The Birth of Moses

Hidden

Now a Levite man had married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and gave birth to a son. She saw that he was good, so she hid him for three months.

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Among the Israelites lived a couple named Amram and Jochebed. Both were descendants of Jacob’s third son, Levi. They had two children—a daughter named Miriam and a son named Aaron.¹ After the pharaoh issued his edict to drown the baby boys, Jochebed gave birth to a second son. Somehow, she managed to hide him from the Egyptians for three months. Where other mothers likely tried and failed, she succeeded.

Jochebed risked the Egyptians catching and likely beating her for disobedience because “she saw that he was good.” Scholars debate whether this means he was particularly beautiful or healthy or special in some other way. But the Hebrew word tov (“good”) doesn’t mean he wasn’t a normal baby. The wording reveals more about Jochebed than it does about her child. It intentionally mirrors Eve’s reaction to the forbidden tree at the beginning of Genesis. Eve “saw that the tree was good,” so she rebelled against God’s edict.² Jochebed saw that her son was good, so she rebelled against the pharaoh’s edict.

When Jochebed saw her son, she loved him. The pharaoh judged him worthless, but she judged him worthy of life, so she risked herself to save him. Unlike Eve, she didn’t rebel against God. She rebelled against a murderous tyrant, just as Shiphrah and Puah had.³ God didn’t expect these women to silently submit to abusive male authority. He blessed them for their brave defiance and used them to bring life and freedom to his people.

Among the Reeds

When she couldn’t hide him any longer, she took a papyrus basket and sealed it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child inside it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.

Image by Aya & Nicole Velasquez from Free Bible Images, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

After three months, Jochebed couldn’t hide her baby any longer. For him to survive, she would have to take desperate measures. So she took a basket made of papyrus leaves and made it waterproof by coating it with tar and pitch. She knew how to do this because the Egyptians made fishing boats out of bundles of papyrus reeds.⁴ Then she did the most desperate thing imaginable. She put her son in the basket and placed him in the Nile—the very place where the pharaoh had commanded he die!

The Bible calls the “basket” Jochebed used a tevah. This rare Hebrew word occurs in only one other story in Scripture. The word describes the boat Noah built and coated with pitch to save himself, his family, and a remnant of creation from the flood.⁵ A tevah protected Noah and his family from the waters that killed everyone else. And a tevah would protect Jochebed’s baby from the waters that killed all the other baby boys. This child would be a new Noah. He would bring about a new covenant and a new way for humanity to relate to God.⁶

Jochebed hid the basket among the reeds growing in the shallows near the bank so it wouldn’t float away. She couldn’t have safely visited often enough to feed the baby or thought no one would hear him crying. So she must have hoped someone would find him and take care of him. She had done what she could to protect her son, and now she had to entrust him to Yahweh’s care.

The Pharaoh’s Daughter

While his sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him, the pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe. Her attendants walked beside the river. When she saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her servant to retrieve it. She opened it and saw the child—a baby crying!—and she pitied him. “This is a Hebrew child!”

Then his sister asked the pharaoh’s daughter, “Should I go find a Hebrew woman to nurse the child for you?”

“Yes, go ahead.”

So the girl went to call the baby’s mother. Then the pharaoh’s daughter told her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me. I’ll pay your wages.”

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While the basket floated among the reeds, the baby’s sister, Miriam, stood hidden not far away. Likely at the instruction of Jochebed, Miriam watched to see who would find the baby and what would happen to him. Eventually, a group of young women approached.⁷ The pharaoh’s daughter, probably one of many children from his harem, had come to bathe by the sacred river while her attendants walked along the banks to ensure her privacy.

The princess saw the basket, and a servant brought it to her. A member of the pharaoh’s household finding the baby seems like a recipe for disaster. But when she opened the basket, the sight of a crying baby surprised her and filled her with pity. She had no intention of obeying her father, even though she immediately realized the boy must be a Hebrew. The pharaoh’s edict was so cruel that even his own daughter rebelled against it.

When Miriam saw the princess’s reaction, she decided to take a risk and approach the Egyptian women. She offered to find a wet nurse to care for the baby, even though the princess had said nothing about keeping him. Miriam subtly implied she should. The princess either didn’t suspect the girl’s relationship to the baby or, more likely, didn’t care. She accepted the proposal and sent Miriam off. Finding a wet nurse wouldn’t prove difficult with so many mothers recently bereaved of their sons.

But Miriam didn’t need to search. She ran straight to Jochebed and told her mother what happened. They returned to the princess, who gave Jochebed the baby. For the first few years of his life, until his weaning, he would live with his nurse. The princess would pay her for this service. Jochebed not only received back her son but also a salary to care for him!

Moses

The woman took the baby and nursed him. When the child had grown older, the pharaoh’s daughter took him, and he became her son. She named him Moses and said, “I drew him out of the water.”

Image by Rebecca Scholz from Pixabay

The baby lived with his family until he was weaned, around the age of three or four. Then he moved into the palace with his adoptive mother, who named him Moses. Moses’s name has a double meaning. Of course, the Egyptian princess spoke Egyptian, not Hebrew. She gave her son an Egyptian name from a root meaning “born of” or “child of.” The same root appears in the names of pharaohs like Rameses, Ahmose, and Thutmose.⁸ So she named him Moses because he was “born of” the water she pulled him out of.

The princess’s pun works equally well in Hebrew. The Hebrew form of Moses’s name (mosheh) means “one who draws out.” This not only serves as a wordplay on “I drew him out” but also foreshadows Moses as the one who would draw Israel out of Egypt.⁹

Jochebed likely remained an important part of Moses’s life as a servant entrusted with his care.¹⁰ As an adult, Moses knew his true identity.¹¹ But he officially became a member of the royal family and received the education and leadership training that went with being a male descendant of a pharaoh. Through Moses’s life in the palace, God began to prepare him for his future role.

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Exodus 2:11–25 →

Numbers 26:59.
Genesis 3:6; see Sin.
See The Brave Midwives.
HISTORY, “Why the Nile River Was So Important to Ancient Egypt,” by Patrick J. Kiger, last modified July 27, 2023, https://www.history.com/news/ancient-egypt-nile-river.
See Noah’s Ship.
See The Major Covenants.
The Hebrew words for “attendants” and “servant” indicate they were all women.
Durham, Exodus, 17; Walton et al., Bible Background Commentary, Exodus 2:10.
See Foreshadowing.
Rebekah’s nurse remained with her even after her marriage. Genesis 24:59.
Exodus 2:11.