Then Pharoah commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.” (1:22)
Pharoah was still determined to diminish the Hebrew population (not one to give up easily) and so instructed all his people to cast the Hebrew baby boys into the Nile. I wouldn’t be surprised if many Israelite mothers tried to hide their baby boys, but we are only told about one. This mother hid her baby boy for as long as she could, and then put him in a waterproof basket among the reeds by the riverbank under the watchful eyes of his sister.
When Pharoah’s daughter came along and discovered the baby and took pity on him, the baby’s sister appeared and asked, “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?”(Exodus 2:7). Pharoah’s daughter consented, and so the baby’s own mother got to bring the child (her own child) back home, nurse him, and get paid for it! God’s hand is obvious!
However, the mother still had to bring her child to Pharoah’s daughter when he was weaned (possibly about three years old), and Pharoah’s daughter gave him the name “Moses.”
On one hand, it must have been hard to give up her son, but on the other hand, her son was getting to live, as opposed to being killed, and had the opportunity to live with and be raised by nobility. It’s a better outcome than any Israelite woman could have dreamed of for her son in those days. Plus, we know that God was preparing Moses for something enormous!
God is working in our lives and preparing us all the time! We are His workmanship, created in Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10). I want to think of every challenge and blessing as God preparing me to be whom He wants me to be and to do that which He wants me to do.
Many things are obvious when we look back – we can see God’s hand in preparing us for certain things – making sure we learned certain skills or had certain life experiences that prepared us for something. For example, one of my sons ended up taking radio broadcasting in college, sort of by accident, and had various jobs in radio before doing many different jobs (nothing to do with radio broadcasting) over the years, and now, years later, part of his ministry is running a small Christian radio station. God had prepared him for this.
Prayer: God, help me to embrace the various experiences that come my way, as part of what you are doing in my life not only for now, but for tomorrow, next week, and the future. Amen.
