Now Moses kept the flock
of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian.
And he led the flock to the back of the desert,
and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
Exodus 3:1, NKJV
I don't know if you could say Moses was born to lead, but he was certainly raised to it.
The youngest of three siblings, his life was threatened from birth by the evil dictates of an Egyptian Pharaoh. He was caught in the violent throes of a cultural upheaval as the rulers of Egypt's 18th Dynasty continued to sweep away the vestiges of their Asiatic predecessors Though his ancestors had been instrumental in the salvation and preservation of not only Egypt but the entire ancient world, Moses was born to Hebrews who had been enslaved, oppressed by a king bent on annihilating the Asiatic imprint the Hyksos and their Semitic allies had left on the Hamitic landscape. Honestly, this was a rivalry that stretched back a thousand years to Noah and his sons as they came off the ark. And Moses came into the world at the height of this conflict.
The standing law of the land was that Egyptian midwives would automatically murder every Hebrew boy born. When the midwives failed to comply, the Pharaoh decreed that the entirety of the population was now responsible for carrying out his fiendish plans for the Hebrews. They were commanded to take every son born among the Hebrews and throw them into the Nile It was in this inclement social atmosphere that Moses was born.
He was the great-grandson of the patriarch Levi, born to parents who found the courage to hide their child from the Egyptian death squads. For three months, Amram and Jochebed kept their beautiful child concealed, an act of faith that earned them a place among the heroes of Hebrews 11. The mother made a basket out of bulrushes gathered from the river bank, sealed it with pitch, and after placing her tiny boy into its confines, set it afloat with the belief that God would take care of her son. Divine providence directed that baby's ark into the reeds near the place where an Egyptian princess came to bathe. The princess hears the cries of the infant, sends a servant to fetch the basket in the reeds, and after one look at the precious child within, she decides to raise this threatened Hebrew babe as her own.
And by a coincidence that could only have been arranged by the Lord, the baby is placed in the care of a Hebrew nursemaid, his very own mother! We are never told what his given Hebrew name might have been, but his foster mother, the daughter of Pharaoh, named him Moses. It means drawn out of the water, but is also a variation of the royal family names used often in the 18th Dynasty--names such as Ahmose and Thutmose. The princess entrusted her new son into Hebrew care and paid generously for the service, thus providing a solid and safe foundation for the rearing of Egypt's future king. For the princess who adopted Moses was most likely Hatshepsut, daughter and granddaughter of kings, both sister and wife to a king, step-mother of a king, and only the second woman to rule Egypt in her own right after her brother/husband died and before her step-son was old enough to reign.
Moses' education began at the breast and on the knee of his Hebrew mother, who instilled in him the stories of their patriarchal ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. She undoubtedly told him the saga of the twelve sons of Jacob, those unruly men who envied their youngest brother Joseph and sold him into slavery, only to meet him again later when he had risen to the most powerful position in Egypt in service to the Pharaoh. And she told him of the deaths of the patriarchs, and the prophecies made about their return to their true homeland, a land flowing with milk and honey, the territory promised them by God Almighty.
Then the time came for Moses to return to Pharaoh's house, the same Pharaoh who had ordered his destruction as an infant now watched as the rescued Hebrew slave was brought into the bosom of his family to be raised with his own children and grandchildren, raised as a prince of Egypt and groomed to be king. The Bible tells us that "Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds." (Acts 7:22). From Josephus we learn that Moses was highly intelligent, excelling above all his contemporaries in learning, and that he was extraordinarily handsome. With his mother ruling Egypt, Moses was promoted into high military command and led the Egyptians in their conquest of Ethiopia, perhaps even taking the daughter of the Ethiopian king as a war-bride. As Moses reached maturity and the height of power in Egypt, he probably seemed prime to ascend the throne.
But God had other plans. Moses' education was not over. His mother died, his step-brother became king, and likely his own position in the kingdom may have been threatened. Though forty years old and a member of the ruling house of Egypt, the Bible says that Moses went out among his own people, the Israelites, and witnessed firsthand the cruelty of their Egyptian oppression. Seeing a Hebrew slave being attacked by an Egyptian taskmaster, Moses defended and avenged the abuse of his kinsman. He assumed the Hebrew slaves would rally to his banner and let him deliver them by the strength of his own hand, but they rejected his leadership. Additionally, his murder of the Egyptian brought the wrath of the Pharaoh down upon him, and Moses was forced to flee.
And that's how Moses found himself as an outcast in the land of Midian, an Arab neighbor to mighty Egypt. After an heroic encounter with some shepherds in defense a priest's daughters and their sheep herds, Moses was welcomed into Jethro's home, family, and employ. He marries the oldest girl Zipporah and likely experiences a revival of his childhood spirituality under the mentoring of an old-fashioned patriarch. Midian was one of the sons of Abraham by his concubine Keturah, born in Abraham's old age but undoubtedly raised with the same faith. His descendants mingled with those of his brothers in the territory south of Abraham's Promised Land, and that is where Moses ended up in the second third of his life.
He probably thought it was all over. He had wasted forty years of education and training, thrown away his position and experience in a moment of hasty, passionate indignation. As the Scriptures say, the wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God. He had not delivered Israel from captivity and slavery. His people were still in bondage, still crying out in their oppression for a deliverer. And Moses was public enemy number one in the land he had been raised to rule. Now came the time of deep reflection, of pondering his past with no glimpse of a future beyond moving his father-in-law's sheep to the next patch of grass.
Even though he didn't know it at the time, Moses was still continuing his education. Read up on sheep and shepherding, and you will discover that sheep need a leader who is gentle and courageous, willing to comfort and correct them, to guide and to guard them. When the sheep go astray, the good shepherd will hunt them down and bring them back to the flock. When the flock is in danger, the good shepherd will lay down his own life to protect his sheep. He knows where the best pastures are, and the still waters. He knows his sheep, and the sheep know him. Forty years as a prince, forty years as a shepherd. These were just the circumstances God employed to prepare Moses for the greatest challenge of his life--delivering his people out of Egypt's bondage and leading them to the Promised Land.
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