Exodus 2:20 is Reuel, the priest of Midian, asking where Moses is and telling his daughters to bring him back to the house so he can eat. The verse shows a father noticing that a stranger has been left outside and deciding that he should be welcomed in. Reuel speaks these words to his daughters after they return home early from the well and explain that an Egyptian had helped them with the shepherds.
He said to his daughters, “Where is he? Why is it that you have left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.”
Exodus 2:20 (WEB)
What Exodus 2:20 Means
Reuel’s first question, “Where is he?”, reveals that he is curious about the man who rescued his daughters, and he wants to know where that man went. His second question, “Why is it that you have left the man?”, is a gentle rebuke. In the ancient world a guest was owed food, shelter and protection, and Reuel’s daughters had treated Moses as someone who could simply be dismissed after helping them. The third line, “Call him, that he may eat bread,” is an invitation. Reuel does not ask Moses to earn his meal. He simply wants him fed and brought under his roof.
The verse does not describe a prayer, a miracle or a spiritual lesson in itself. It is a glimpse of ordinary decency in a foreign household. It also does not promise that every stranger will be welcomed or that kindness always returns without cost. What it shows is one man acting on the duty of hospitality, and the story that follows depends on that small act of generosity.
The Context of Exodus 2:20
Exodus is the second book of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, traditionally attributed to Moses himself. It was written for the people of Israel as they remembered their rescue from Egypt and their formation as a nation under God. Exodus 2 is the story of Moses’s birth, his escape from Pharaoh’s order to kill Hebrew baby boys, his time in Egypt’s palace, his flight to Midian, and his first years as a shepherd there. Verse 20 falls in the middle of that exile.
Just before the verse, Moses has defended Reuel’s daughters at the well and watered their flock. Just after, Reuel gives Moses his daughter Zipporah, and Moses names his son Gershom, saying he has been a foreigner in a foreign land. Read in that setting, verse 20 is the hinge on which Moses’s new life turns. The meal Reuel offers becomes the start of a family, a home and a place for Moses to belong, which is exactly what he needed after fleeing Egypt.
Key Phrases in Exodus 2:20
Hebrews 13:2
Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for in doing so, some have entertained angels without knowing it.
(WEB)
This verse encourages believers not to neglect hospitality to strangers, noting that some have entertained angels without knowing it. It widens the principle in Exodus 2:20 into a general command to welcome others, and it reminds readers that a stranger at the door may be more than they first appear.
Leviticus 19:34
The stranger who lives as a foreigner with you shall be to you as the native-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you lived as foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.
(WEB)
Here Israel is told to treat the foreigner living among them as a native and to love them as themselves. Read beside Exodus 2:20, this law gives the reason behind Reuel’s care: Moses was a foreigner, and the Torah consistently asks God’s people to remember what it was like to be strangers and to respond with welcome.
A Short Prayer From Exodus 2:20
Lord, you see the people who stand outside our circles, the ones who have helped us and then quietly slipped away. Open my eyes to notice them, and give me the courtesy of Reuel to ask where they have gone and call them back to the table. Let my home and my heart be places where strangers can rest and be fed. Teach me to offer welcome without waiting for something in return. Amen.
