Exodus 2:1-10: How Two Good Women Saved Moses from the Crocodiles

INTRODUCTION

Some historians say that up until the time of Jesus, Moses was the greatest person who had ever lived in the world. But have you heard of the two women who saved Moses from the crocodiles when he was a baby?

Some of the most important events in time and in eternity have depended on the faithfulness of otherwise unimportant people.

I think of the widow of Zerapath, who, although she was a pagan and not an Israelite, saved Elijah’s life in a time of famine by giving him her last piece of bread.

I think of the little Israelite slave girl who told her pagan mistress about the prophet in Samaria who could heal her husband, the Syrian general Naaman of his leprosy, and how that pagan general became a worshiper of Israel’s God.

I think of the Ebed-Meleck, the Ethiopian, who saved Jeremiah’s life when Jeremiah’s enemies threw him into the cistern and left him there to die.

I think of Joseph of Arimathea who gave up his new tomb for Jesus’ burial. If not for Joseph’s faithful action, Jesus’s body would have been thrown into a common grave and we would not have the story of the empty tomb.

I think of the wife and husband Priscilla and Aquila who worked with St. Paul and risked their necks for him.

I. Sometimes history hinges on one action by someone who otherwise would have been forgotten. Today I want to talk about the two women who saved Moses from the crocodiles and gave us one of the most important men the world has ever known.

A. First, a little background.

Jacob and his twelve sons and one daughter and their families had been welcomed in Egypt during a time of famine in their homeland.

They continued to live there and enjoy the hospitality of the Egyptians for 430 years, until a pharaoh came to the throne who turned against them. He feared that the Hebrews were becoming too numerous and were a threat to the security of his nation.

So Pharaoh made a decree that every boy baby born to the Hebrews must be cast into the Nile River and drowned.

B. Here is the story from Exodus 2:1-10.

Now a man from the house of Levi went and took to wife a daughter of Levi. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.

And when she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch; and she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds at the river’s brink.

And his sister stood at a distance, to know what would be done to him.

Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, and her maidens walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to fetch it.

When she opened it, she saw the child; and lo, the babe was crying. She took pity on him and said. “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.”

Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call you a nurse for the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?”

And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.”

So the girl went and called the child’s mother. 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.

And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son; and she named him Moses, for she said, “Because I drew him out of the water.”

II. Now I want to talk about the two heroines of the story—the two women who saved Moses from the crocodiles.

A. The first woman we meet in this story is Moses’ birth mother.

Her name was Jochebed (the name comes from Exodus 6:20).

Jochebed was a woman of faith and courage.

She disobeyed the king’s order and hid her baby.

And when she couldn’t hide him any longer, she used her ingenuity to contrive a way to save him.

She made a little waterproof basket, sealed it with pitch and bitumen. (Pitch and bitumen are names for the black, gunky, crude oil from which nowadays we make gasoline and motor oil.) In this way Jochebed made sure that the little basket wouldn’t leak.

Then she put the child in the basket, and set him among the reeds where she was sure the king’s daughter would find him. I am sure that Jochebed knew the the bathing habits of the princess. She hoped that the beautiful little boy would capture the princess’s heart.

Can you imagine how hard she prayed as she left her precious little baby bobbing up and down in his little basket in the river among the rushes? She prayed that the princess would find him before the crocodiles did.

It must have broken her heart to give her baby up, but it was the only way to save his life.

Moses’s mother was a woman of faith.

B. But there’s another lady in the story as important as Jochebed. We don’t know her name. We only know that she was a princess. She was one of Pharaoh’s daughters.

The pharaoh no doubt had many wives and many daughters—probably dozens. This girl was one of his daughters, a princess, but she wasn’t an important person in Egypt. Her name has not been preserved.

Really the only thing we know about her is that she had a tender heart.

When baby Moses cried, the princess took pity on him. She adopted him and raised him as her own child. She made sure that he received the best education, and in this way she made it possible for him to do his great work in history.

This woman has a special place in history—much more important than her powerful father.

When the great pharaoh died, he was buried with great ceremony in a grand tomb.

