The edge of the Nile at dawn: a thick stand of papyrus over still, misty water, and a small dark basket half hidden among the reeds.

The Book of

Exodus 2

Pharaoh has ordered every Hebrew boy into the Nile. One mother puts her son in a basket on that same river, and God is watching.

25 verses≈ 5 min5 peopleBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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In this chapter

Where we are

1–6Slaves in EgyptOppression and a delivererChapter 2
7–13The plaguesThe LORD against Pharaoh
14–18Through the seaRescued and led
19–24At SinaiThe covenant and the law
25–31A place to dwellThe tabernacle planned
32–40Broken and renewedThe calf, mercy, the glory

The Birth and Adoption of Moses

Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, and she conceived and gave birth to a son.

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When she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him for three months.

she had compassion on him

Exodus 2:6

His sister

Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call one of the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?”

Pharaoh's daughter

“Go ahead,” Pharaoh’s daughter told her.

And the girl went and called the boy’s mother.

Pharaoh's daughter

Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.”

So the woman took the boy and nursed him.

When the child had grown older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses and explained, “I drew him out of the water.”

Reflect

Hidden care

God is not named once in these ten verses, yet His hand is everywhere: a mother who would not give up, a sister who “stood at a distance to see what would happen,” and a daughter of Pharaoh who “had compassion on him.” The king’s order meant death; God turned the very river into the way of rescue. Where can you look back and see God’s care in ordinary people and small moments? Write down one, and thank Him for it.

The Rejection and Flight of Moses

One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people and observed their hard labor.

The edge of a deserted brick pit at dusk: wind-rippled sand drifted against a half-built mud-brick wall, one line of footprints leading away into the dark.

He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. After looking this way and that and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand.

0:16

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

The next day Moses went out and saw two Hebrews fighting.

Moses

He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you attacking your companion?”

The Hebrew man

But the man replied, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you planning to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”

Moses

Then Moses was afraid and thought, “This thing I have done has surely become known.”

When Pharaoh heard about this matter, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, where he sat down beside a well.

At a stone well in a wide desert valley at evening, a dusty stranger in worn Egyptian linen fills stone troughs for a flock while young shepherdesses watch.

Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. And when some shepherds came along and drove them away, Moses rose up to help them and watered their flock.

Jethro

When the daughters returned to their father Reuel, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?”

Reuel's daughters

“An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds,” they replied. “He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”

Jethro

“So where is he?” their father asked. “Why did you leave the man behind? Invite him to have something to eat.”

Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. And she gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.”

Question

Quick question

Moses ran from Egypt and ended up at a well in Midian, where he helped seven sisters against the shepherds.

What did Moses name his son, and why?

Stylised map · locations approximate

On the map

Flight to Midian

Moses fled east from Goshen in Egypt’s delta, across the wilderness of Shur, to the land of Midian, whose people ranged from east of the Gulf of Aqaba into Sinai. His route is unknown; the dashed line is one possible way. Horeb, the mountain of God, where he would meet God at the bush, is traditionally placed in the south of the peninsula (site uncertain).

God Hears the Cry of the Israelites

After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned and cried out under their burden of slavery, and their cry for deliverance from bondage ascended to God.

Exodus 2:24

God saw the Israelites and took notice.

Pray

God hears

Israel’s groaning went on for years, and it might have seemed no one was listening. But “God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant.” Bring Him the cry you have been carrying, for yourself or for others who suffer. Thank Him that He keeps every promise, and that in Jesus He has come to set His people free.

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Exodus 2

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A verse to carry with you

So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Exodus 2:24

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