Read with Me
Exodus 2:1-10 (HCSB)
Now a man from the family of Levi married a Levite woman. The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son; when she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months. But when she could no longer hide him, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with asphalt and pitch. She placed the child in it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile. Then his sister stood at a distance in order to see what would happen to him.
Pharaoh’s daughter went down to bathe at the Nile while her servant girls walked along the riverbank. Seeing the basket among the reeds, she sent her slave girl to get it. When she opened it, she saw the child—a little boy, crying. She felt sorry for him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew boys.”
Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Should I go and call a woman from the Hebrews to nurse the boy for you?”
“Go,” Pharaoh’s daughter told her. So the girl went and called the boy’s mother. Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.” So the woman took the boy and nursed him. When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”
Listen with Me
Moses had was born at a difficult time, but it is easy to see God’s handiwork in his life from the very beginning.
First, he was from the pure lineage of Levi, with both his father and mother coming from that line. The significance of this would only be apparent later when God chose the descendants of Levi to serve Him as priests and ministers, those who were able to stand before Him, and to represent the rest of the Israelites. Moses would do this before the whole tribe was chosen.
Next, the Pharaoh had mandated that all male babies be cast into the river. Moses’ mother hid the newborn until he was too loud and too active to remain unnoticed. Then, instead of throwing him into the river to drown, she put him in a waterproofed box (the same word is used here as that used to describe Noah’s boat, usually translated “ark”), and set, not in the river itself, but in the reeds that lined the shores. If he was to be found by a kindhearted Egyptian woman and saved, putting him where the women came to bathe was the ideal spot.
But it was not merely a kindhearted woman who found him. It was the daughter of Pharaoh himself! The child was easily recognized as a Hebrew baby not only by the blanket in which he was wrapped, but also by the fact that he was circumcised.
Noah’s sister, Miriam, had been assigned by her mother to watch over the child to see what would happen to him. When she saw that the woman was drawn to the baby, she emerged from the reeds and offered to find a wet nurse for the baby among the Hebrew women. Thus, Moses’ mother got to legally keep him for the next two years, teaching him Hebrew as well as the history of his people, as much as he could understand.
Pharaoh’s call the baby Moses, which is from the Egyptian root ms, which means child, or son, or born. But it also sounds like the Hebrew word for “the one who draws out”. This was an apt term both for the circumstances surrounding his discovery by the river, but it also foretells that he will be the one who is destined to draw God’s people out of Egypt.
Pray with Me
Father, it is easy to see Your fingerprints all over this entire event. You didn’t just leave your people in Egypt and hope for the best, but You were actively moving Your plan forward, though Your actions were unseen by human eyes at the time. Lord, help me to trust that You are still moving your plan forward even today, and to listen for Your voice guiding me in my part in that plan. Amen.