Moses saw two Hebrews fighting each other. He tried to stop them, but the attacker said: Who made you a prince and a judge over us?
A judge was often a ruler and a saviour from enemies (see the book Judges). The Israelite man asked for Moses’ legitimation: who has made you a prince? This is a good question, and in the next chapter we read God made Moses to ruler and judge, but that was forty years later. At the same time, the resistance against Moses was the beginning of a long series of protest and rebellion against his leadership given by God (see Exodus 5:19–20; Exodus 14:10–12).
13 When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?”