Exodus 2:8

This passage follows straight on from the cruellest command in the opening of Exodus. Pharaoh, alarmed at how many the Israelites had become (Exodus 1:9–10), had ordered every newborn Hebrew boy to be cast into the Nile (Exodus 1:22). The Hebrew midwives had already refused to kill the boys at birth (Exodus 1:17), and now the whole nation lived under the threat.

“And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.” The verb for “went”, yâlak, is the everyday word for walking or going, and “took to wife” is the Bible’s usual way of saying that a man married. The man, ʼîysh, is simply a man, one individual, and the woman is a bath, a daughter, a word Strong’s derives from bânâh, “to build”, as the feminine of bên, “son”. Both came from Levi. Marrying within one’s own tribe was common, and in a foreign land it helped a family keep its identity. The house of Levi matters for what follows. From this marriage come Moses and Aaron, and God would later set the whole tribe apart to serve at the tabernacle (Numbers 3:6–9).

“And when she could not longer hide him”, because a growing baby is harder to keep quiet and out of sight, his mother took a new and bolder step. She “took for him an ark of bulrushes”. The word for ark, têbâh, means a box or chest and is probably borrowed from another language. In the Old Testament it is used only for this little vessel and for Noah’s ark (Genesis 6:14). The shared word ties the two stories together. In the flood the whole world was under judgment, and here every Hebrew boy was under Pharaoh’s sentence. In both, God carried life safely through the water that destroyed others, and in both a new beginning followed for his people.

The materials were humble and close at hand. The bulrushes, gômeʼ, are papyrus, a plant named for the way it soaks up water, which Egyptians used for everything from writing material to light boats. She “daubed it with slime and with pitch”. The slime, chêmâr, is bitumen, named for the way it rises to the surface of the ground, and the pitch is asphalt, which softens in the sun. Both were sealants, so she made the basket watertight with care. Her love shows in the work of her hands.

“She laid it in the flags by the river’s brink.” The flags are reeds, çûwph, papyrus growing along the bank, which both hid the ark and held it still against the current. The same word stands in the Hebrew name of the sea that Israel would later cross, which the KJV calls the Red sea and which is often called the Sea of Reeds. The river is the Nile, the very river Pharaoh had named as the grave of the Hebrew boys. His mother puts him into that river in a vessel built to carry him safely, and she entrusts to God the life she can no longer protect herself. The water that was meant to kill him becomes the place of his rescue, and Moses himself would one day lead Israel through the sea on dry ground (Exodus 14:21–22).

“And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.” The word for sister, ʼâchôwth, is the feminine of ʼâch, brother. She is unnamed here. Numbers 26:59 names Miriam as the sister of Aaron and Moses, and she is the one who later leads the women of Israel in song after the crossing of the sea (Exodus 15:20–21).

She “stood”, yâtsab, a verb that means to station oneself, to take a place and stay there. She chose her post and held it. “Afar off” let her watch the ark without drawing attention to it or to herself. “To wit” is old English for “to know”, and the Hebrew is yâdaʻ, “to know”, properly to find something out by seeing it. She meant to learn what would happen to her brother, and she was ready to act when it did. Her family watched over the child as closely as they dared, and above them was the God of whom the psalm says, “Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:3–4).

“And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river.” The verb yârad means to go down, and it is used for going down to a lower place such as a shore. The Nile was the lifeblood of Egypt, used for bathing and perhaps for ritual washing, and the Egyptians held it sacred and associated it with the god Hapi. Bathing there was part of her ordinary routine, and God used that routine to bring her to the right place at the right time. Her maidens walked along the bank, so what happened next took place in front of witnesses. When she “saw the ark among the flags”, she sent her maid, a maidservant, to fetch it. The girl who speaks to her in verse 8 is called by a different word.

“And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept.” The word for babe, naʻar, means a boy anywhere from infancy to youth, and here he is a baby only three months old. He wept, bâkâh, the ordinary word for weeping and lamenting. “And she had compassion on him.” The verb châmal means to pity, to have compassion, and also to spare, which is exactly what she does. One crying baby moved the daughter of the man who had ordered his death.

“This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” She knew at once what he was, perhaps from where the ark lay, perhaps from the way he looked, perhaps simply from the fact that a hidden baby by the river could only be one of them. Knowing that her father’s command condemned this child, she spared him anyway. Her pity is a small picture of God’s own: “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him” (Psalm 103:13).

The sister, who had watched all this, stepped forward at the right moment and spoke to the daughter of Pharaoh: “Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?” Both words for nursing in her question are yânaq, which means to suck, and in its causative sense to give milk. She is offering a wet nurse, a woman who breastfeeds another woman’s child. Royal and wealthy households commonly employed one, and Scripture itself mentions Rebekah’s nurse going with her when she left home to marry Isaac. A Hebrew baby needed milk, and a Hebrew woman could give it. Her question solved the princess’s problem at once, and it opened the way for his own mother to come.

