Baby Moses Is Rescued

Context

The Israelites were descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the family to whom God had made covenant promises. They had come to Egypt generations earlier, during Joseph’s lifetime. What began as a place of refuge became the home of a large and growing people, but they remained under Egyptian rule. Their future now depended on what would happen when that ruling power turned against them.

Story

A new Pharaoh came to power who had no regard for Joseph. He looked at the Israelites and saw a threat. They were numerous, and he feared that if war came, they might join Egypt’s enemies, fight against the Egyptians, and leave the land.

Pharaoh put taskmasters over them and forced them to build the store cities of Pithom and Rameses. The Egyptians made their lives bitter with hard labor in brickmaking, construction, and work in the fields. Yet the more the Israelites were oppressed, the more they multiplied. Pharaoh’s fear only hardened into harsher treatment.

He called two Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, and ordered them to kill the newborn Hebrew boys while allowing the girls to live. But the midwives feared God and refused to obey the king’s command. They kept the boys alive. When Pharaoh demanded an explanation, they told him that the Hebrew women often gave birth before a midwife could arrive. God treated the midwives well, the Israelite people continued to increase, and God gave the women families of their own.

Pharaoh then issued a public order: every newborn Hebrew boy was to be thrown into the Nile, while the girls were allowed to live.

During this time, a man and woman from the tribe of Levi had a son. His mother saw that he was a fine child, and she hid him for three months. When she could hide him no longer, she made a basket from papyrus reeds and coated it to keep out the water. She placed the baby inside and set the basket among the reeds at the riverbank. The child’s sister stood at a distance to see what would happen.

Pharaoh’s own daughter came to the river to bathe. She noticed the basket among the reeds and sent one of her attendants to bring it to her. When she opened it, the baby was crying. She felt compassion for him and recognized that he was one of the Hebrew children.

The baby’s sister stepped forward and offered to find a Hebrew woman to nurse him. Pharaoh’s daughter agreed, so the girl brought the child’s own mother. The princess asked her to care for the baby and promised to pay her. In this way, the child returned to his mother’s care.

When he had grown, his mother brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and the princess adopted him as her son. She named him Moses because she had drawn him out of the water. The river Pharaoh had chosen as an instrument of death became the place from which this child was drawn alive.

Years later, when Moses was grown, he went out to his own people and saw the heavy burdens they carried. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. After looking around and seeing no one nearby, Moses killed the Egyptian and hid the body in the sand.

The next day, Moses saw two Hebrew men fighting and challenged the one who was in the wrong. The man replied, “Who made you a ruler and judge over us?” He then asked whether Moses intended to kill him as he had killed the Egyptian. Moses realized that what he had done was known. When Pharaoh heard about it, he tried to have Moses killed, but Moses fled to the land of Midian.

There, beside a well, Moses met the seven daughters of a Midianite priest. They had come to draw water for their father’s flock, but some shepherds drove them away. Moses stood up for the women and watered their flock. When they returned home earlier than usual, they told their father, Reuel, that an Egyptian had rescued them and helped with the animals. Reuel invited Moses to eat with the family.

Moses agreed to stay with Reuel, who gave him his daughter Zipporah in marriage. She gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, explaining that he had become a foreigner in a foreign land.

Much later, the king of Egypt died, but the Israelites’ slavery continued. They groaned under their burdens and cried out for help. Their cry rose to God.

God heard their groaning. He remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He saw the Israelites and took notice of what they were enduring.

What We Learned

• Shiphrah and Puah feared God and refused to use their position to harm the helpless, even when Pharaoh commanded it.
• The courage and compassion of Moses’ mother, sister, and Pharaoh’s daughter preserved a child whom the king had marked for death.
• Moses saw his people’s suffering, but killing one oppressor did not end their bondage; instead, Moses became a fugitive.
• Long suffering did not mean that God had forgotten his people. He heard their cries, saw their condition, and remained faithful to his covenant.