Scriptural text: Acts 7:17-29
Introduction: Although it’s hard to imagine a mother abandoning her newborn baby, however, in real life experiences it does happen. There are different reasons why newborn babies are abandoned. Moses’ mother was driven by her maternal love and her faith in God. Not willing to allow the Egyptians to kill her baby, she acted by faith to save him, even though it put her life in jeopardy.
Unique Response (Exo- dus 2:1-4).
Hidden at Home (vv.1- 2).
It is said (Hebrews 11:23) the parents of Moses hid him by faith. It is said Moses was a type of Christ, who in his infancy, was forced to ascond, and in Egypt too, was wonderfully preserved. Three months they hid him in some private apartment of their own house, though with the hazard of their own lives, had he been discovered.
Sheltered in Stream (vv. 3-4).
After three months probably when the searchers came about to look for concealed children, so they could not hide him any longer, they put him in an ark of bulrushes by the river’s brink, and set his little sister at some distance to watch him.
Unexpected Rescue (Exodus 2:5-10).
Providence brings no less than pharaoh’s daughter, just at that juncture, guides her to the place where this poor forlorn infant lay, and inclines her heart to pity it. The babe wept, which moved the compassion of the princess, as no doubt his beauty did. Pharaoh’s cruelty seeks Israel’s destruction, but his own daughter charitably compassionates a Hebrew child, and not only so, preserves Israel’s deliverer.
Sister’s Suggestion (vv. 7-9).
Moses was well provided for with a good nurse, no worse than his own dear mother. Pharaoh’s daughter thinks it convenient that he should have a Hebrew nurse, and the sister of Moses, introduces the mother into the place of a nurse, to the great advantage of a child. Mothers are the best nurses.
“And pharaoh’s daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it.” The irony of Pharaoh’s daughter turned to the mother of this child. By telling the baby’s mother, take him, could indicate that the pharaoh’s daughter was filled with compassion and desired that the baby return to his people.
Son’s Significance (v. 10a-10b).
“And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son.” Not only did Jochebed provide for his emotional well- being, but the child also grew-in a physical sense, and perhaps in under- standing of the God of his ancestors. As young Moses grew, he would live in the house of the pharaoh, away from his own people. The longer he stayed in the pharaoh’s household, the more familiar he became with the cultural mores of the Egyptians.
“And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.”
The Jews tell us that his father, at his circumcision, called him Joachim; but Pharaoh’s daughter called him Moses, Drawn out of the water, so it signifies the Egyptian language.
References: Matthew Henry Bible Dictionary, KJV 2022-2023, Standard Lesson Commentary