Charles Spurgeon Commentary Exodus 3:1

"Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to the mountain of God, unto Horeb." — Exodus 3:1 (ASV)

Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.

It must have been a great change for Moses, after forty years in the court of Pharaoh, to be spending another forty years in the wilderness. But it was not wasted time; it required the first two periods to make Moses fit for the grand life of the last forty. He must be a prince, and he must be a shepherd, that he might be both a ruler and a shepherd to God's people, Israel. He must be much alone; he must have many solitary communings with his own heart; he must be led to feel his own weakness. And this will be no loss of time for him; he will do more in the last forty years because of the two forties thus spent in preparation. And it is not lost time that a man takes in putting on his armor before he goes to battle, or that the reaper spends in sharpening his scythe before he cuts down the grain.

Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.

There is nothing dishonourable about common trade and matters of business at all. Here is a shepherd who keeps his flock, and God keeps him and reveals Himself to him. When God wants a man to lead His people, He seeks him not among idlers, but busy, active men, and God was pleased to show Himself more to Moses as a shepherd than He had ever shown Himself to him as a prince in Egypt. I find no glowing Deity in the halls of Pharaoh, but I find the consuming fire manifested in the lone wastes of the desert of Sinai.