When Moses became a man, he went among his own people, leaving the riches and ease that he might have enjoyed among the Egyptians.  He felt a call from God to lift up the Israelites and set them free.  But at that time he found that he could do nothing to help them.  They would not let him lead them, and as the king of Egypt had now become his enemy, Moses went away from Egypt into a country in Arabia, called Midian.

He was sitting by a well, in that land, tired from his long journey, when he saw some young women come to draw water for their flocks of sheep.  But some rough men came, and drove the women away, and took the water for their own flocks.  Moses saw it, and helped the women and drew the water for them.

These young women were sisters, the daughters of a man named Jethro, who was a priest in the land of Midian.  He asked Moses to live with him, and to help him in the care of his flocks.  Moses stayed with Jethro and married one of his daughters.  So from being a prince in the king’s palace in Egypt, Moses became a shepherd in the wilderness of Midian.

[Illustration:  Moses became a shepherd in the wilderness of Midian]

But Moses did not remain a shepherd.  While he was tending his sheep God appeared to him in a burning bush and told him that he should return to Egypt and become the leader of his people.  The Lord told him that the wicked Egyptians would be punished for the ill-treatment they were giving the Israelites.  In your Bible you will find in the book of Exodus how God wonderfully fulfilled his promise.  The Egyptians were punished by many plagues, and finally allowed the Israelites to go.  They crossed the Red Sea in a wonderful way, and traveled for a long time through a wilderness, where God fed them day by day with manna from heaven.  God also gave them rules as a guide for their daily living; these rules we call the Ten Commandments; yet they forgot the Lord so far as to make images and worship them.

[Illustration:  God fed them day by day with manna]

THE STORY OF THE GRAPES FROM CANAAN

The Israelites stayed in their camp before Mount Sinai almost a year, while they were building the Tabernacle and learning God’s laws given through Moses.  At last the cloud over the Tabernacle rose up, and the people knew that this was the sign for them to move.  They took down the Tabernacle and their own tents, and journeyed toward the land of Canaan for many days.

At last they came to a place just on the border between the desert and Canaan, called Kadesh, or Kadesh-barnea.  Here they stopped to rest, for there were many springs of water and some grass for their cattle.  While they were waiting at Kadesh-barnea and were expecting soon to march into the land which was to be their home, God told Moses to send onward some men who should walk through the land and look at it, and then come back and tell what they had found; what kind of a land it was, and what fruits grew in it, and what people were living in it.  The Israelites could more easily win the land if these men, after walking through it, could act as their guides and point out the best places in it and the best plans of making war upon it.