Last Sunday, we began our look at Moses: the man, the myth, the legend. For next couple weeks, we are focusing on Moses the man. Moses’ story is a really wild story that is convoluted at best and traumatic by almost any standard.

It is an understatement to say that Moses was born into a volatile time for children. His birth mother gave him up. Even if it was for the best reasons, it would have been challenging for a young Moses to understand. To convolute the story more, Moses was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter after she found him in a basket floating among the reeds.

Moses’ birth mother was hired to care for the young Moses. Scholars debate what this means. It likely means that Moses lived with his birth family among his fellow Israelites from birth to the age of 4 or even to the age 12. Then Moses would be sent to live in Pharaoh’s home, an environment fundamentally different from what he knew.

Moses lived between two worlds and was not fully at home in either of them. No matter how we look at it, Moses grew up in a very difficult situation which became even harder to deal with as he entered adulthood. He was an outsider among the Israelites and the Egyptians.

All of us develop ways of adjusting to and staying safe in the middle of whatever danger, difficulty, or struggle we are facing. We develop coping mechanisms without even realizing we are doing it, and they become normal to us. Because we usually form coping mechanisms when we are young and have little awareness that we are doing it, they can be healthy or unhealthy coping mechanisms. In fact, we usually only become aware of them when they impact our adult relationships and lives.

It appears that one of the coping mechanisms Moses developed was to repress his emotions, particularly anger. This makes sense. Moses was forced to leave his birth family, the only family he knew up to that point. He goes to live in a world dramatically different. He is behind the other kids in learning and understanding the Egyptian way of life.

We are told that when Pharaoh’s daughter finds him in the reeds, she immediately identifies him as being a Hebrew baby. Even if he is the “adopted” son of Pharaoh’s daughter, he is not like the other kids in the household. He knows that and they know that.