Never Forsaken: Girl Power

Image credit: Gemini and me

When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”  Exodus 2:10

 Throughout history, women have been overlooked, oppressed, kept lower – even just a little lower – than men. We have fought for our place in society. The women’s suffrage movement for example, beginning in the latter half of the 1800s and led by people like Susan B. Anthony, worked tirelessly for more than seventy years to secure women the right to vote in America. But this societal placement has not kept women from being crucial factors in the history of the world. Yes, a few women have risen to power, ruling and leading nations, like Cleopatra, Queen Victoria, and Joan of Arc, but much more frequently it is the common women, the housewives and midwives among us who play a much more pivotal role. Today’s story (Exodus 1:15-2:10)– coming straight from the words of scripture – highlights several of these special women. God ordained that we would hear about these precious ladies thousands of years later, and had a man write down all that they did. God saw them, blessed them, guided and empowered them, and wanted us to know about them. God cared about them, and He cares about us. He made man and woman in His image (Genesis 1:27) and He loves us all, boys and girls, men and women.

 In Exodus 1:9-10, the newest king (or Pharoah) of Egypt expressed his concern over the Israelites in his country. They had grown too numerous and Pharoah worried that if another nation came against Egypt in war that the Israelites might side with their enemies against them. Was this the work of the enemy, attempting to squash God’s people out and thwart God’s plan of salvation? Who knows, but clearly God allowed it to take its course. Perhaps, as I suggested yesterday, this was part of God’s plan to keep Israel separate from Egypt for Himself. In any case, Pharoah came up with one scheme after another to keep the Israelites down. First, he made them slaves and oppressed them with hard labor, making them build some of the famous cities of Egypt. But we read in Exodus 1:12 that the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread. Who did Pharoah approach next in order to deal with this problem he faced? The Israelite, or Hebrew, midwives. These were the women who helped pregnant women give birth. The Bible tells us that two of these women, Shiphrah and Puah, were brought before Pharoah. It’s quite notable that they were named in the Bible, not many women are.   Moses’ own mother isn’t named in this passage, though later in the narrative she is. Were these the only Hebrew midwives? That seems unlikely to me since there were likely between 1-2 million Hebrews living in Egypt at the time (1). Those would be busy women! Now, that would back up their claim in Exodus 1:19 that the Hebrew women were vigorous and gave birth before they could get there, but more realistically they were probably the leaders of the midwives as two women could not possibly serve a population this large. In any case, they risked life and limb in defying Pharoah in his orders to kill the baby boys they ushered into the world (Exodus 1:16) and because of this, God was kind to them and gave them families of their own.

 On that note, though, how interesting it is that Pharoah wanted them to kill the male babies! Did he not quite get how procreation worked? I mean, you take out the boys and there will be other boys to take their place, but you take out the women, and there will be no more babies. Still, though, Pharoah decreed that the boys should die and the girls should live, because how could a few girls endanger him or threaten his country? I guess history found out! Because, starting with the midwives, it was women who ushered in the person whom God would use to deliver them from slavery. Jochebed, a brave, young Hebrew woman, gave birth to a male child, whom the midwife did not kill even though she had been ordered to by Pharoah, and she hid him from the Egyptians for three months (Exodus 2:2, later named in Exodus 6:20). What must this have been like? How did she hide the child? Did she bring him with her to the fields, hidden in the folds of her garment? Did she find some kind, older woman to watch over him while she worked during the day? In any case, the Bible tells us that after three months of this deception it was clear that she could not continue it. Perhaps it placed the rest of her family in too much danger, or maybe it had just proven to be impossible because as he grew, she saw that he would become more and more obvious to the Egyptians over time. So, the Bible tells us in Exodus 2:3, she got a basket and coated it in water-proof tar and pitch, then placed her precious baby boy in it and set him adrift in the Nile.

 What courage and desperation this must have taken! Having held my own, precious, 3-month old baby boy, I cannot imagine being parted from him like that, even if it was the only way I could conceive of keeping him alive. But Jochebed had a plan. She wasn’t leaving Moses alone to fend for himself, but she also knew that her presence would draw unwanted attention to the tiny basket, so she tasked her daughter, Miriam, with keeping her baby brother safe and seeing what came of him.

 Only God, and I suppose Miriam, knows what this day was like for her. Did the basket just float casually among the reeds for a bit before it was found, or, like the dramatic retelling in the Prince of Egypt, did it bob precariously down the fast-flowing Nile, barely dodging a variety of dangers? Whatever its path, history shows us that the basket ended up in the bathing area of Pharoah’s daughter, who had her servant bring it to her and, when she opened it, found what she immediately realized was one of the Hebrew babies. She too could have bowed to Pharoah’s decree and had the baby killed. Miriam could have stayed hidden and just reported back what she saw. But neither of the precious women (or woman-to-be) did the “safe” thing. Miriam stepped forward and offered to Pharoah’s daughter to find a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby. What was Pharoah’s daughter’s name? She became the adoptive mother of Moses, yet the Bible never says. Jewish tradition calls her Bithiah, meaning “daughter of Yahweh”. Josephus, the Jewish historian, called her Thermuthis and many scholars have attempted to link her to various Egyptian princesses, but only God knows her true name.

 The important thing is not what her name was, but what she did. She took Miriam up on her proposal and she had Moses’ own mother, likely unbeknownst to her, nurse him until he was weaned and ready to join her household. We don’t get to know her name, but she was the one who named Moses, meaning “drawn out”, because she drew him out of the water. Neither history nor the Bible tell us much about Moses’ early years in Pharoah’s courts, but I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for his adoptive mother. It’s not likely that adoption was terribly common, and most certainly cross-culturally like this. Moses would have looked different from the other children, and everyone would have known that she had not given birth to him. It must have pained her when her child was mistreated. She probably got all manner of unsolicited advice about what she should do with him. But ultimately, she clearly cared and provided for him until he reached maturity.

 So, take that Pharoah! You underestimated women, their role and importance, and it ultimately led to your demise.

Here’s the Thing: I can’t tell you exactly why names mean so much to me, but if you’ve read through all of this you’ve probably figured that out. Someone using my name is deeply personal and impactful. It doesn’t happen all that often – most of the people I talk to just call me “Mom” – but when it does there’s an electric feeling in my heart. So, when I see someone’s name identified in the Bible, that means something extra to me. They weren’t just a historical figure, they were a real person. A person with a life, and a story, and a name.

      (1)    Kitchen, Kenneth A. On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003.
Hoffmeier, James K. Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition. Oxford University Press, 1996.
Kyle, M. G. “The Number of the Israelites at the Time of the Exodus.” Bibliotheca Sacra 54 (1897): 438–453.