"Five Women and a Baby"
By Dr. Mickey Anders
First Christian Church
Pikeville, Kentucky
August 22, 1999
Text: Exodus 1:8-2:10
I continue to find it fascinating that in the midst of a profoundly patriarchal society, the Bible repeatedly recognizes the significant contributions of women. In today's passage, the men are all pictured as far less than heroic. The Pharaoh is depicted as a blood-thirsty tyrant; the male babies are, of course, powerless and vulnerable; and the adult male Hebrew slaves have no voice or action whatsoever.
At the same time, the women are seen as influencing the direction of divine history in spite of incredible obstacles. The destiny of a nation is left in the hands of five proactive women: two midwives, a mother, a sister, and an Egyptian princess. Anyone who questions the role of women in shaping history and being effective ministers of the Lord's will, need to re-read this opening story in the book of Exodus. If it were not for the cleverness of the women, there would have been no salvation for the nation of Israel!
A New King
The first verse of our text proclaims, "Now a new king arose over Egypt,
who did not know Joseph."
This new king had all the qualities we look for today in national leaders. He was shrewd in formulating policy to serve his country's best interests. He looked out for national security. He had a long-range economic plan, a circle of advisers who reported to him, and a public works program to cut down on unemployment.
But like many new leaders he tried to distance himself from his predecesor's policies - even to the point of saying he didn't know Joseph, the famous deputy who had saved Egypt from famine (Minister's Manual 1999, p. 169).
And he shared his people's concern about the problem of resident aliens. Although his assessment of the Israelites' growing influence had some basis in fact, his inhumane solution to the problem laid the groundwork for God's punishment of Egypt and ultimate deliverance of his people.
The Egyptian king began his dislike of the Hebrews for a hypothetical reason. He thought they were becoming too numerous and more powerful than the Egyptians. If they decided to become enemies, then they would fight and escape from the land. So what does he do? He makes the Hebrews his enemies by enslaving them. Ironically, it is because of his action that the Hebrew people would fight the Egyptians. Pharaoh thought he was being shrewd, but he made a very dumb mistake instead.
It is something like the knight who reported to a nobleman after his crusade of burning and pillaging, "Sire, I have been laboring in your service, looting and pillaging your enemy to the west." The nobleman replied, "What? I have no enemies to the West." "Oh," replied the knight, "Well, I think you do now!"The Pharaoh was worried about an uprising, and he was the one who was the cause of it! Yet, despite the Pharaoh's enslavement of the Hebrew people, God caused them to prosper. The cruel edict of infanticide proved ineffective in thwarting God's multiplication of the Hebrews.
Two Heroic midwives
This is where we meet the first two of our five heroic women.
In a meeting with two of the Hebrew midwives, Shiprah and Puah, the Pharaoh
instructs them to kill any male Hebrew children that are born.
Can you imagine being a lowly Hebrew slave midwife and being called to the court of the Pharoah and given direct instructions by the most powerful man in all of Egypt? It must have been an intimidating experience.
But the Scripture records that "the midwives feared God; they did not
do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live."
"So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, "Why
have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?" The midwives said
to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women;
for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them"
(18-19).
With a natural prejudice against the Hebrew people, the Pharaoh was easy to convince that their women were different from Egyptian women. So these brave women had openly disobeyed the Egyptian king, and got away with it. And God blessed them for their courage.
So Pharaoh tried another tactic. He gave a command to all the people that if they see a Hebrew boy, they were to throw it into the Nile river to drown or to be eaten by crocodiles.
A Mother who refused to obey
But the mother of one son disobeyed the Pharaoh and kept her child
a secret for three months, which was no easy task in itself. When
it got to the point she could hide the boy no longer, she made a makeshift
ark for him. After the basket was waterproofed, the mother set the
baby and basket into the Nile river among some reeds.
Can you imagine the anguish of this mother setting her baby afloat among the crocodiles? But she knew she had no other choice. She probably withdrew in tears. The baby's sister, however, remained behind to see what would happen to the baby and the basket.
A daughter who disobeyed her father
Another ironic twist occurs as the daughter of the Pharaoh discovers the basket. She must have brought a whole entourage with her to the edge of the river, probably from some kind of ritual bathing. No doubt she heard the tiny cry of a baby and sent a servant to find the child. She must have recognized the baby as a Hebrew, which immediately presented a problem for her.