Pharaoh’s daughter answered with one word, “Go”, from yâlak, the same verb as “went” in the next clause. “And the maid went and called the child’s mother.” The word for maid, ʻalmâh, means a girl or young woman, and Scripture leaves her exact age unstated. She was old enough to keep watch alone, to speak to a princess and to make a sensible offer, and she did all three with courage. The narrator calls the woman she brings “the child’s mother”, so the reader knows what the princess does not.

Then came the princess’s offer: “Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages.” The word for wages, sâkâr, means payment agreed by contract, hire or salary, so this was a formal arrangement. The mother who had been commanded to give up her son to the river now carried him home openly, under royal protection, and was paid by Pharaoh’s household to feed him. “And the woman took the child, and nursed it.” This last “nursed” is a different verb, nûwq, meaning to suckle. In these early years his own mother cared for him, and she could pass on to him the faith and the story of his people before he went to the palace.

“And the child grew.” The verb gâdal means to grow or become great, and here it is the plain process of a child growing up, until he no longer needed a nurse. Then his mother kept her side of the bargain: “she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son.” Bên, son, is the word for a son as the one who builds up the family name, and Moses now had a son’s place in a royal household. The princess is unnamed in Exodus, and later tradition calls her Bithiah. Stephen tells us what that upbringing gave him: Moses “was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds” (Acts 7:22). The boy the king had sentenced to death was raised and educated in the king’s own house.

These ten verses tell of no angel and no voice from heaven, and yet God is at work in every detail: the mother’s faith, the place where the ark rested, the hour the princess came to bathe, the baby’s cry, her pity, the sister’s question and the wages from Pharaoh’s purse. Joseph’s words fit this story well: “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive” (Genesis 50:20). Pharaoh’s household meant to destroy the Hebrew boys, and God used that same household to protect and pay for the one who would set Israel free.

The heart of a king, and of a king’s daughter, is in the hand of the LORD, who turns it wherever he wills (Proverbs 21:1). The plans of the nations come to nothing while his counsel stands for ever (Psalm 33:10–11). The mother made her plan with all her skill, and “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). God works all things together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

He did it through weak things. A papyrus basket, a young girl and a baby’s cry overturned the plan of the most powerful man in Egypt. “God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty” (1 Corinthians 1:27–29). God also works through people who act. The mother’s faith, Miriam’s watchfulness and the princess’s compassion were real choices, and God used every one of them.

The birth of Moses looks ahead to the birth of Jesus. Moses was born into oppression under a king who killed baby boys, and Jesus was born under Herod, who ordered the boys of Bethlehem killed and from whom the infant Jesus was carried to safety in Egypt (Matthew 2:13–18). Both were born humbly, Moses to an unnamed Levite couple and Jesus in a manger (Luke 2:7), and both were born into a family line God had chosen, Jesus as the son of Abraham and of David (Matthew 1:1–17). God preserved both because both were sent to save.

Moses himself promised that God would raise up a prophet like him (Deuteronomy 18:15), and Peter preached that Jesus is that prophet (Acts 3:22). Jesus is counted worthy of more glory than Moses, as the builder of a house has more honour than the house (Hebrews 3:1–6). The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ (John 1:17). Moses came from the house of Levi, and Jesus is our great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14), the mediator of a better covenant (Hebrews 8:6), who offered himself once for all and cleanses the conscience (Hebrews 9:11–14).

Moses was drawn out of the water to draw Israel out of slavery in Egypt. Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), sets people free from slavery to sin, and whom the Son makes free is free indeed (John 8:34–36). Through his death he destroyed the devil’s power and freed those who all their lives were held in fear of death (Hebrews 2:14–15). Those buried with him in baptism are raised with him to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:3–4), and anyone in Christ is a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). Moses led Israel toward a land of rest, and a greater rest remains for the people of God (Hebrews 4:9–10). Behind it all is the love of the Father, who so loved the world that he gave his only Son (John 3:16).

This passage shows us a God who is at work when his people can see nothing but danger. Israel was enslaved and its sons were condemned, and in that very hour God was preparing their deliverer in a Levite home, in a basket on the Nile, and in Pharaoh’s own palace. He turned the instrument of death into the means of life and made the enemy’s house pay for the upbringing of the man who would humble it.

It shows too that God honours small acts of faith. A mother hid her baby and then let him go, a girl stood watch and spoke up, and God wove both into the rescue of a nation. The parents of Moses are praised in Hebrews for what they did by faith, and they could see only the next step.

And it shows God’s tenderness. He made a weeping child the means of softening a princess’s heart, and he gave a mother back the son she had placed in his hands. The psalm puts the pattern in a sentence: “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy” (Psalm 126:5–6). Jochebed laid her son in the reeds with tears, and before the day was out she carried him home again.