Jochebed and Her Little Boat
Dr. Larry Thorson
Exodus 1:22; 2:1-10
22 So Pharaoh issued a general order
to all his people: "Every (Hebrew) boy that is born, drown him in the
1 Now a man of the house of Levi
married a Levite woman, 2 and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When
she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she
could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with
tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along
the bank of the
5 Then Pharaoh's
daughter went down to the
7 Then his sister
asked Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to
nurse the baby for you?"
8 "Yes,
go," she answered. And the girl went and got the baby's mother. 9
Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this baby and nurse him for me, and
I will pay you." So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10 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."
Today’s New International Version Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society
23By an act of faith, Moses' parents hid him away for three months after his birth. They saw the child's beauty, and they braved the king's decree.
Hebrews
Last week our story involved a father,
his three sons and a very large boat.
The story of Noah and how he obeyed God’s command to build a boat for a
promised flood even though it took a hundred years with no sign of the promise
coming true. I wonder how many of us
would have kept going.
Today’s
story is about a mother, her three children and a little boat, a very little
boat. Her name is Jochebed. Try saying Jochebed. You’ve probably never heard of Jochebed. Maybe you’ve heard of her son, Moses. How about Aaron or her daughter Miriam?
Jochebed isn’t very well known but that
wasn’t her biggest problem. She was having
a baby right at the time when a wicked king Pharaoh ordered all baby boys born
to the Hebrews like her drowned in the
Pharaoh didn’t have any problems with
babies per say. In fact he liked babies,
lots of babies. What he didn’t like were
Hebrew babies. Now you might be
thinking, a Hebrew baby, an Egyptian baby, an African baby, it’s just their
skin color. What’s the difference?
The difference for Pharaoh was that he
feared a Hebrew baby might grow up and take over his house. That’s why Pharaoh said all Hebrew male
babies had to be thrown in the river to drown. He closed his borders to them
and eventually hoped to eliminate them from his country. It was a dark day in
It became even darker for Jochebed when
she found out that she was going to have a baby. According to Jewish tradition her husband
Amran had just heard the news that Pharaoh was having all the Hebrew baby boys
killed. Well he was quite relieved that
that wouldn’t affect him because his little wife wasn’t pregnant and she wasn’t
going to be pregnant, or so he thought.
“Honey,
I’ve got good news for us”. “We’re going
to have another baby”. They already had
a girl. Well being the true man he was,
Amran declared right then and there “Jochebed, we’re getting a divorce”. It was a dark day for Jochebed.
But
unbeknownst to Jochebed God was raising up out of her the man who would save
For
three months she didn’t tell anyone that she was pregnant. Ok, well she probably told her sister and her
mom. But all in all she was alone,
scared, and worried about living as a divorced single mom with one daughter. The days became even darker until one day Mr.
Prince Charming himself, Mr. I Have a
Problem With Commitment, Amran shows up out of the clear blue. Perhaps it was the sight of his pregnant wife
that caused him to repent. I don’t know
what it was but he did the right thing by remarrying Jochebed.
Now
the Egyptians were no dummies mind you.
They knew to watch her for the next nine months after the wedding for
any baby that might be born to them.
Nine months and they would get to throw a Levite Jewish baby in the
water. That was important to them because only a Levite baby could grow up to
be a priest of God and that’s who they were especially after.
The
big day arrived and Jochebed gave birth to a child and wouldn’t you know it, he
was a boy. A precious baby. A “fine child” the Bible says. She was so happy that day. It’s still a puzzle to me how a woman can go
through nine months of having her body stretched, pulled, pushed and then go
through twenty some hours of pure pain and torture delivering a child but still
look at him and be so happy. I really
think that’s why God had women deliver the babies instead of men. We’d been extinct a long time ago if child
bearing was left up to men.
The
clock was ticking and in three months Pharaoh’s men would come looking for
Amran and Jochebed to get their baby.
Can you imagine trying to keep a baby quiet for three months? Unheard of.
So what were her options?
Option
one: do nothing and let the soldiers throw her baby in the river. Option two: run away. The borders were closed and she’d never get
out with the baby. Option three: put a
dress on the baby and well, ah, ooh.
Option four: there is no option four, she was out of options… or was she?
What
if she could find someone influential in Pharaoh’s household who would take
care of the baby? But then why of all
the babies being killed by the Egyptians is her baby going to be singled out
for care?
Do
you have any better ideas? Think about a
time when you ran out of options. You
tried everything you could possibly think of and nothing came to mind and then
all of a sudden there was an idea. Guess
where that idea came from. If you’re
expecting an idea to come through then you’ll at least try it when it comes. But if you’re depressed and so discouraged
you’ll say “that won’t work” and quit.
Here’s
an idea. It’s a long shot but it’s a
shot. Take a papyrus basket, line it
with tar and pitch. Pitch was sort of a
waterproofing resin over the tar. Put
the three month old baby in it and push the basket among the papyrus reeds. You don’t just send him randomly sailing down
the river. Position your daughter to
keep an eye on the basket and wait.
Pharaoh’s
daughter frequently came to swim in this part of the
At
the right moment, the baby cried. At the
right moment the right daughter of Pharaoh was walking by. Any other moment and the baby wouldn’t have
been heard. Any other Egyptian woman
might have turned the baby in but this one apparently wanted a baby. It was a long shot but with God all things
are possible.
With
God all things are possible for you even with the long shots. Jochebed didn’t know what God was doing in
the background and neither do you. What you see as a major disaster God sees as
an opportunity.
Remember
her husband tried to take the coward’s way out of it because he was probably
scared. But he did the right thing by
coming back to her. Pharaoh’s daughter
did the right thing by saving one life that was doomed. She couldn’t change her father but her
willingness to do the right thing was used by God to save
Moses
grew up in Pharaoh’s palace being raised by his own mother whom Pharaoh unknowingly
through his own daughter paid to care for him.
That was an act of God. When he
grew up God used Moses and his brother Aaron and his sister Miriam to lead
This
week, even today you may have to make a difficult decision with choices you
don’t like. We can’t see the whole
picture but what we know is that God loves you with all of his heart. Because he loves you, if you desire to please
him you won’t make the wrong decision.
We
know that God loves us because he sacrificed his only son Jesus Christ for
us. That’s why we put our trust in
Christ. As a church we preach, we teach
and we try to live as if we belong to Christ.
We are his and he never lets us down.
That’s the story of Jochebed.