Moses Flees to Midian

Moses went out to his brethren and looked on their burdens, where he observed an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew (Exodus 2:11). After looking this way and that way and seeing no man, he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he went out the second day, he saw two men of the Hebrews striving together and questioned the one who did the wrong. The man asked who made Moses a prince and a judge over them, and inquired if Moses intended to kill him as he killed the Egyptian. Moses feared, realizing the thing was known (Exodus 2:14).

When Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses, but Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian. While he sat down by a well, the seven daughters of the priest of Midian arrived to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father's flock. Shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and helped the women and watered their flock. When they returned to Reuel their father, he asked how they had returned so soon that day (Exodus 2:18).

The daughters told their father that an Egyptian delivered them out of the hand of the shepherds, drew water for them, and watered the flock. Reuel asked his daughters why they had left the man and commanded them to call him so that he might eat bread. Moses was content to dwell with the man, who gave Moses his daughter Zipporah (Exodus 2:21). She bore him a son, and Moses called his name Gershom, for he said he had been a stranger in a strange land.