Sun, 19 February, 2006: Today’s Bible readings.
1 Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. 2 The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. 3 When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. 4 And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. 5 Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. 6 When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” 7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” 8 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. 9 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him. 10 When the child grew up, 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.”
Pharaoh has decreed that all the males born to the Israelites are to be killed. This edict is the background to Moses’ birth. Moses’ parents, Amram and Jochebed, can’t hide him any longer, and so they turn him over to God’s providence, setting him loose on the Nile.
God has a purpose for Moses. Moses will lead the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery. He will lead the newly formed nation, and so it is God’s intent to have Moses trained in Pharaoh’s court. And so the outcome of Amram and Jochebed turning loose their son on the Nile river is that Moses is adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter, and is educated and trained as a prince of Egypt.
What do we learn from this?
Once again we see that God is in control of all things. Even the currents of the Nile flow as God decrees so that the ark floats to exactly where Pharaoh’s daughter is about to bathe. The river brings Moses to one of the few people who can win him a reprieve from the death penalty. The father has decreed destruction upon all the Hebrew boys, but the daughter when she comes face to face with one under the death sentence is struck with pity. And so, Pharaoh’s command is countermanded, and Moses is spared.
What a series of coincidences? No. It is God’s hand of providence in guiding the flow of the river and the sympathy of a woman’s heart all to further His purpose. God is in control.
Where is Christ in this passage?
Moses’ birth has some similarities with Jesus’. King Herod had all the boy infants of Bethlehem murdered in an attempt to kill the Savior of the people, but Jesus was spared through God’s intervention as His parents were warned to take Him to Egypt.
