Hebrews 11:23 By faith Moses was hidden by his parents for three months after his birth, because they saw that the child was beautiful; and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. 24 By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called a son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He considered abuse suffered for the Christ to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to the reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, unafraid of the king’s anger; for he persevered as though he saw him who is invisible. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.

In this chapter the writer is mentioning some of the heroes of the faith, in this case Moses. If you go back and read the Exodus story you’ll notice this description in Hebrews is a bit of a “white wash”. In other words, some of the less flattering dimensions of the original story are left out or just plain reinterpreted in a more favorable light.

But that’s people for you, and I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. Over time we can tend to forget the more difficult, less appealing parts of life’s stories and retain the more joyous parts instead. It’s not that we’re trying to deceive, it’s just the way human memory works sometimes. And despite some potential inaccuracies in the Hebrews text today, there is no question that Moses was indeed a man of incredible faith whom we should emulate – which is the point of this text.

Lord thank you for Moses and for the example he set for all of us. And thank you that you’ve created people with a tendency to remember the good more than the bad. Amen.