Richard Taylor, a pastor now serving in Rhode Island, described Pharaoh's
daughter this way:
"We don't even know her name. But we know the world she lived in.
Pharaoh's daughter lives on the palace grounds. She has servants,
maids, prestige, and influence. But in a male dominated culture she
cannot succeed to take her father's throne. She is just one of the
many children. She is the daughter of a house of power, but also
a house of blood. This daughter is the marginalized child of an arrogant,
hard hearted, and stone faced father.
"Then Pharaoh's daughter finds this baby in the basket in the bull rushes. She knows what is going on. She says right off, 'This must be one of the Hebrews' children.' Now she is Pharaoh's daughter. She knows the law. She could have turned the basket over and drowned the child. But Torah tells us she had 'pity on him' and in her pity she does something incredible, and she breaks the law. She engages in an act of civil disobedience. She decides to spare the baby Moses. More than that, she not only spares him, but provides for his care, and then educates him in the palace. In effect, she adopts this baby she is supposed to kill...
"Now we don't know if papa knew what was going on. If he did, we can imagine him saying 'Oh, it's only one baby, what can one baby and some women do that would threaten the future of Egypt?' Pharaoh did not know God."
Whatever the motive, she plays a highly strategic role in the story. For now the eventual leader of the slave people will receive the very best of Egyptian education and training. He will have an intimate knowledge of the workings of the king, which will make him even more effective in God's purposes.
And yet another irony is that the daughter of Pharaoh named the child,
"Moses," meaning "to draw out" because she drew him out of the water.
Little did she know that this same child would grow up one day to draw
the Hebrew people out of their slavery.
A sister who was clever
Yet another ironic twist occurs as the sister of the baby approaches
Pharaoh's daughter with an offer. If she would like, the slave girl
would find a Hebrew mother to nurse the child. When she was given
permission to find a nurse, the slave girl fetched none other than the
baby's own mother who would now be able to care for her son without the
looming threat of death.
The spirit of Miriam was one of action. She was probably only 10 or
12 years old, but she quickly analyzed the situation and boldly stepped
forward to make her offer to the young princess. Here we see the
foreshadowing of the character she would reveal for the rest of her life.
In later years she worked side by side with her brothers, Moses and
Aaron, to free their people from slavery in Egypt. When Moses had parted
the Red Sea and the people were safely across, it was Miriam who began
to sing and dance and play her tambourine in celebration.
On one occasion, Miriam didn't hesitate to speak out against Moses
and his foreign wife when she felt they weren't paying enough attention
to the "cause". Up until the time of her death, Miriam took an active
part in the leadership of the Hebrew people as they wandered in the wilderness.
Jochebed had custody of her son for only a few years. But in those first few years of Moses' life she apparently instructed him so thoroughly of the ways of God that he would ultimately forsake every earthly privilege of life to serve God and his people in exile.
In all our praise of Moses, we usually forget these five women who made it all possible. In the animated film "Prince of Egypt," Moses the adult comes to a point in his life when he is feeling pretty insignificant. A song is sung to him with these words:
A single thread in a tapestry
Though its color brightly shine
Can never see its purpose
In the pattern of the grand design.
And the stone that sits on the very top
Of the mountain's mighty face,
Does it think it's more important
Than the stones that form the base?
So how can you see what your life is worth
Or where your value lies?
You can never see through the eyes of man.
You must look at your life,
Look at your life through heaven's eyes.
Moses is most often remembered as an extraordinary leader. The one who faced God on the holy mountain, and brought forth the Ten Commandments. We do not often remember that Moses was vulnerable and was torn on more than one occasion with feelings of insufficiency. He had to learn how to look at his life through heaven's eyes.
When we look at the prominent role of Moses, like the "stone that sits on the very top of the mountain's mighty face," we often forget the ones who were "the stones that form the base." If it were not for the five courageous women who were entrusted with his survival, we would have known no mighty leader called Moses.
Perhaps it is the ones who are normally overlooked who really count. They are the stones without which the top stones could never be on the top. Isn't it wonderful that anyone can have significance because we have faith in God, the God who continually exalts the humble and humbles the exalted?
The ultimate irony of the birth story of Moses is that the Egyptian
king was not powerful because he thought he was. The real power is
found in God, who works wonders through ordinary people.