of a Messiah. Although it could be implied in “so shall your seed be,” but you get more of the idea of a large progeny as being the promise. So he believed the revelation God had given up to that juncture.

So I have come to the conclusion that there is progressive revelation and I think everybody has to say that there’s progressive revelation. The Scripture teaches there is progressive revelation and they believed whatever God had pointed out at that time. At this point in the life of Moses, I do not get the idea of a Messiah coming. I just do not see it yet, so I think it is from the perspective of the writer probably.

Verses 27–29: At the time of the Exodus, Moses was undeterred by fear from the king’s wrath. By keeping the Passover, which included “the sprinkling of blood,” the nation avoided God’s judgment. In the same way, the readers should not be afraid of human wrath and should maintain their separateness from the surrounding world. They should persist in the worship experience made possible by the blood of the New Covenant. If they would do so, they would not fall under divine retribution (cf. 10:19–31).

As mentioned earlier, verse 27 is difficult in this section. Remember the first part of the verse says, “By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king.” You know the story. When you read Exodus chapter 2, he was raised in Pharaoh’s court, obviously the best education in the world. Side note: I have sometimes wondered how many of the dietary regulations of the Law came out of Egypt. It just makes you wonder. Anyway when you read that remember he went with the people of Israel and saw the Egyptian abusing an Israelite and he killed the Egyptian. Moses did not think anybody saw him. The next day two Israelites were fighting and the one Israelite was abusing the other one and so he said to stop fighting and the Israelite said, “Who made you to be a ruler over us? Are you going to kill me like you killed the Egyptian yesterday?” And then he fled.

Now back to this verse, we get the clear implication that he fled because he feared Pharaoh. That is the impression I get when I read that account. Now you can explain this in two ways: one is to say Moses did not fear Pharaoh as much as rejection by the Israelites. He feared rejection by Israel. That statement “who made you ruler over us” from Exodus could have made him fearful, but would you flee Egypt because of that? That may not be. Another may be that the writer is looking ahead to verse 28. “By faith he kept the Passover.” So that verse 27 could be looking at the Exodus and when you read the Exodus there is no fear. He stands boldly before Pharaoh plague after plague after plague after plague and finally after the last one, he went out in hot anger, remember that? He left Pharaoh’s presence in great anger so there is no fear there. It may be that verse 27 is not looking at his Midian experience as much as it is the Exodus experience. I do not know, but we have those two explanations. Either he feared being rejected by the Jews, or just that it anticipates the Exodus. It is hard to tell. But we can probably say the chronology is going right straight through the chronology of Moses’ life and we still have a problem here because it is not that he left Egypt not fearing and then you had the Passover. if this does reference his act of leading his people out of Egypt in the Exodus and not the killing of the Egyptian and flight to Midian, we can see how his faith overcame his fear of the king’s anger. It may be just the way the writer decided to summarize this part of Moses life that we get this wording.. It is hard to explain and determine.

Verse 29 starts to get the readers to look forward to the victory over their enemies (cf. 1:13-14) and how they could learn from the destruction of the Egyptians. Next time we will see how they will learn from the collapse of the walls of Jericho. In verse 29, we start to see Ancient Israel and their faith. We see something very interesting in this verse. It starts by saying, “by faith they passed…” This is what we can call “group faith.” Normally the faith is the individual. One by one by one. Here, we see group faith because of the “they”. The nation Israel displayed faith as they safely journeyed through the Red Sea (Exod. 14:13). Moses’ faith must have inspired their faith. Such faith did not endure, for they later fell into faithless bickering, quarreling, and disobedience (Exod. 17:1–7; 32:1–14). Their Egyptian pursuers had no such faith and drowned in an avalanche of water as they ventured into the murky sea basin.