We saw the golden mask of the pharaoh Tutankhamen in a museum in Chicago. This was just one of the treasures that was found in that pharaoh’s tomb, and Tutankhamen was an unimportant pharaoh; he died when he was only 19-years old.

This pharaoh who was the princess’s father was a much greater man. This pharaoh was buried with great pomp and ceremony. And now, except for this story, he is forgotten. We don’t even know his name.

But one of his daughters, this tender-hearted princess, will have a place in the hearts of God’s people for ever and ever. 

C. There was also a girl, Miriam, Moses’ older sister, who played a part in this story.

We know that Moses had an older brother Aaron and an older sister Miriam.

It was Miriam who hid beside the riverside to make her plea to the princess that the baby’s mother be employed to nurse the baby Moses.

I am convinced that Moses’ mother had the whole thing planned out. She knew where the princess would come to bathe, and she put her baby where the princess could find him. She also sent Moses’ sister to stay close by so that she could offer her services to nurse the baby.

I am sure also that the princess realized what was going on and went along with it. She knew that she was giving the baby back to his mother to nurse.

III. Now let’s talk about the importance of these women in making Moses the great man of God that he became.

A. In those days, babies were nursed for the first two or three years of their lives. So Moses’ nursing mother Jochebed was his teacher during those first years.

Psychologists say that most of what we learn, we learn during the first few years of life.

Moses’ mother taught her son about love, loyalty, justice, and pity.

She taught him to pray.

We see Moses’ compassion when he rescued the Israelite who was being oppressed by the Egyptian taskmaster.

Sometimes people who are raised to the heights of prestige become more overbearing in their pride than those who were nobly-born. But we read in Numbers 12:3 that “Moses was very humble, more than anyone else on the face of the earth.”

All his life Moses was a compassionate man

He learned that from his mother—and also from the tender-hearted princess who saved his life.

Here’s an example of Moses’s compassion.

When Moses fled Egypt and came to Midian, and as he sat on a well to rest (Exodus 2.15-22), the seven daughters of the priest of Midian came to draw water.

They were accustomed to have to water the flocks of some bullying shepherds before they could water their own.

But Moses drove the shepherds away and drew the water for their flocks himself.

They invited him home, and he married one of those girls.

B. But now I want to talk more about the part Moses’s second mother, the princess, played in his education.

Although the princess raised Moses as her child, she helped him keep in touch with his family, especially his sister Miriam and his brother Aaron.

Pharaoh’s daughter also made sure that Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. And we read in Acts 7:22 that he was powerful in words and deeds.

We don’t know this lady’s name, but she was used by God to prepare Moses for his mission in the world.

When the great monuments to the pharaohs—the pyramids, the sphinx, and the gigantic temples have crumbled to dust, the shining deed of this unnamed daughter of Pharaoh will live on in the memories of all of God’s people—past the end of time and to eternity.

I hope to meet her someday and learn the rest of the story.

CONCLUSION

About 700 years ago a rabbi named Sosya, ripe with years and honors, lay dying. His students and disciples asked if he was afraid to die.

“Yes,” he said. “I am afraid to meet my Maker.”

“How can that be? You have lived such an exemplary life. You have led us out of the wilderness of ignorance, like Moses. You have judged between us wisely, like Solomon.”

Sosya replied: “When I meet my Maker, he will not ask, ‘Have you been Moses or Solomon?’ He will ask, ‘Have you been Sosya?’”

God expects of us only those things that he has put it in our reach to do.

But what he has put within our power to do, he expects us to do.

That’s what it means when we say, “Jesus is Lord.”

Think back over your life. What are the things you have done to put your faith to work?

You have guided your children. You were a companion to your husband.

You have served people in your work.

You have supported good causes. You have been faithful to your church.

You have taught Sunday school, sung in the choir, prepared pot luck dinners.

You have visited the sick and encouraged the lonely.

If you lived for Jesus, you affected lives, you have blessed more people than you know.

And your work isn’t over. The fact that you have come to our meeting today tells me that you still take your faith seriously.

I’ve often reminded you of this saying by Mother Teresa:

 “We can do no great things, but we can do little things with great love.”

Here’s another saying to go with it:

“Little things are little things, but faithfulness I little things is something great.”