WEDNESDAY
In chapter 2 of Exodus, we begin to see God’s response to his people’s plight begin to take shape. He raises up a deliverer. This is God’s M.O. throughout Scripture. He calls and equips a person to deliver his people: Moses, Noah, Joseph, David, Josiah, and ultimately Jesus. In their commentary on Exodus, Ross and Oswalt comment, “God never starts with a program but always with a person.” - Allen Ross and John N. Oswalt, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: Genesis, Exodus, vol. 1 (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2008), 294.
Exodus 2:1–10 (NIV)
The Birth of Moses
2 Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, 2 and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.
5 Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. 6 She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.
7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”
8 “Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”
The narrator gives us a few interesting comments here that we should note. First, Moses is from the tribe of Levi. This foreshadows his priestly role. The priests are to mediate between the people and God. They are to represent God before the people and represent the people before God. Second, the word for “basket” is the same Hebrew word translated “ark” in the Noah narrative of Genesis 6. The author (likely Moses) is clearly trying to draw a link between the two events. The link is God’s deliverance. Similarly, Moses is placed among the reeds. This is the same word as in 13:18 to describe the sea that God parts for the people of Israel to walk across on dry ground. So the author is again connecting the two events.
The theme, here, is God’s preparation of his deliverer. The key is the preservation of his life. This text displays the complex intersection of God’s sovereignty and human action. It’s obvious that God’s hand is at work in this story even if the text doesn’t explicitly say it. Moses has a death sentence over his head. Infant mortality rates were incredibly high at this time and the most powerful man in the world has ordered his destruction. Further emphasizing the sovereignty of God in this situation, Moses’s biological mother is the one who gets to nurse him and care for him. And she gets paid for it! His survival and return to his home are clearly due to the sovereignty of God. This is exactly the way God loves to work. He chooses unlikely people to be his deliverers. He will get the glory for his deliverance and prove that it is not by human effort alone that God’s people will be set free.
At the same time, this was likely a well-thought-out plan by Moses’ mother. Contrary to the portrayal of this scene in The Prince of Egypt, it doesn’t seem as if Moses’ mother placed the basket in the river and let it float away to wherever the fates may take it. Instead she “placed the basket among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.” She likely placed it there so the basket wouldn’t float away. And this was the spot where Pharaoh’s daughter bathed. She likely didn’t bath just anywhere. It was almost certainly out of sight and in a secretive place. So she placed Moses where the princess would find him. The princess, going against her father’s order, takes pity on the child and adopts him into her family. This was likely a calculated decision made by Moses’ mother—she bets on the maternal instinct of the princess to save her child and her bet pays off. So far, the heroines of this story have been the two midwives, Moses’ mother, and Pharaoh’s daughter. At a time when women had no power, God chooses these women to deliver Israel’s deliverer.
In this text we see how God loves to take the attempts of evil rulers to thwart his purposes and turn them on their heads. In chapter 1 Pharaoh orders his people, after his more secretive midwife plan didn’t work out, to kill the baby boys by specifically throwing them into the Nile (1:22). Here, Moses is delivered through the Nile. Also, it is Pharaoh’s own daughter who takes pity on God’s deliverer. Furthermore, Pharaoh’s order of destruction—as evil as it is—ultimately brings Moses, God’s deliverer, into his own household to be raised as an Egyptian prince. God turns the evil plans of evil kings on their heads and accomplishes his purposes even through their plans. Therefore, “to oppose oneself to God is to run the very clear chance that one’s own resources will become the means of God’s accomplishing his purposes.” (Allen Ross and John N. Oswalt, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: Genesis, Exodus, vol. 1 (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2008), 296.)
This theme is seen most notably in the cross of Christ. God takes the evil plan of Satan, the Romans, and the Jewish religious leaders and accomplishes his purpose of redemption through it. God’s plan will not be thwarted, no matter how powerful the empire or how unlikely the outcome.
Reflection
This text reveals obedience and trust. The midwives obeyed God rather than Pharaoh. Moses’ mom obeyed by not killing her child. All the while they trusted that God would work something out, even if they couldn’t see the big picture. The old song “Trust and Obey” comes to mind.
Do the next right thing even if you can’t see the outcome.