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[a] 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.” (Exodus 2:1-10)
Explanation of Passage
Sometimes when we read Old Testament narrative passages we can be tempted to think that all the details and descriptions are merely details and descriptions. As I hope to show you, the details of this narrative passage are rich with biblical themes that are meant to key us into the plot and the storyline of the Bible. The details given to us are purposely given to us so that we might not only catch on to the continuity of biblical themes, but through that, that we might understand the story.
As we read, this passage presents to us the birth, and events surrounding the birth, of one of the most important figures in the Bible – that of Moses. I mentioned last week how similar the circumstances were between the events surrounding the birth of Moses and the events surrounding the birth of Jesus. You had two tyrants ordering all baby boys to be put to death. In the midst of that, both Moses and Jesus were saved by Egypt, if you will. Moses being pulled out of the water by Pharaoh’s daughter and adopted into the royal court, and Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt to flee the persecution by orders from God. And if you were reading your Bible carefully and chronologically for the first time, you would’ve read about the birth of Moses first, of course, and you would’ve read how he ended up being the deliverer of his people, Israel. So when you read the same scenario surrounding the birth of Christ, the text is clueing you in to the fact that the birth of Christ, is the birth of another deliver, who would deliver His people, the true Israel. This is how deliverers are born – they first are delivered from death as infants, clearly signifying their importance to their people. Where a deliverer comes from is very important in the Bible.
With that in mind, the first thing we read in verse one ought to jump out at us as important. “A man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman.” The first thing that is hinted at here is what we talked about last week – the battle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, and the importance of the seed. So clearly Moses wants to continually press upon us the seed wars that are going on between Egypt and Israel.
Furthermore, we know that from the house of Levi comes the Levitical priesthood, which is very important. We know that it would begin with the priesthood of Aaron, and descend there from Aaron, who was Moses’ brother, born of this same Levite father and mother. So Moses wasn’t a priest in the sense that he was descended from Aaron and in the line of the Aaronic priesthood. But Moses was a kind of priest. You might recall singing from Psalm 99, “Moses was His priest, Aaron was the same…” Psalm 99 calls Moses a priest. Indeed, Moses was a priest in that he went before God on behalf of the people. He met with God as a mediator for Israel. He ministered to and sprinkled the people. He was specially set apart by God for that task. So from the very beginning, in the importance of his birth, we see the importance of Moses set before us.
Certainly even in verse two when Moses’ mother “saw that he was a fine child,” we should recognize that this is an important birth. It is almost as if at birth, Moses’ mother knew this was a special child, that he might be greatly used of God to deliver his people. In fact the New Testament sheds more light on this. Hebrews 11:23 says this, “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.” So Moses’ parents, by faith, hid the child for three months because he was beautiful. In Acts 7:20, Stephen’s sermon, Stephen says that the baby Moses was beautiful in God’s sight. So because of his beauty his parents acted in faith to hide him for three months. So certainly Moses’ parents believed the promises of God that there was to be a deliverer and rescuer who would be born. And this beauty spoken of Moses seems to indicate that there was something about this baby boy that increased their faith in this promise to act as if this very child could be the deliverer himself. It was as if the beauty of the Lord rested upon this baby. So having faith in the promises of God that a child would be born to rescue them, they acted without fear of the king’s edict, and defied the wicked orders. This was a display of their faith. They would endanger their own lives because their hope in the promise of God compelled them so. This was Christian resistance.
So after three months of hiding Moses, his mother, no longer able to hide him, makes a basket of reeds and pitch to place him in, in which she will put him among the reeds of the Nile. So when we read this in verse 3, and we are told a basket was made for him, what we can’t see in English is that the Hebrew word translated into “basket” is the exact same word used in Genesis to describe Noah’s ark. There, it is translated as “ark,” here, it is translated as “basket.” But it is the same word and it is the only two places in the Bible where that word is used. A different word is used for the ark of the covenant. So really it should say that she made an ark for Moses and placed him in it. And she makes this ark with pitch, just as Noah made his ark with pitch as God instructed.
Certainly there is a connection that the Bible wants us to see here. With both Noah and Moses, they were key figures during times of great judgment and renewal. Through both of them God judged and started something new. So if you read Genesis and you get to Exodus and read that this little boy was placed in an ark on the waters, just like Noah, you should realize that God is about to judge the powers that be and start something new.
