Exodus 2:16 introduces seven young women who come to a well in the desert to draw water for their father’s sheep. The verse is a plain scene of ordinary work, and the story is about to turn on it. It sets the stage for Moses, a fugitive from Egypt, to meet the family that will shelter him for years. The narrator of the book of Exodus, traditionally understood to be Moses himself, writes it to tell Israel how God’s deliverer first came to live among strangers.
Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock.
Exodus 2:16 (WEB)
What Exodus 2:16 Means
The verse begins with “the priest of Midian,” a man whose household is larger than most in the region, since he has seven daughters. Midian was a people group living in the desert east of the Sinai peninsula, and their priest was a religious leader tied to his own gods. The verse does not dwell on his faith. It simply places the family in a land far from Egypt and from Israel.
The heart of the verse is the work: the daughters “came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock.” Drawing water at a desert well was heavy, daily labor, and it fell to them because the family had no sons present to do it. The verse describes diligence and faithfulness in a small, unnoticed task. It makes no promise that work will be easy or rewarded at once. It only shows what the women were doing when Moses first saw them.
The Context of Exodus 2:16
Exodus 2 opens with Moses’ birth in Egypt, his rescue from the Nile, and his upbringing in Pharaoh’s household. Verses 11 to 15 then describe his violent intervention on behalf of a Hebrew, his fear of exposure, and his flight into Midian. The well scene in verse 16 is the quiet place where that flight ends. Read alone, the verse is a picture of daily life; read in sequence, it is the first step in Moses’ long years of waiting before his calling at the burning bush.
Verses 17 to 19 finish the scene. Shepherds drive the daughters away, Moses stands up and waters the flock for them, and when they return home their father asks why they are back so early. The verse on its own shows women at work. Alongside what follows, it shows that the work was contested and that a stranger’s help changed the day. That changes how the reader hears the simple phrase “they came and drew water.”
Key Phrases in Exodus 2:16
Galatians 6:9
Let us not be weary in doing good, for we will reap in due season, if we don’t give up.
(WEB)
Paul’s words about not growing weary in doing good match the steady, unglamorous labor of the daughters at the well. Both passages describe faithfulness in small, repeated acts, and both trust that such work is never wasted in God’s sight.
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 God’s mountain, to Horeb.
(WEB)
This verse picks up the story of Moses still tending sheep in Midian, years after the well scene. It shows what God was doing during that quiet period, and it helps explain why the first encounter at the well mattered as part of a longer preparation.
A Short Prayer From Exodus 2:16
Lord, you see the people who work quietly in places no one notices, the ones who draw water day after day so that others can live. Thank you for the faithful labor of ordinary hands and for the ways you have always used it. When my own work feels small or unseen, remind me that you are present in it. Help me to be faithful in the next task you place before me, and to trust that you are writing a larger story through it. Amen.
