Moses Returns to Egypt

When Moses learned that the Pharaoh in whose reign he had fled was dead, he asked Reuel’s leave to go to Egypt for the good of his own people. He took with him Zipporah, Reuel’s daughter, whom he had married, and the children he had by her, Gershom and Eliezer, and hurried into Egypt. The first of those names, Gershom, means in the Hebrew tongue that he was in a foreign land; and Eliezer, that with the help of the God of his fathers he had escaped from the Egyptians. When they were near the border, Aaron his brother came to meet him at God’s command, and Moses told him what had happened to him at the mountain and the commands God had given him. As they went on, the chief men of the Hebrews, learning that they were coming, came to meet them. Since the signs could not be told convincingly in words, Moses let them see them for themselves. So they took courage at these surprising and unexpected sights, and had good hopes of their complete deliverance, believing now that God was taking care of their safety. [a]

Since Moses found that the Hebrews would obey whatever he directed, as they had promised, and that they were in love with freedom, he went to the king, who had in fact only lately come to the throne. He told him how much he had done for the good of the Egyptians when they were despised by the Ethiopians and their country laid waste by them; how he had commanded their forces and labored for them as if they had been his own people; and how, for all this, he had been put in danger by the Egyptians themselves, an unjust return for what he had done. He also told him in detail what had happened to him at Mount Sinai, what God had said to him, and the signs God had done to assure him of the authority of the commands he had given him. And he urged him not to disbelieve what he told him, nor to oppose the will of God. [c]

But when the king mocked him, Moses made him see in earnest the signs that had been done at Mount Sinai. The king was very angry with him even so, and called him a bad man, who had once run away from his slavery in Egypt and had now come back with deceitful tricks and wonders and magic arts to astonish him. Having said this, he commanded the priests to show him the same wonderful sights, since he knew that the Egyptians were skilled in this kind of learning, and that Moses was not the only one who knew these things and passed them off as divine; and he told him that when he brought such wonderful sights before him, only the unlearned would believe him. When the priests threw down their staffs, they became serpents. But Moses was not daunted by it, and said, “O king, I do not myself despise the wisdom of the Egyptians; but I say that what I do is as far above what these men do by magic arts and tricks as divine power is above the power of man. I will show that what I do is not done by craft, or by faking what is not really true, but that these things appear by the providence and power of God.” When he had said this, he threw his staff down on the ground and commanded it to turn itself into a serpent. It obeyed him, went all around, and devoured the staffs of the Egyptians, which seemed to be serpents, until it had consumed them all. Then it returned to its own form, and Moses took it into his hand again.

But the king was no more moved by what was done than before. He was very angry, and said that Moses would gain nothing by this cunning and cleverness of his against the Egyptians. He commanded the chief taskmaster over the Hebrews to give them no relief from their labors, but to force them to submit to greater oppression than before. Though he had given them chaff before for making their bricks, he would give it to them no longer; he made them work hard at brickmaking in the daytime and gather chaff at night. When their labor was doubled like this, they laid the blame on Moses, because it was on his account that their labor and misery had become more severe. But Moses did not let his courage sink at the king’s threats, nor did he slacken his zeal because of the Hebrews’ complaints. He held himself firm, set his soul resolutely against them both, and gave all his diligence to winning freedom for his countrymen.

So he went to the king and urged him to let the Hebrews go to Mount Sinai and sacrifice to God there, because God had commanded them to do so. He urged him also not to work against God’s designs but to value his favor above all things, and to let them leave — or else before he knew it he might put an obstacle in the way of the divine commands, and so bring on himself such punishments as anyone who worked against the divine commands would be likely to suffer. For the severest afflictions come from every quarter on those who provoke the divine wrath against them: such people have neither the earth nor the air for their friends, nor are the fruits of the womb according to nature, but everything is hostile and against them. He said further that the Egyptians would learn this by bitter experience, and that, besides, the Hebrew people would leave their country without their consent.