Just as Noah was saved from the waters of death through the ark, so Moses was saved through the waters of death through the ark. And in both cases, the ark is Christ. In both cases it is our salvation in Christ that is typified. The Nile was death. The baby Moses was thrown into death. But he was not thrown in alone. He went into death inside of an ark. And if you go into death inside of an ark then you will be saved. And Jesus Christ is that ark. He is the only ark of our salvation. Because of our sin and rebellion against God, the waters of death roar out for our souls. They loudly crash, seeking to devour us and drown us down. The sea of death concurs with the judgment and wrath of God that justly condemns us for our sin and that is set upon sinners. We deserve to be thrown into the Nile of death where God’s wrath and punishment would come down upon us forever in eternal torment and suffering for all of our wicked and evil ways. But yet, out of God’s great mercy, God sent an ark for us. He sent us an ark that saves us from all the raging of the sea. It is His own son. And when we are swallowed up in Christ, when we are in union with Christ, united to Him by faith, we are secure in Christ our ark. Death will not take our souls down to the bottom. The raging of God’s wrath is calmed, and nothing outside of Christ our ark can touch us.
Our faith in Christ is to be like that of a little child, for our strength is like that of a little child – completely powerless with nothing to do but to trust your entire life and wellbeing to Christ.
So Moses is placed in the ark in the river as Pharaoh’s daughter comes down to bathe with her young female servants walking along the river. And in verse 6 when she opens the basket she sees the baby crying. Now certainly this would be an obvious thing that a baby would be doing in such a circumstance without his mother in a basket on a river. So why is this even mentioned? Well I think it is serving to show us that Moses is identified with his people. Moses, like the Hebrew people are suffering and in distress, they are crying out, as it were. And here Moses experiences that with his people. This is much like Christ who is not unable to sympathize with us in our weakness. Christ came and identified so much with His people who were great sinners in bondage to sin and darkness that Christ became our sin as 2 Corinthians 5 says. He suffered persecution and humiliation and great vexation at the cross. He suffered for sins that were not His own – He suffered for the sins of His people. He cried out to the Father in His great suffering on the cross. Like the cries of Moses were the only Hebrew cries to be heard by Egyptian royalty, so the cries of Jesus on the cross were heard for us. Through His suffering and through His crying out, we are saved.
Application of Passage
We talked about it last week with the midwives, but one of the themes that is continued in this passage is that of feminine resistance, or feminine cunning and shrewdness against the serpent. The mother conceals her son and hides him for three months. Then she makes a basket from reeds and places her son in the basket in the reeds on the Nile. Then like her mother, Moses’ sister is very wise. She follows along to see what will happen to her baby brother. When she sees Pharaoh’s daughter discover the baby she approaches and offers to find a wet-nurse for the baby, which of course she goes to her mother. And to boot, she ends up getting paid to be the Pharaoh’s daughter’s wet-nurse. That is plundering the Egyptians, which is a theme that will come up again. It’s a beautiful story of how God works all of this out.
Even from the Egyptian side, Pharaoh’s daughter is painted in a positive light. By taking in this baby, that she knows is a Hebrew baby, she is defying the orders of her father. In a sense she is also a rescuer and once again, through the woman, the man is deceived. So there is this feminine presence all surrounding the rescue of this baby boy. I think this is emphasizing to us that it is through the woman that the seed comes who would crush the serpent’s head. Through the woman the savior comes.
Satan tricked the woman in the garden, but oftentimes throughout history, God likes to use the woman to trick the serpent. God does this with midwives, mothers, little girls, and even with the Egyptian Pharaoh’s daughter, in rescuing and bringing in the one that would defeat Egypt.
As we consider the work of Moses’ mother and sister here, I want us to consider a principle for us that we see at play, and that is the necessity of shrewdness when under totalitarian regimes. When you are under such a totalitarian regime, you are not always in a position to go toe-to-toe, face-to-face showdown. You can, but you will be instantly squashed. Sometimes these situations require us to move quietly with wisdom and discretion, and righteous deception as we talked about last week. Sometimes God puts His Church under oppression in order to teach her how to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Now, we cannot let this be a cover for cowardice or compromise as many have done throughout history. But use wisdom with honor and courage with the intent to advance, not simply for self-preservation at all costs.
One of the ways this feminine cunning and shrewdness can manifest itself under such regimes and times is through institutions of nurture, hospitality, and various other care industries. It was through offering her services as a wet-nurse that Moses’ mother was able to nurse her son. Children and people will always need nurturing and care, and those are things that totalitarian regimes cannot do. Totalitarian regimes do not see men and women as people with souls made in the image of God. They are nothing more than cogs in the machine, easily replaceable parts. Nurture and care is the opposite. It sees men and women as made in the image of God, not mere numbers and digits in equation. Hospitable care returns dignity to people where it is robbed by totalitarian regimes. Maintaining those services and institutions outside of the regime’s industrial complex can often bring the regime down.
