“And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.”
The narrative jumps forward many years: Moses is grown, and he goes out to his people and sees their forced labor. This is the first time Moses is described as going out to his own people — an act of identification that will define his entire life. He has grown up in Pharaoh's palace; he could have looked away. Instead he looks, and what he sees registers as something happening to his people, not to strangers. The Egyptian who is beating the Hebrew is beating someone Moses claims. Hebrews 11:25 says Moses chose to be mistreated with the people of God rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. The choice begins here, in this act of seeing. Seeing truly — allowing other people's suffering to register as real, to be felt as belonging to you — is a prerequisite for any kind of prophetic action. Moses sees. That is where it starts.
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