A Place of Commitment
Several angles to this story. First, Moses the man of privilege. He may not have been the only Hebrew babe to have been rescued at birth but he is the only one we know about and possibly the only one to have been saved by the royal court. Doubtless he grew up with the idea that he was different, and possibly special. Maybe also with the feeling that he owed something to society. But which society? With a foot in two worlds he lives in the tension between loyalty to his roots and that of his adoptive family, not to mention the material comforts that went with it.
Second, Moses the man of action. Whoever he is, wherever he is, he cannot stand around and do nothing when he sees injustice. No theory, no lectures, no waiting for someone else to do something; he gets stuck in with both hands.
Third, Moses the runner. Now he really knows who he is, who he belongs to, who are his friends and who are his enemies. Brought up as a royal prince is not going to save him and unable to face the consequences he runs away into the wilderness and sits down by a well. He responds positively to the sufferings of some women who had come to draw water and were being ill-treated by some shepherds and ends up marrying one of them.
Thus were sown the seeds which years later produced Moses the deliverer: the beginnings of his spiritual pilgrimage. A deserted character who found himself in the desert — older and wiser, more rational and conciliatory perhaps, but even more determined not to give up until the job was done.
Only imagination and speculation will help to elucidate what it was about that burning bush that did it. Perhaps the long-term realisation of what it meant to be an alien in a foreign land. Perhaps the quiet, the loneliness, even the isolation that left him with lots of time to think. Perhaps a sense of wonder at what he had found and the desire to share it with others. But all the emotion and enthusiasm he could command were not enough without the harsh reality of thought and argument as he worked out the practicalities. Life in the wilderness is like that. Not a place to run to unless you are prepared for a new call and a renewed commitment.