HEB: 11:24
24By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter;
In this chapter we have a divine record, a famous catalogue of the worthies of the Lord, manifesting the power and life of that blessed grace of faith in the glorious effects of it; amongst whom Moses is one of the most choice and eminent, holding forth unto us the glory and efficacy of his faith, in divers wonderful blessed fruits of it, both actively and passively, in what he did, and in what he suffered; his wonderful self-denial, his strange choice, his fixed eye upon Heaven, his undaunted courage; his glorious constancy, his clear sight of the invisible God.
The first is his self-denial, which the holy ghost here records, as a high commendation, as a most famous testimony of the preciousness of his faith; and indeed so it is, faith above all graces fills the heart with the fullness of God, but most empties it of itself, raises the heart the highest communion with God, but keeps it down the lowest in self abasement. 24By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter;
[He refused] not a bare willingness, and contentedness to be without that honour, but, when he was put upon it, he denied it, so the word is: Yea, says Chrystomtom upon that place, he trembled, he was astonished at such a thought, that he should embrace the honours of the court, rather then to own the people of God in their most afflicted, distressed condition: he abhorred, he detested the entertaining such a though in his heart, and therefore turned away from it with disdain. We never read that he refused, or denied in words, that ever he said to Pharaohs daughter, or any other to this effect, that he would not be her heir, or be called her son, but actions have as loud a voice as words. When Moses came down from the Mount, his face shined so gloriously, as the people were not able to behold it; here his faith raiseth him higher than the Mount, and puts an inexpressible luster and glory upon him. Here is a worth of the Lord indeed, bright and glorious in the shining beauty of his faith, set out unto us in the full expressions of it by the Holy Ghost himself.
By faith [Moses] Moses a man complete every way, for his parts admitable, the Holy Ghost witness of him, that he was learned in all the learning of the Egyptians: so Acts 7:22, Moses says that there were sent to learned men at exceedingly great charge our of foreign parts, to instruct him in the liberal arts, and out of Chaldea, such as might instruct him in Astrology, besides the most learned of Egypt; and Eusebius cites another affirming that Moses was not learned in the learning of the Egyptians but that he taught the Egyptians the use of letters; and therefore was honoured of them by the nature of Mercurins. And Clemens Alexandrimus cites one, saying, that Moses taught the Israelites letters, and from the Jews he says the Phanicians had them, and from the Phaenicians the Grecians.
For the beauty of his body it was incomparable, when he was born eh was exceedingly fair, so Acts 7:20. The words in the Greek have a greater emphasis with them than our English expression hath; fine, elegant, so as citizens are when they are trimmed up in their bravery, upon days of festivity, that is the propriety of the world, and this is said to be exceeding in the text, it is fair to God, divinely beautiful, a kind of divine beauty, such beauty as in his very face a divine luster appeared. The Scripture useth this phrase, to signify the highest degree of a thing, as Jonah 3 a very
City, it is in the Hebrew magna Deo. Josephus reports of him that by that time he was three years old, God added and admirable grace to his countenance, so that there was none, but was amazed at the beauty of Moses, and would leave their serious business to feed their eyes with Moses, his incomparable beauty, and their eyes were held with it, that they could not tell how to look enough upon him; and he says that they never went from him but unwillingly.
And for the sweet temper and disposition of his spirit, that was exceeding amiable: the Scripture says that he was the meekest man upon the earth, Numb 12:3. And Josephus in his fourth book and first chapter says he was free from passions, that he knew no such thing in his own soul; he only knew the names of such things, and saw them in others rather than in himself.
And fourthly, for honour in the world, he was very eminent, the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter; the name of this Pharaoh’s daughter, was Thermussis; he says likewise she was the only child Pharaoh had, Pharaoh had no son t inherit the kingdom and that his daughter Thermuhis had no child, and therefore having found Moses, she set her heart upon him, and feigned herself to be with child, to that end, that he might inherit her father’s crown.
And further he tells us, that this daughter of Pharaoh was much beloved of her father, and that in respect to her, he loved Moses also, which appears in their relation that he hath. He saith that when Moses was a little one, Pharaohs daughter brought him to her father, and put him into his arms, and he, to gratify his daughter, took off his own diadem, and set it upon Moses head. There were likewise divers prognostications that Moses should hereafter do great things. Josephus siath, that Amram, Moses his father, had a special revelation concerning this child, that he should be delivered from the danger of being slain, and that the should be a deliverer of his people. He tells us likewise, that when Pharaoh put his diadem upon his head, he though but a little child, took it off, and stomped it under his feet whereupon some his Magicians would have had him put to death, saying that it was a sign, that in time this child would cast down Pharaohs crown.
And one Gualmyn a latter writer, writing of the life of Moses, hath this relation: that when Moses was three years old, Pharaoh made a great feast, and his Queen holding him by the right hand and his daughter together with Moses by the left, his Nobles being bid to fit before him, Moses before them all took Pharaohs crown from his head, and set it upon his own, whereupon all being amazed, one Balaam, a Magician, put Pharaoh in mind of a dream he had had, which was this: there stood before him an old m an having a pair of scales in his hand, and in one of the scales there appeared to him as if all Egypt, the children and women had been in it, in the other scale he saw only one child, which down-weighed the whole kingdom, and that was in the other scale. This is Moses, whose faith, whose self-denial is set down unto us thus glorious in this Scripture, one who might have lived a most brave life in the enjoyment of the highest honours, the sweetest pleasures; the choicest delights that heart could wish, and yet this Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter. This Moses chooses rather to suffer affliction with the people of God; this Moses is contented to be scorned and contemned for Christ, he ventures upon the wrath of the King, and endure it all.
In this excellent argument of the self-denial of such a worthy of the Lord, we are to consider: First, what he refuses, namely, to be accounted the son of Pharaohs daughter: for
ones was generally reputed to be her own son, and honoured as her own son, but he thought it a greater honour, to be a son of Abraham, to come of the promises seed, to have his pedigree from God’s people, this he accounts more noble, and this he will rather glory in, though he doth prejudice himself in greater preferment’s, dignities and riches, and all kind of outward glory that otherwise he might have enjoyed: form whence the point is: That nobility of birth, and court honours, and all outward delights are to be denied for Christ.
Secondly we are to consider the time when this was, it was when he was of full years: the word in the original are, when he came to be great, and the observation from this is:
That is then truly honorable indeed to deny honors, and pleasures, when we have opportunity to enjoy them to the full, in the very prime of our time.
Thirdly, we are to consider the principle which carried him on, which was faith; and from thence the point is:
That faith is the principle that must carry through and make honorable all a Christians sufferings. For the first.
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