A Mother's Faith Series

Exodus 2:1-10 [2:1] 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." (ESV)

Mother's Day is always the second Sunday in May. The first Mother's Day observance was a church service honoring Mrs. Anna Reese Jarvis, held at Anna Jarvis's request in Grafton, West Virginia, and in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 10, 1908. Canada was one of the first nations to pick up the US version of Mother’s Day, making it a national holiday in 1909, one year later the United States did. Even though few know the name of Anna Reese Jarvis, her legacy remains. (Pulpit Helps, May, 1991 as found in Galaxie Software. (2002; 2002). 10,000 Sermon Illustrations. Biblical Studies Press.)

Names mark out the unit in this section of Exodus. Verse 1 names the house (tribe) of Levi as the genealogical locus for the story, and v. 10 ends with the naming of Moses and an explanation of his name’s meaning. The name that is the agent of faith for this story however is a name not even mentioned.

On one hand, the story concerns a baby born a humble Israelite but, surprisingly, adopted as a royal Egyptian. On the other hand, it forms part of a cheering story of God’s careful provision of a deliverer for his people. Of course, at this preliminary point in the book the reader has not yet learned formally that Moses will function in the role of deliverer of God’s people. But that is of little consequence since the earliest readers were already familiar with Moses, who wrote this story only after he had become Israel’s divinely-designated leader. The story of his birth is thus both a prelude to his call and, in part, an indication of his call. Although this portion of the overall narrative features Moses, it is also the story of how God uses three women to save a baby from death. It features two mothers and two daughters, with the daughter of Pharaoh in two roles, initially that of daughter and eventually also of adoptive mother. Moses’ biological mother, later identified as Jochebed in Exod 6:20 and Num 26:59, also figures prominently in these events as the one who not only did everything she could to preserve the life of her child, but also as the woman who ended up being able to nurse and thus substantially rear (see vv. 7–10) her own little boy.

The final major figure is this woman’s daughter, that is, Moses’ sister, who will be identified later as Miriam, one of the leaders of the exodus. Miriam is first named in Exod 15:20–21 as the leader of the Israelite women singing the battle victory song recorded in that chapter; she is identified as a leader of Israel in Mic 6:4 (“I sent Moses to lead you, also Aaron and Miriam”). Miriam’s oversight of Moses as he floated among the rushes of the Nile and her quick thinking in proposing an Israelite nurse for the baby (knowing full well she would “recruit” his own mother) helped preserve Moses for her family and for Israel’s salvation. God is in control, guiding, directing and working out all things for the good of His people. Thus, no matter how the ungodly, the seed of the serpent, attempt to thwart God’s plan (chapter 1), they cannot and will not succeed (chapter 2). (Currid, J. D. (2000). A Study Commentary on Exodus: Exodus 1–18 (Vol. 1, p. 58). Darlington, England; Carlisle, PA: Evangelical Press.)