What Does Exodus 2:17 Mean?

The shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and saved them, and watered their flock. Three actions define Moses in verse 17: he stood up, he saved, and he watered.

The shepherds who drove away the daughters of Jethro were apparently exercising territorial privilege over the well; driving women away from water sources was a recognized form of intimidation in pastoral cultures. Moses, sitting at the well as a stranger with nothing to lose and no social position to protect, intervenes. His standing up is a stance of readiness; his saving is the act of defending the vulnerable; his watering of their flock is the completion of what was interrupted.

This is Moses' second intervention on behalf of those being wronged, and it follows a different pattern from the Egyptian killing of verse 12. Here, he does not conceal what he does; here, the intervention is public and its outcome is constructive. He drives away the aggressors, and then he does the practical work: he waters the flock. The pattern emerging in Moses' character, seeing injustice and acting against it, is the same pattern but this time without the violence of verse 12 or the need for concealment. The exile is refining the impulse into a more productive form.

Moses as a rescuer of vulnerable women at a well is a fulfillment of his name: he who was drawn from the water becomes the one who provides water to those who are denied it. The man named for being saved from a threatening situation saves others from a threatening situation and provides what they came for. This coherence between his own story and his service to others is the beginning of a pattern: the one who experiences the rescue becomes equipped to rescue others. The deliverer is himself delivered first (Exodus 2:1-10), and then delivers others throughout his life.