Exodus Chapter 2 verse 23 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 23-25. - DEATH OF THE PHARAOH FROM WHOM MOSES FLED - CONTINUANCE OF THE OPPRESSION OF ISRAEL-ISRAEL'S PRAYERS - GOD'S ACCEPTANCE OF THEM. - After a space of forty years from the time of Moses' flight from Egypt, according to the estimate of St. Stephen (Acts 7:30), which is not, however, to be strictly pressed, the king whose anger he had provoked - Rameses II., as we believe - died. He had reigned sixty-seven years - about forty-seven alone, and about twenty in conjunction with his father. At his death, the oppressed Israelites ventured to hope for some amelioration of their condition. On his accession, a king in the East often reverses the policy of his predecessor, or at any rate, to make himself popular, grants a remission of burthens for a certain period. But at this time the new monarch, Menephthah I., the son of Rameses II., disappointed the hopes of the Israelites, maintained his father's policy, continued the established system of oppression, granted them no relief of any kind. They "sighed," therefore, in consequence of their disappointment, and "cried" unto God in their trouble, and made supplication to him more earnestly, more heartily, than ever before. We need not suppose that they had previously fallen away from their faith, and "now at last returned to God after many years of idolatrous aberration" (Aben Ezra, Kalisch). But there was among them an access of religious fervour; they "turned to God" from a state of deadness, rather from one of alienation, and raised a "cry" of the kind to which he is never deaf. God therefore "heard their groaning," deigned to listen to their prayers, and commenced the course of miraculous action which issued in the Exodus. (This section is more closely connected with what follows than with what went before, and would better begin ch. 3. than terminate ch. 2.) Verse 23. - In process of time. Literally, "in those many days." The reign of Rameses II. was exceptionally long, as previously explained. He had already reigned twenty-seven years when Moses fled from him (Exodus 2:15). He had now reigned sixty-seven, and Moses was eighty! It had seemed a weary while to wait. The children of Israel sighed. If the time had seemed a weary while to Moses, how much more to his nation! He had escaped and was in Midian - they toiled on in Egypt. He kept sheep - they had their lives made "bitter" for them "with hard bondage, in molter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field" (Exodus 1:14). He could bring up his sons in safety; their sons were still thrown into the river. No wonder that "an exceeding bitter cry" went up to God from the oppressed people, so soon as they found that they had nothing to hope from the new king.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(23) in process of time.--Heb., in those many days. As Moses was now eighty years old (Exodus 7:7), and only forty when he quitted Egypt, the Pharaoh from whom he fled must have reigned above forty years. Between the commencement of the eighteenth and the close of the nineteenth dynasty, two kings only seem to have reigned so long as this--Thothmes III. and Rameses II. Our choice of the Pharaoh from whom Moses fled thus lies between these two.The children of Israel sighed.--Or, "groaned." They had perhaps expected that a new king would initiate a new policy, or, at any rate, signalise his accession by a remission of burthens. But the new monarch did neither.Their cry came up unto God.--"Exceeding bitter cries" always find their way to the ears of God. The existing oppression was such that Israel cried to God as they had never cried before, and so moved Him to have compassion on them. The miraculous action, begun in Exodus 3, is the result of the cries and groans here mentioned.