Exodus 2

The king's plan with the midwives had not worked. So he gave a new order, this time to all his people. "Every son born to the Hebrews you must throw into the Nile, but every daughter you may allow to live" (1:22).

The Nile is the great river that runs through Egypt.

Around this time, a man and a woman from the family of Levi got married. The woman had a baby boy.

She saw that he was a beautiful child. So she hid him. For three months, she kept him a secret.

The Bible doesn't say how she hid him, or why she could not hide him longer. One likely reason: babies cry, and babies grow.

At last she could not hide him any longer.

She "got him a papyrus basket and coated it with tar and pitch" (2:3). Papyrus is a tall reed that grows by the river. Tar and pitch are thick and sticky. They keep water out.

She laid her baby in the basket. She set it among the reeds at the edge of the Nile.

The baby's sister stood a little way off. She watched to see what would happen to him.

Soon Pharaoh's daughter came down to the Nile to bathe. Her servants walked along the riverbank.

She saw the basket in the reeds. She sent a servant to get it.

She opened it. Inside was a baby boy, and he was crying.

"So she had compassion on him" (2:6). Compassion means feeling sorry for someone and wanting to help.

She said, "This is one of the Hebrew children" (2:6).

Pharaoh had ordered Hebrew boys thrown into the Nile. Now his own daughter had pulled one out of it.

Then the baby's sister spoke to the princess. She asked, "Shall I go and call one of the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?" (2:7). To nurse a baby is to feed the baby milk.

"Go ahead," the princess said.

So the girl ran and got the baby's own mother.

The princess told the mother to take the baby and nurse him. She said she would pay her.

Now the mother could hold her son again. She was even paid to do it, by Pharaoh's own family.

When the boy was older, his mother brought him to the princess. He became her son.

She named him Moses. She said, "I drew him out of the water" (2:10). The name Moses sounds like the Hebrew word for "draw out."

Moses grew up. One day he went out to see his own people, the Hebrews. He saw how hard they had to work.

Then he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew.

The Bible tells it plainly. "After looking this way and that and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand" (2:12).

The Bible doesn't say what Moses was thinking. But remember: he was a Hebrew, raised in an Egyptian palace. The man being beaten was "one of his own people" (2:11).

The next day, Moses saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong why he was hitting the other man.

The man said, "Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you planning to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" (2:14).

Moses was afraid because people knew what he had done.

Pharaoh heard about it, and he tried to kill Moses. So Moses ran away.

Moses fled to the land of Midian, far from Egypt. He sat down beside a well.

The priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to the well to water their father's sheep. Some shepherds came and drove the sisters away.

Moses stood up. He helped the sisters and watered their flock.

The sisters went home to their father, Reuel. He asked why they were back so early.

They said, "An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds" (2:19). They said he had even drawn water for them and watered the flock. The Bible doesn't say why they called him an Egyptian. But remember: he grew up in Pharaoh's palace.

Reuel asked where the man was, and why they had left him behind. He told them to invite the man to eat.

Moses agreed to stay with Reuel. Reuel gave him his daughter Zipporah to marry. Zipporah and Moses had a son.

Moses named the boy Gershom. He said, "I have become a foreigner in a foreign land" (2:22). A foreigner is someone living far from home, among people who are not their own.

Years went by. The king of Egypt died.

But the Israelites were still slaves. They groaned under the heavy work. They cried out for help.

Their cry went up to God.

"So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" (2:24). A covenant is a lasting promise. God had made one with their families long ago.

"God saw the Israelites and took notice" (2:25).

The slaves did not know it yet. Moses, far away in Midian, did not know it either. But God was about to act.