The Story

Jacob's family had grown and grown in the land of Egypt, until they were a great, strong people. But a new king arose over Egypt who did not remember Joseph, and this king was afraid of God's people. He made them slaves and forced them to work very hard, building cities for Pharaoh with mortar and bricks. Still, the more they were afflicted, the more God's people grew.

Then Pharaoh gave a cruel order: the Hebrew baby boys were not to live. He told the women who helped the Hebrew mothers — the midwives, named Shiphrah and Puah — to harm the baby boys. But those brave women would not do it, because "the midwives feared God". They feared God more than they feared the king, and they saved the babies alive. And God was kind to them for it.

One Hebrew mother had a beautiful baby boy. She hid him in her house for three whole months, keeping him safe and quiet. But a growing baby cannot be hidden forever — babies cry! So his mother made a plan. She took a little ark, a basket woven of bulrushes, and covered it with clay and sticky pitch so no water could get in. She laid her baby gently inside, and she placed the basket in the reeds at the edge of the great river Nile. The baby's big sister stood far off, watching, to see what would happen to him.

And God was watching too. Who should come down to the river that day but Pharaoh's own daughter! She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to fetch it. When she opened it, she saw the baby — "the babe wept". Her heart filled with pity, and she said, "This is one of the Hebrews’ children." Just then the baby's sister stepped up bravely and asked if she should fetch a Hebrew nurse for the baby. Pharaoh's daughter said yes — and the maid ran and called the baby's own mother! So the baby was safely back in his mother's arms to be nursed, and Pharaoh's daughter even paid her wages for it.

When the child grew, his mother brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. She called his name Moses, she said, "Because I drew him out of the water." The baby who floated in a basket on the river would grow up to lead God's people out of Egypt — and all the while, God had been watching over him. Indeed, the Bible tells us that when God's people cried out in their slavery, "God heard their groaning", and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God always watches over His people — and He watches over you.