Exodus 2:15

Pharaoh heard. If our identification of Pharaoh’s daughter with Hatshepsut is correct, this event must have taken place during the last years of her regency, when her nephew’s authority had increased and shortly before he deposed her and formally ascended the throne as Thutmose III. Moses’ deed was correctly interpreted at court as marking open defiance of Egypt, and it was surmised that he purposed to seat himself upon the throne (PP 247). The fate of the nation was clearly at stake, and Moses was forthwith condemned to die. For nearly 40 years Hatshepsut had sponsored Moses at court, perhaps in spite of misgivings on the part of other members of the royal family, and by arranging for him to ascend the throne no doubt planned to solidify her own control over the nation. Her sudden disappearance from history about this time may have been due to her known support of Moses.

Moses fled. Moses’ flight was certainly not an easy one. The eastern border of Egypt was guarded from the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Suez by a system of manned towers, each in sight of the next. An Egyptian story parallel to the flight of Moses, that of Sinuhe, shows how difficult an escape into Asia really was. Sinuhe, a courtier of King Amenemhet I, for some reason unknown to us, felt at the king’s death that his own life was in danger, and accordingly fled to Syria, where he spent many years as an exile. He gives a vivid description of the dangers connected with crossing the frontier. Crouching for some time in a bush, lest the watchmen see him, he crossed at night. Pressing on into the desert, he would have perished of thirst except for certain Asiatics who found him and gave him water and boiled milk to drink. We have no record of the hardships Moses suffered during his flight, but it is not amiss to assume that it was a trying experience for one who had thus far known only the luxuries of court life and was unacquainted with hardship.

The land of Midian. This is a somewhat vague expression, since the Midianites were nomads. Their principal settlements appear to have been on the eastern side of the Gulf of ‘Aqaba, where most of their ancient inscriptions have been found. But from time to time they migrated northward to the borders of Moab (Gen. 36:35; Num. 22:4, 7) and westward into the Sinai Peninsula, which appears to have been “the land of Midian” to which Moses fled (see Ex. 3:1; PP 247).