Drawn Out of the Water
1 A man of the house of Levi went and took a daughter of Levi as his wife. 2 The woman conceived and bore a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. 3 When she could no longer hide him, she took a papyrus basket for him, and coated it with tar and with pitch. She put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river’s bank. 4 His sister stood far off, to see what would be done to him. 5 Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe at the river. Her maidens walked along by the riverside. She saw the basket among the reeds, and sent her servant to get it. 6 She opened it, and saw the child, and behold, the baby cried. She had compassion on him, and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” 7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Should I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for you?” 8 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” The young woman went and called the child’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away, and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” The woman took the child, and nursed him. 10 The child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, and said, “Because I drew him out of the water.”
The decree meant to drown Hebrew sons delivers one of them into the palace, paid for out of the treasury that ordered his death.
A man of the house of Levi went and took a daughter of Levi as his wife.
No names yet, for either parent or child; they are supplied later Exodus 6:20, when a genealogy needs them. What matters here is that both parents are Levites, which will matter enormously to a nation whose priesthood is not yet imagined.
The woman conceived and bore a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months.
Three months is as long as a newborn can be concealed before the sounds give him away. The hiding is not faith opposed to fear but faith working through it, in the only currency available to a slave woman — time bought in weeks.
When she could no longer hide him, she took a papyrus basket for him, and coated it with tar and with pitch. She put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river’s bank.
The word for the basket is the word used for Noah's ark, and it occurs nowhere else in Scripture. Both vessels are waterproofed with pitch, both carry the future of a people through a judgment of water, and both are built by someone convinced the water is not the last word. The link is made by vocabulary rather than by comment, which is how this book prefers to argue.
The mother obeys the decree to the letter and empties it of force. Pharaoh said cast every son into the river; she casts him into the river, in a sealed boat, in the reeds, at the bathing place, with his sister posted to watch Exodus 2:4. Nothing is left to chance except the one thing no one could arrange, which is who would come down to the water that morning.
5 Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe at the river. Her maidens walked along by the riverside. She saw the basket among the reeds, and sent her servant to get it. 6 She opened it, and saw the child, and behold, the baby cried. She had compassion on him, and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.”
She knows exactly what she is looking at and what the law requires her to do about it, and she does the opposite. The decree is broken inside the house that issued it, by the king's own daughter, out of pity for a crying baby. No explanation is offered, because the arrangement of the scene is the explanation.
Then the sister steps forward with a proposal too well timed to be spontaneous: should I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women Exodus 2:7. The result is a mother paid wages by the Egyptian court to raise her own son, in her own house, lawfully, for as long as nursing lasts. The state that ordered the child dead now funds his upbringing and then adopts him.
The child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, and said, “Because I drew him out of the water.”
The name given by an Egyptian princess plays on a Hebrew verb and is prophetic in a way she could not have known: a man drawn out of water will be the man through whom a nation is drawn out of water. Every element of Pharaoh's policy has now been turned into the means of its own defeat, and not one miracle has been reported.
settled What this mark means