Baby Moses in the Basket
Exodus 2
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A baby boy was born in Egypt.
It was a dangerous time to be a baby boy.
His mother kept him hidden and safe.
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Long ago in Egypt, God's people were slaves, and the king had made a cruel rule about baby boys. So when this baby was born, his mother did not tell anybody. She kept him at home and she kept him quiet, and she loved him, and every day she managed was one more day.
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He grew too big to hide.
So his mother made a basket.
She covered it so no water could get in.
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After three months he was too big and too loud to hide any longer. His mother did not give up. She wove a basket out of reeds and painted it over with tar and pitch until it would not let a single drop of water through, and she made it just the right size for him.
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She put the baby in the basket.
She put the basket in the river reeds.
It must have been the hardest thing she ever did.
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Then she carried the basket down to the great river Nile and set it gently among the tall reeds at the edge, where the water was still. She had made it as safe as one person could make it. Everything after that was out of her hands, and she walked home, and that was the hardest part of all.
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His big sister Miriam stayed behind.
She hid in the reeds and watched.
She did not go home.
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His sister Miriam did not go with her. She crouched down out of sight a little way off and she watched that basket. She was only a girl. She could not have stopped anybody. But she stayed where she was, keeping watch over her baby brother, and that turned out to matter enormously.
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The king's daughter came down to the river.
She found the basket.
She opened it and the baby was crying.
She loved him at once.
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Of all the people who might have come down to the water that morning, it was the king's own daughter. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant to fetch it, and when she lifted the lid the baby was crying. Her heart went out to him straight away. This is one of the Hebrew children, she said, and she kept him.
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Then Miriam ran out from the reeds.
Shall I fetch someone to feed him, she asked.
She fetched his own mother.
God had been watching all along.
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That was Miriam's moment, and she took it. She stepped out and asked, shall I go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you? Yes, said the princess. So Miriam ran and fetched her own mother, who was paid to look after her own son. His name was Moses, and God had been watching over him the whole time.
