Hebrews 11:24 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Hebrews 11:24

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The Greek says something like ‘when he was great’, and it may refer – as our translators have, I think, rightly decided – to years, or it may refer to other forms of greatness: great influence, great achievement, great prosperity. Elsewhere, we learn he was now 40 years old. So what does it mean ‘when he was come to years’? In our culture we might think that we come to years at about the age of 21 or so, but here it refers to more to the age when he had attained a great level of maturity – by now Moses had made considerable accomplishments in the Royal Court of Egypt, in the Court of Pharaoh. What Moses was about to do was a mature decision. It was not the decision of a youngster, but the thinking of a wise man aided by God. By faith he ‘refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.’ What an interesting way of putting it. The Greek literally means he disavowed the status of a member of the royal household, the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Without this inspired commentary you could misunderstand the narrative in Exodus; you could think he inadvertently fell. He did something well intended, defending one of his people against an Egyptian overseer, and in the course of the struggle the Egyptian died, and so he had to flee and this departing out of the household of Pharaoh was forced upon him. But that would be wrong Hebrews tells us. Even when he visited the children of Israel and went to talk with them to see their mood and their frame, he had already made his choice to identify with them rather than with the court of Pharoah. This was a decision that is captured by the translators here: ‘When he was come to years [he] refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter’; they could not have rendered it more powerfully. He renounced and repudiated and disavowed his princely status, his position in the royal household, the dazzling throne of antiquity that was Egypt, the wealthiest nation and empire in the world, and he did it ‘by faith’. He renounced riches, fabulous riches: that royal household was so wealthy. He let go of his position, his power, his learning and all the esteem he had. Do you know what the vassal states and the subordinate nations used to say when their kings and their rulers wrote to Pharaoh or addressed a prince of the Egyptian household? They used to use the most amazing statements that they feared to even venture on the ground or kiss the ground that the royal personages had walked on. They were treated as gods. Moses renounced it all, and what for? For exile, for poverty possibly, for reproach, for suffering and affliction, and a seemingly impossible task, which God had appointed him to; he renounced all. Moses always had a sense of calling. The martyr Stephen tells us it came into Moses’ heart to visit his brethren: he always had a sense of purpose. God had told Abraham, ‘Thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; and also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance’ (Genesis 15:13-14). 400 years is round figure, of course; we are told in Exodus that the strictly correct figure was 430 years, but God spoke in general terms to Abraham. But now at the time of Moses and the time that he left the court of Pharaoh, about 390 years had elapsed. By faith Moses believed the ancient prophecy, the word of the living God to his forefather Abraham. He believed that they would come out. He felt sure that he would be the instrument, that he would be the one. But this was the extent of his faith. He believed that God had positioned him and prepared him and he came to believe that God would not do it in his office in the Egyptian state, through the power and influence that Moses had in the royal court. He could see that that would never do it. He realised that God was planning to bring them out of Egypt, and it could not be done by one who was prominent within Egypt. The one who would lead them would be one who was outside the Egyptian establishment. So this is a great act of separation on the part of Moses. Egypt would be judged and the people of God would be brought out and that could not be done by an officer of the Egyptian state.

Application

You and I will probably never be called upon to make a sacrifice anything like as great as that made by Moses, and yet how reluctant we are as Christian people to forsake the world, to forsake our luxuries, our standing, and our position. How reluctant when we are confronted with a decision of some kind either to make our priority the things of God, or the things that serve our material interests. By faith we are called to disavow our one-time position as sons of this world, admirers of its vaunted treasures.

Can it be said of us: ‘When he, when she had come to years’? Have we matured as Christian people? Have we put away childish things? Sometimes even Bible believing churches don't help, they don’t help people to put away childish things. They organise and do childish things, even in worship. The whole thing is childish and entertainment based. Have we come to years? Are we more mature than we were? Have we deepened as people? Have we learned more? Do we know how to help one another and those in distress? Are we those to whom others would naturally turn for advice, for solace, for answers to questions? Sometimes people in their 20s have come to years sooner than people in their 40s and that's a great shame. Can it be said that we are mature that we are people who can be used of God? Can it be said that there is in the right sense of the term a venerability about us, that we have proved the Lord and are not so easily caught out by deceptions and trials.

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Hebrews 11:24 Commentary and Bible Study