<p>7:23 <i>But when he was nearly forty years old<em>- </em></i>It is worth trying to visualize the scene when Moses was &ldquo;full forty years old&rdquo; (AV). It would make a fine movie. The Greek phrase could refer to Moses&rsquo; birthday, and one is tempted to speculate that it had been arranged that when Moses was 40, he would become Pharaoh. Heb. 11:24 says that he refused and chose- the Greek tense implying a one off choice- to suffer affliction with God&rsquo;s people. It is tempting to imagine Moses at the ceremony when he should have been declared as Pharaoh, the most powerful man in his world&hellip; standing up and saying, to a suddenly hushed audience, voice cracking with shame and stress and yet some sort of proud relief that he was doing the right thing: &ldquo;I, whom you know in Egyptian as Meses, am Moshe, yes, Moshe the Jew; and I decline to be Pharaoh&rdquo;. Imagine his foster mother&rsquo;s pain and anger. And then in the end, the wonderful honour would have been given to another man, who became Pharaoh. Perhaps he or his son was the one to whom Moses was to come, 40 years later. After a nervous breakdown, stuttering, speaking with a thick accent, clearly having forgotten Egyptian&hellip; walking through the mansions of glory, along the corridors of power, to meet that man, to whom he had given the throne 40 years earlier.&nbsp;</p><p><em>It came into his heart</em>- God clearly moved Moses to deliver Israel. We see here yet another example of how God can operate directly upon the hearts of men, giving ideas, motivation and even repentance.</p><p><em>To visit his brothers </em><i>the children of Israel</i>- 'Visit' is a Hebraism for identifying with, and also saving. It is through the Lord's representative sacrifice that God ultimately visited and saved His people. Ex. 4:31 is clear that <em>God</em> visited His people at this time; yet He was strongly manifested in Moses, so that what Moses did and desired to do was a manifestation of God. It is Luke who has recorded already how the work of the Lord Jesus was God's visiting of His people (Lk. 1:68,78; 7:16); and he later speaks of how God visited the Gentiles through the work of Peter (Acts 15:14). So often, the words of Stephen are alluded to later by Paul, who would have watched and listened with eagle intensity to Stephen's words here- and on his conversion, sought to live in the spirit and reasoning of the man he murdered. Paul uses Stephen's phrase here when he speaks of his decision to go 'visit his brothers' where he had previously preached and suffered (Acts 15:36). Such a decision was at great personal risk; for he had faced death and persecution in those cities. His brave desire to return was perhaps motivated by Moses' brave decision to visit his brothers, at the cost of losing all things in his secular life and endangering his life. But the thought of following Moses in this was first stimulated by Stephen talking about it. And this is how our lives also work out; we may hear a brother talking about a Bible character like Moses, and it later inspires us in a radical, significant life decision.</p><p>&quot;When Moses <em>was grown</em>, he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens... when he was <em>full forty years old</em> it came into his heart to visit his brethren... by faith Moses, <em>when he was come to years</em>, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter&quot; (Ex. 2:11; Acts 7:23; Heb. 11:24). The implication seems to be that Moses reached a certain point of maturity, of readiness, and then he went to his brethren. &quot; ...Moses <em>refused</em> to be called the son of Pharaoh... <em>choosing </em>rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the <em>reproach of Christ</em> greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward&quot; (Heb. 11:24-28). Moses could have been the next Pharaoh; according to Josephus, he was the commander of the Egyptian army. But he walked away from the possibility of being the riches man on earth, he &quot;refused&quot; it, because he valued &quot;the reproach of Christ&quot; and the recompense of the Kingdom to be <em>greater</em> riches. Yet what did he know about the sufferings of Christ? Presumably he had worked out from the promises of the seed in Eden and to the fathers that the future Saviour must be reproached and rejected; and he saw that his own life experience could have a close association with that of this unknown future Saviour who would surely come. And therefore, it seems, Moses counted the honour and wonder of this greater that the riches of Egypt. Both Paul and Moses rejected mammon for things which are abstract and intellectual (in the strict sense): the <em>excellency</em> of the understanding of the Lord Jesus Christ and His cross, and the Kingdom this would enable. Living when we do, with perhaps a greater knowledge of the Lord's victory and excellency, our motivation ought to be even stronger.</p>