And his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call thee a wet-nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?
Moses' sister has been watching from a distance, and now she speaks. Her offer of a nurse looks simple, but it hides a mother's faith and a plan the Egyptian court knew nothing about.
The child's sister had been watching from a distance. Notice when she chooses to speak.
Miriam had joined the group at the critical moment. Affection sharpened her wit, and she used the compassion she plainly saw. She said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?" What could the princess say to such a sensible and well-timed suggestion, but "Go"?
Her waiting by the river was not idle curiosity.
What a remarkable girl Miriam was, the child's sister. I gather it was not mere curiosity that made her stand at a distance to see what would happen to her brother. She knew she had a part to play in his safety and in God's plan for him — and how well she played it! Her courage, speed and shrewdness went far beyond anything you would expect in the child of an enslaved nation. The Lord guided her too.
What she showed at the riverbank matched what she became later.
Miriam showed courage and resource. She gave herself to a task that was both dull and dangerous. All this leaves such an impression of her that we read without surprise, later on, that she is a prophetess. She leads the whole redeemed nation in worship and song on the banks of the Red Sea. It is good to find that she has thrown in her lot with the oppressed and slandered nation, the people of God.
Miriam does not say "one of our women." She picks the word an Egyptian would use.
"Hebrews" is the regular Gentile word. Abram is called "Abram the Hebrew"; see also Exodus 2:6-7, 11, 13, so chapter 1:16 and 19. There cannot be a doubt that it was the name used by strangers — "the children of Eber."
Miriam's offer brings the child's own mother back to him. Watch what happens to Pharaoh's plan.
The story of Moses in the basket of reeds is so well known that there is little need to point out the skill of the divine hand. That hand arranged for Moses' own mother to nurse him, for her to receive wages for doing it, and for Pharaoh's daughter to adopt him in the end. The Pharaoh of that day never guessed that his plan of death was keeping alive the very man God would use, in the days of his successor, to overthrow the might of Egypt. But so it was.
The princess hires her with the words "nurse the child for me." One writer asks whose voice the mother really heard.
So her child was not only kept alive: she had the privilege of nursing her own child, and of being paid for it! Very likely she would hear a voice higher than the voice of Pharaoh's daughter, saying, "Take this child away and nurse him for me." She had faith in the living God, so she would surely raise the child for His glory, not for the pleasure of Pharaoh's daughter.
Miriam's offer keeps Moses with his own parents. The princess came to the river for her own reasons.
No doubt her own wishes moved her, and she sought only her own pleasure, as she went down to the river to bathe. Yet without knowing it she was to be God's instrument. She would defeat the hostility of her father and foil his plans. Her royal protection would also keep Moses in the tender and affectionate care of his parents. It was in this setting, and not in Pharaoh's court or in the colleges of Egypt, that the future deliverer of God's people received his training and preparation for the great destiny ahead of him.
- Watching — Miriam stood at a distance, and not out of curiosity. She knew she had a part in her brother's safety, and the Lord guided her in it.
- Speaking — She waited for the compassion to show itself, then spoke: affection made her quick, and her offer was so sensible the princess could only say "Go."
- Wording — "Hebrews" was the name outsiders used for Israel. Miriam frames her offer in the language of the court.
- Wages — The mother who gave the child up receives him back, hired and paid by the very house that decreed his death.
- Shaping — The nurse decided the upbringing. Moses grew up in his own home, not in Pharaoh's court, and the girl from the riverbank later led a redeemed nation in song.
And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. And the damsel went and called the child's mother.
One word from an Egyptian princess — "Go" — sends the baby back to the woman who bore him. Behind that one word stands a plan no one there understood. God is about to answer a mother's faith in a way she never asked for.
The princess had come to the river for her own reasons. She gives her permission without a second thought. Yet someone she did not know had arranged every detail of the timing.
It is wonderfully beautiful and instructive to see God like this behind the scene, arranging everything for His own glory. Pharaoh's daughter was acting from her own inclination, and for her own pleasure, and did not know that she was an instrument of the divine will. But everything was according to the purpose of God — her going down to the river to bathe, and the time she did so. It all concerned the child who was to be the deliverer of His people.
The effect of her single word reaches further than saving one baby's life. It decides where he will spend his earliest years.
Without knowing it, she was to be the divine instrument to defeat her father's hostility and foil his plans. She was also the one who, under her royal protection, kept Moses in the tender and affectionate care of his parents. So the future deliverer of God's people was trained in this setting, not in Pharaoh's court or in the colleges of Egypt. Here he was prepared for the great destiny that lay before him.
