Bible Strands
Exodus 2:17
And when some shepherds came along and drove them away, Moses rose up to help them and watered their flock.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator describes Moses at a well in Midian, acting immediately after Reuel’s seven daughters arrive to draw water and are confronted by hostile shepherds.
The words — וַ/יָּ֤קָם (va/i.Ya.kom) means "and he arose," and וַ/יַּ֖שְׁקְ (va/i.Yashk) means "and he watered," marking Moses' decisive physical intervention to secure the flock's drink.
The thread — This defense of water access parallels Genesis 29:10, where Jacob moves a stone for Rachel, and contrasts with Genesis 21:25 and Genesis 26:15, where wells are seized or deliberately blocked by hostile parties.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to observe Moses intervening to protect vulnerable women and provide for livestock, establishing a concrete pattern of protective action that precedes his later leadership.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And the shepherds came and drove them away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.
Cross-references
- Genesis 29:10 As soon as Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of his mother’s brother Laban, with Laban’s sheep, he went up and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered his uncle’s sheep.
- Genesis 21:25 But when Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well that Abimelech’s servants had seized,
- Genesis 26:15 So the Philistines took dirt and stopped up all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham.
- Exodus 2:12 After looking this way and that and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand.