Exodus 1&2
We are now beginning our study of the book of Exodus! If you remember from our study of Genesis 29& 30, Leah, Rachel, and their two servants gave birth to a total of 12 sons and 1 daughter. Genesis ends with the story of Joseph, Rachel’s first son, and how Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt. He then rose to power in Egypt because of his ability to interpret dreams. Jacob brought his remaining 11 sons into Egypt. Eventually Joseph and his brothers died, but their descendants remained in Egypt and the Jewish population increased quickly.
About 400 years passed and we see a new Pharaoh has risen to power. Pharaoh believed that “the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land” (Exodus 1:9-10). However, the Bible tells us in verse 12, “the more [the Jewish people] were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad.” This angered Pharaoh so he forced the Jewish people to work as slaves. Pharaoh then told Shiphrah and Puah, Hebrew midwives, to kill all of the Hebrew sons that are born but let the daughters live. However, “the midwives feared God and did not do as the King of Egypt commanded them but let the male children live” (Exodus 1:17). When the midwives were asked by Pharaoh why they let the male children live, they replied “the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them “(v 19). God delt well with the midwives and gave them families because they feared the Lord. The Hebrew population continued to grow which caused Pharaoh to make another command: “Every son that is born to the Hebrew you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live” (Exodus 1:22).
Exodus 2 begins with Jochebed, a Levite, conceiving and giving birth to a son. She hid him for three months, but then she could not hide him any longer. She made him a basket out of papyrus and covered it with tar and pitch. She put her son in the basket and placed the basket among the reeds by the riverbank. Jochebed’s daughter, Miriam, stood at a distance to see what would happen to her baby brother. Now, Pharaoh’s daughter had come down to bathe in the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and had her servant retrieve it. When Pharaoh’s daughter opened the basket, she saw the baby who began to cry. She took pity on the baby and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children” (Exodus 2:6). Miriam, the baby’s older sister, bravely approached the Egyptian princess and asked, “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” (Exodus 2:7). The princess told her to “Go” and Miriam retrieved Jochebed. Pharaoh’s daughter told Jochebed to “take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages” (Exodus 2:9). So Jochebed was able to take her baby and nurse him, while getting paid! Once the child grew older, Jochebed 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 2:10). This is the origins of the story of Moses.
I find it interesting that Pharaoh commanded all Hebrew sons to be killed, yet “let the daughters live,” when it was the women’s bravery that saved Moses. From the very beginning of this story, we see that the Pharaoh greatly underestimated the strength and power of women by deciding to only kill the Hebrew boys. We first see this bravery in the Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah, who feared the Lord over Pharaoh. Because of their bravery and desire to protect God’s people, God cared about them and blessed them by giving them families of their own. In times of great fear, Jochebed displayed courage and hid her son and was filled with wisdom and saved her son, when it would’ve been understandable if she was filled with fear. Miriam, who is believed to have been only 7 years old, displayed great wisdom and bravery by boldly approaching the princess and arranging for her mother, Jochebed, to be able to nurse her own son.
Not only did God use women’s boldness for His rescue mission, He also used women’s compassion and empathy. Often, showing empathy and compassion is seen as a weak, feminine trait. Yet God used Pharaoh’s daughter’s empathy to save Moses. Her empathy towards the baby saved Moses’ life and her actions allowed Moses to be nursed and raised by his own mother in the early years of his life, while also paying her to take care of her own son! Women were seen as insignificant in the eyes of Pharaoh, yet God saw them as heroes. God cares about women so much that He used them to demonstrate how both bravery and compassion are used to enact His Will. The women were the ones who succeed in His rescue mission to save Moses and their actions were the catalyst to the eventual freedom of all the Jewish people from slavery!
