And a man of the house of Levi went and took a daughter of Levi.
The verse records only a wedding between two people of the same tribe — no names, no date, no hint of what is coming. Yet the rescue of a whole nation starts here, in a place where no one was watching.
The verse records an ordinary family event. Commentators point out that this is how God always works.
It was like the birth of our blessed Lord at Bethlehem. Here too, neither the parents nor the world around them understood what the birth of the son of Amram and Jochebed meant. This is how God always works. He lays the foundation of His purposes in silence. He prepares His instruments until the moment He has already fixed for action arrives. Then He bares His arm and displays His presence and power in front of the whole world.
Another writer follows that hidden work forward, from this marriage to a place in Pharaoh's palace.
First, we have the historical facts about the captivity of Israel. There were the persecutions this people had to endure. There was God's watchful care over events, answering the faith of the parents of the infant Moses. In this way He carried out the purposes of His grace. These not only kept the child alive, but placed him in a high position in Pharaoh's court. The things that are done on the earth He does Himself. He prepares everything beforehand, when nothing is yet visible to man.
Scripture does not name them here, but later passages do, and their family line matters.
Amram and Jochebed, according to Exodus 6:18-20, belonged to the tribe of Levi and to the family of the Kohathites. It was a family which in the future would perform such important duties in relation to the tabernacle.
Some writers read the tribal name itself as a pointer forward. Levi carries a meaning, and the position of this child in the family is noted too.
Moses was born of a son and a daughter of Levi. The father's name was Amram (chapter 6:20 and Num. 26:59). His wife's name was Jochebed. As we saw in Genesis, Levi means "joined," and Levi was the third son of Jacob (Gen. 29:32-35). Here we have a picture that hints at the true Mediator, joined to God and man.
Both partners came from the tribe set apart for God's service. One writer draws a lesson for marriage from that detail.
"A man from the house of Levi ... took as his wife a Levite woman." This shows that they wanted to hold marriage in relation to God Himself, and to treat it as something in which the rights of the Lord are honoured. More than that, it seems the service of God itself was in view in the step they took. The Levites were the men who served God. They handled the holy things of God. So it is a most blessed thing to see a man and a woman take up this happy privilege with the thought that the service of the Lord might be enriched.
This marriage produced more than a child. It showed that faith in God had survived among the people in Egypt.
But we open Exodus 2, and we at once discover two things. First, there were still men and women of faith among the children of Israel. Hebrews 11:23 makes this plain, for it points to the faith, not of Moses, but of his parents... The verse in Hebrews shows that his father as well as his mother saw that he was a beautiful child. Their eye of faith was fixed on God, and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. A greater than Pharaoh commanded their allegiance.
That faith was not vague optimism. It rested on a promise these parents already knew.
Those who believed always had a deliverer before them — not only the woman's Seed, but Abraham's Seed as well. To take that life away would have been a Satanic attack on God's purposes. At the risk of their own lives, it seems, they kept their child safe for three months.
Pharaoh's rage did not slow God down. It served Him.
In this chapter God shows us how He uses the very wrath of the king to protect the man who would become the deliverer of His people. It is a gripping story that shows the perfection and sovereignty of God's ways.
- Quiet. God lays the foundation of His purposes in silence. He prepares His instruments long before the world sees anything.
- Levi. The couple are Amram and Jochebed, from the tribe that served God and handled the holy things.
- Faith. Hebrews 11:23 says both father and mother acted in faith. They did not fear the king, because a greater authority held their allegiance.
- Deliverer. They were not just saving a baby. Everyone who believed was waiting for a promised deliverer, and the attack on that life struck at God's purposes.
- Sovereignty. Pharaoh's own fury became the means of preserving the man who would set Israel free.
And the woman conceived, and bore a son. And she saw him that he was fair, and hid him three months.
A Levite couple has a son at the very moment when Egypt's king has ordered the death of every Hebrew boy. What the mother saw in that baby, and what she did for the next three months, the New Testament calls faith.
The baby arrives in a world where the law has already decided he must die.
He was born while Pharaoh's ban on the male children of Israel was raging. No exception is made for him. He enters the earth to find that earthly place is denied him. There was no room for the Lord of glory in the inn. Now Egypt's king decrees that Moses, who pictures Him, should die the moment he is born! By faith alone his parents rescued him. "They saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king's edict." The Holy Spirit gave them a deep and particular conviction. By it they knew that God was to be trusted for this child.
The ESV says the mother saw "that he was a fine child." Other translations say "goodly" or "fair." Commentators read this as something faith saw, not just a mother's pride.
When Moses was born, there was an expression in his face that faith read. "Beautiful to God" is the word. There was a certain beauty in him that awakened the faith of Amram and Jochebed; and they were obedient to it... Under the finger of God they saw the purpose of God and hid the child.
Judged by ordinary standards, the beauty of a newborn is a thin basis for defying a king.
Here we have a remarkable simplicity of faith in Moses' parents, which acts on grounds that to most would seem slight enough — the beauty of the child. God still answers it, for it was faith in Him; and how largely He answers, for this is Moses the deliverer! Is there not here one of the natural indications of the mind of God, which we are so unskilled at finding, and which the poor and uneducated perhaps read best?... but God makes no mistake, and wherever faith is, with Him it will be found in honour.
Writers here draw a line between a mother's natural instinct and what moved these two.
The mother's heart saw the beauty of the baby as a sign from God to preserve him from the murderous fate the king intended. But there was more than natural feeling. "By faith" Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful; and they were not afraid of the king's edict (Heb. 11:23). A deliverer was always before those who believed... To take that life outright was a Satanic attack on God's purposes.
Hiding the child broke the king's law.
True, they owed allegiance to their earthly ruler. But they also owed allegiance to the Lord of lords. Trusting in Him, they were lifted above all fear of the king's commandment, and hid their child — the child whom God had given them — for three months. They counted on God, and they were not disappointed. He never leaves or forsakes those who put their trust in Him.
The king did not just issue his order and forget it.
Obviously the man who devised the death of every male child would also search for them. He would make sure from time to time that his decree was carried out.
Hiding could not last forever. Commentators read what she did next as the same faith, taken further.
In fact, it was nothing but faith triumphing over the influences of nature and death. It left room for the God of resurrection to act in His own proper sphere and character... And a sword was piercing the mother's heart, as she saw her precious child laid, as it were, in death. Satan might act, and nature might weep. But the One who raises the dead was behind the dark cloud, and faith saw Him there.
The lesson lands on parents today.
Their hiding the child no doubt endangered their own lives. But God's honour was more important than the king's commandment... Did she not actually give him up into the hand of God, and in an unexpected way receive him back again? So faith never loses by giving anything up into God's hand. May we learn such lessons well, in regard to our children, or any other possession entrusted to us.
- Seen — The parents saw something in the child that ordinary eyes would have missed. Scripture calls him fine; faith read "beautiful to God" in his face.
- Read — By human reckoning that beauty was slight ground. Faith read it as a sign of God's mind, and God honoured the reading: this baby was the deliverer.
- Feared — They owed allegiance to the king, but they owed more to the Lord of lords, so they hid the child instead of obeying.
- Endured — Three months of hiding meant constant risk of death, since Pharaoh searched to check that his decree was obeyed.
- Released — When hiding was no longer possible, they gave the child up to God and received him back. Faith loses nothing it places in His hand.