There is an honorable and right time for men to war and go out to battle and showdown face to face, as Moses eventually does. But so often, the rise and fall of empires is based upon the little things at home like the nurture of children, and the restoring of human dignity by the Church, to people who cannot deny that they need it. Under a regime that wants to get rid of all the children, Christians should be the ones to bring them in, and we will topple the regime. It is so often through acts of Christian service, hospitality, and love toward neighbor that the world is changed. Even today, where we aren’t under that kind of regime, we have similar opportunities. We live in world that is being devoured by the technocracy. People are losing their souls by being totally consumed by cold hard technology – they are losing out on human care and nurture that they need. There are those who live their entire lives online and increasingly will in metaverse type places. Such a lifestyle is depressing and soul-sucking and Christians will have a unique opportunity to restore human dignity through hospitality to such ones.
God has particularly given the gifts and skill sets of nurturing and hospitality to women – not exclusively – but particularly. Obviously as far as wet-nursing that is exclusive to women, which has to be said in our society today. But the fact that that has to be said also leaves the Church with a great opportunity. Because we live in a society where so many children don’t have a father and a mother. And there are many ways that plays itself out today with the destruction and perversion of the natural family order. The Church will have an opportunity to nurture and care for those children who had no real mother to do that for them. Our society bucks against the created order because it rejects its creator. But the natural order cannot be stopped. Babies need to be nurtured by their mamas, and if they are not, they will feel that need. Knowing how important it is, God gave Moses a mother who did everything to nurture her son, and she was able to.
Mothers, cherish and embrace the times of nurture for your babies. But don’t do so for your own self, always trying to keep your children according to the false religion of Safeism, never wanting them to face anything hard. Be like Moses’ mother, who, knowing her son would have to be sent into Egypt, nurtured him toward that end. Nurture your children with the intention and plan of advancing and taking ground. In other words, give them the godly and natural nurturing they need to have the confidence and strength to go out and conquer, to go out and take ground. Godly nurturing leads to godly men. But there is an ungodly smothering, a toxic matriarchy, that can do the opposite and stunt the growth of your boys, and keep them from being the brave young men God has called them to be. So keep in mind that you were made to nurture warriors who would fight dragons and slay serpents, not to keep them babies forever for yourself. You give yourself and your life for the life of others. That is a godly and glorious calling.
Just as with Moses’ sister, your daughters, when they are even just little girls, begin to show this natural inclination to nurture and care. That is a beautiful thing for mom’s to guide their daughters in, not to stamp out by preparing them for a career in the workforce outside the home. Corporate women won’t topple regimes when that is exactly where the regime wants her. Mothers who defy the regime to stay at home to nurture their little warriors do. Large doors swing on small hinges. Those small hinges are everyday faithfulness and obedience. The little things add up to big things.
Conclusion
“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.’” Moses means to “draw out.” Certainly Moses would become the one through whom God would draw out His people from Egypt. A fitting name.
Think about little Moses, in his little ark, on the Nile River, then drawn out of the water. The raging water is death, being drawn out is resurrection. Down into death, up out again. Death and resurrection. It’s everywhere in the Bible. That’s because that’s how we’re saved – through death and resurrection, namely the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Salvation comes through a deliverer who died and rose again.
Time and again throughout the Old Testament God lead His people through death and resurrection, to show forth the death and resurrection of Christ and teach us that life comes through death. And since Christ was cast into the waters of death and drawn up out again, we did also, with Him. We died with Him so that we might live with Him.
Death and resurrection is what it takes to defeat the tyrant of sin in our own hearts and lives. We must die to ourselves, die to our sin, die to the desires of the flesh, and live again unto God, walk again in a manner worthy of your calling. And each time, it is God who draws us up out of the water. The One who drew His own Son up out of the water, will also not leave us to drown.
Sometimes in life it might feel like you are drowning. Drowning in your sin, or despair, or certain struggles, or fears, or circumstances, or trials, or whatever it may be. Maybe you are gulping and gasping just for your next breath, for any little breather that you can get. Whatever it is, may our text today remind us that we have Psalms and prayers with this language of cries to God, such as Psalm 18:16, “He sent from on high, he took me; he drew me out of many waters.” There it is. We have a God who draws His people out of many waters. He has drawn us out of the waters of death for our sin, through the death and resurrection of His Son. And He will draw us out of any other torrent of water that seeks to wreak havoc in our lives. He is the God who draws His people out of the water.
If the waters are raging all around you, cry out to God. Cry out to Him. He is a God who draws His people out of the water. Cry out to Him for Jesus’ sake, that Christ would have mercy on you, a sinner. And look unto the cross of Jesus, where Christ cried out to the Father on behalf of His people – it is finished!
The beauty of this deliverer, redeemer, and rescuer far outshines that of Moses, who was just a type. The beauty of Jesus Christ for sinners is unmatched. To see and behold the face of the one who suffered and bled in agony for sinners like you, is to see the promised deliverer, and His face is beautiful. Someone who would take your sin and endure the just wrath of God in death on a cross, and who would love you and count you as righteous in God’s sight….there is no one more beautiful than that to one who has been redeemed from their sin and brought up out of the water.
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