Later text
Acts 7:29BSB
At this remark, Moses fled to the land of Midian, where he lived as a foreigner and had two sons.
Intertextuality Pair
Acts 7:29 → Exodus 2:15-22
Allusion
Earlier text
When Pharaoh heard about this matter, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, where he sat down beside a well. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father's flock. And when some shepherds came along and drove them away, Moses rose up to help them and watered their flock. When the daughters returned to their father Reuel, he asked them, "Why have you returned so early today?" "An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds," they replied. "He even drew water for us and watered the flock." "So where is he?" their father asked. "Why did you leave the man behind? Invite him to have something to eat." Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. And she gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, "I have become a foreigner in a foreign land."
+ 3 more earlier texts
Earlier text
But the man replied, "Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you planning to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and thought, "This thing I have done has surely become known." When Pharaoh heard about this matter, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, where he sat down beside a well.
Earlier text
Exodus 2:22BSB
And she gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, "I have become a foreigner in a foreign land."
Earlier text
along with her two sons. One son was named Gershom, for Moses had said, "I have been a foreigner in a foreign land." The other son was named Eliezer, for Moses had said, "The God of my father was my helper and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh."
Significance
"At this remark, Moses fled to the land of Midian, where he lived as a foreigner and had two sons" (Acts 7:29; Exodus 2:15-22). Rejected by his own, the deliverer becomes an exile and a sojourner in a strange land — his firstborn named Gershom, for "I have become a foreigner in a foreign land" (Exodus 2:22). Stephen dwells on Moses' displacement because it fits the shape of his argument: God's chosen servant is driven out, made a stranger, before he is sent back in power to save. The forty years in Midian are not God's abandonment of Moses but his hidden preparation. The pattern of the deliverer sent into rejection and exile before his exaltation reaches its depth in the Son who came to his own and was not received (John 1:11), whose rejection was itself the road to his people's redemption.
- Found via
- Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
- Reference Type
- Allusion
- Connection Method(s)
- Redemptive-Historical Progression