Welcome back! I am excited to have you join me as we look at The Making of Moses and, later, the significance of The Ten Plagues. Let’s open our bibles to Exodus 3. I have enclosed the link here for those reading this digitally.
To give you a little background. Moses was born to Amram and Yocheved (Jochebed). Amaram was a GRANDSON of Levi and Yocheved was a DAUGHTER of Levi. For handy reference, I have a pdf link here https://biblecharts.org/oldtestament/thepatriarchalfamilytree.pdf, of Moses’ family tree. This family tree should help keep things straight. There are many nuances with Bible Genealogy. It can be confusing.
Pharaoh’s little plan
Pharaoh has come to grips with the fact that the Israelites are great in number. He conveyed to his leadership that the Israelite population may prove problematic if Egypt was ever attacked by outside forces.
By force, as I mentioned in the devotion, Is America In Bondage With A Pharaoh, Pharaoh enslaves the Israelites. For 400 plus years the Israelites build the treasure cities Pi’thom and Ramses.
To keep the Israelite numbers down, Pharaoh concocts a plan to kill all the baby boys. He contacts the midwives that assist the Israelite women and asks them to kill each boy born. Those two midwives feared God and disobeyed Pharaoh. The Bible mentions that God BLESSED those two midwives for their honoring life! Israel continued to grow in number. How cool is that!?
However, with the midwife by-pass of sorts, Pharaoh caught on and had his soldiers go through and kill all Israelite boys 2 and under. Can you imagine the trauma of the screaming mothers and the cries of babies and toddlers as they are killed?
That’s just crazy!
Yocheved becomes pregnant and gives birth to Moses. The Bible says that Yocheved notices how ” beautiful, exceedingly-fair, well-formed” her baby boy was. You could probably argue that EVERY mother thinks their baby is the cutest, BUT remember, Yocheved was under serious pressure. Yocheved was born into the Levitical Priestly line. I believe God gave her great insight to preserve Moses. Therefore he was an attractive baby. What Egyptian Princess wants an ugly baby? RIGHT!?
The baby boy stayed with Yocheved for 3 months. I’m sure she knew, with each passing day, that she had to get the baby boy out of their house. So she constructed an “ark” (2nd time God used an ark to save his people) of the local bulrushes, sealed it, and made a plan.
-NOTE- Did you see any name given to the baby boy? No. Yocheved DID NOT GIVE the baby boy a name.
Yocheved and Miriam would bring Moses down to the river’s bank, and wait for the Princess to come down and bathe in the Nile. This was a public bath with her maids. A custom many women of Egyptian rank performed.
Friends… out of time again! Next week, we’ll watch Moses drawn out of the water, and it will be love at first sight for Pharaoh’s daughter. Imagine Yocheved watching her baby boy being held by Pharaoh’s daughter. FAITH! Faith, when she couldn’t see how this made sense!
Thanks for joining me here, today, in Time in the Word.
Ecclesiastes 4:9 & 10 says Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.
That is why my we, Mandy and Michele, have decided to join together to hold each other up and at the same time, we hope that you are lifted up as well. We will share about chronic pain issues and raising children with ADHD, Things we’ve learned about leaving a legacy, and then some fun and laughter along the way as well.
We will be sharing about how God helps us through the worst of trials and the best of days. We hope that you will sign up for our newsletter.
I’m glad that God saw it for to show us that Jochabed’s lineage was important not just there father.
In Jesus’ lineage, while both Joseph and Mary were off the line of David. it was actually Mary that had the purest line to the throne.
I’d never realized Moses’ mother hadn’t named him. I wonder, though, if she had a name for him for when she thought of him.