Moses In The Ark
Exodus 2:1-10
2 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 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.”
Pharaoh has ordered the drowning of every baby boy born to the Hebrews, and this action will prove his undoing. The strange circumstances of the birth and life of Moses will be exactly what God will use to prepare him to be the leader of the Israelites.
The heroes of this episode are the women: Moses’s mother, Moses’s sister Miriam (who is about six years old here), and Pharaoh’s daughter. Each of them acts courageously in defiance of Pharaoh, and their actions make Moses’s life possible. But each of the women (as well as the previously-mentioned midwives) are also just bravely doing what women do—they are mothers and sisters and midwives and daughters. Here again we see ordinary people doing ordinary things in a courageous way, and the Lord takes their small actions and makes them matter.
Our English translations fail us when they translate the Hebrew word in v. 3 as “basket.” In Hebrew, this word is used only one other time in the entire Bible, and it is the word “ark” from the Noah story. Here, Moses is placed in a little ark! Just as with Noah, here the man the Lord will use to save his people is himself saved from drowning in an ark.
Note that Pharaoh has ordered the destruction of the Hebrew boys through the water; later, Pharaoh will lead his armies to destruction in the waters of the Red Sea.
Isn’t it interesting how God always allows evil to bring about its own destruction? If Pharaoh hadn’t ordered the murder of the Hebrew babies, then Moses would not have been raised to be a leader in Pharaoh’s own household. Presumably the formation and education Moses receives in Pharaoh’s palace were essential for his future leadership.
At the Cross, what seemed like a victory for evil turned out to be its ultimate defeat. What looked like a loss for Jesus was actually proven three days later to be a win.
Be hopeful today: evil will not win in the end.