Affection made the sister quick. She saw her opening and took it.
Miriam had now joined the group at the critical moment. With wit sharpened by affection, she took advantage of the obvious compassion. She said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and call you a nurse of the Hebrews, so that she may nurse the child for you?" What could the princess say to such a sensible and well-timed suggestion, but "Go"?
The verse calls the girl an almah. That Hebrew word is disputed, and this verse helps settle what it means.
Much of the controversy is around the word "virgin" (almah). The critics say it does not mean a virgin but a young married woman. However, they are wrong. The same word appears in Genesis 24:43, Exodus 2:8, Psalm 68:25, Song of Solomon 1:3, and elsewhere. In these and other passages it means "virgin."
The king had told his people to throw every baby boy into the river. This mother obeyed him — with one difference — and here that difference pays off.
Jochebed obeys the king. She admits that the king's command applies to her son, and she casts him into the river. But he is hidden in an ark, so that not one drop of those waters of death could touch him. And God richly honours her faith. You all know the story. The king's daughter takes him up, and the baby's sister runs to "call a nurse", who is none other than the child's own mother.
The king's decree was meant to wipe out a generation of Hebrew boys. It ends up placing one of them inside his own household.
The beautiful faith of Moses' mother here meets its full reward. Satan is confounded, and God displays His marvellous wisdom. Pharaoh had said, "If it is a son, then you shall kill him," and again, "Every son that is born you shall cast into the river." Who would have thought that he would have one of those very sons in his own court — and such a son! The devil's own weapon defeated him. He was using Pharaoh to frustrate the purpose of God, and God used Pharaoh to feed and bring up Moses.
The mother has her son back, and a few short years with him. She did not waste them.
How diligently that dear mother must have used her time! How she must have planted in his mind the promises of the God of their fathers! How she must have taught that young child that he belonged with those slaves who were still the people of God! How she must have told him of the promises of God, that He would visit them and bring them up out of that land, and give them an inheritance!
- Hidden hand. The princess follows her own wishes and speaks one word. She serves a will she knows nothing about.
- Hidden faith. The mother had obeyed the king's order to the letter and still trusted God — she put her son in the river, but in an ark.
- Hidden reward. God answers that faith here: the princess sends the girl, and the nurse she fetches is the baby's own mother.
- Hidden defeat. Pharaoh's own weapon turns on him: the decree meant to destroy the boy ends up feeding and sheltering him.
- Hidden schooling. The years that follow shape the deliverer — not in Egypt's colleges, but in his own mother's arms.
And Pharaoh's daughter said to 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.
Pharaoh had ordered every Hebrew boy drowned in the Nile. Now his own daughter hands a rescued Hebrew baby back to his mother — and pays her wages to nurse him.
Commentators read this moment as the mother's earlier faith rewarded in full. The king who ordered every son thrown into the river ends up paying to raise one of those very sons.
The beautiful faith of Moses' mother here meets its full reward. Satan is defeated, and the marvellous wisdom of God shines out. The king had said, "If it is a son, then you shall kill him," and again, "every son that is born you shall cast into the river." Who would have thought that he would have one of those very sons in his own court — and such a son! The devil's own weapon defeated him. Satan was using Pharaoh to frustrate the purpose of God, and God used Pharaoh to feed and bring up Moses — the very man who would be His instrument in defeating the power of Satan.
The offer of payment is the detail that startles. The palace pays a slave's wife to do what love would have made her do for nothing.
And was it ever heard in the history of the world that a mother should be paid wages for nursing her own child? The mother of Moses needed no wages to make her willing to nurse her child, but wages came to her all the same. She was the wife of a foreign slave making bricks without straw, and royal hands paid her wages.
Nothing supernatural happens here. A princess bathes. A baby cries. A sister speaks up. A nurse gets the job.
This was no miracle, any more than the preservation of the child. But it was the living God working in the various people concerned, to rescue from a watery grave the one who was to rescue His people from a bondage that to many was more bitter than death in the Nile. Moses is the type — the picture — of the Deliverer from sin and wrath, not for Israel but for every believer.
The nursing years were short. She would have to give him up to the palace.
Pharaoh's daughter took him from the river's edge, adopted him, and then put him back under his mother's care until he was old enough to return to the king's court for good… How well that dear mother must have used her time! How she must have instilled into his mind the promises of the God of their fathers! How she must have taught that young child that he belonged with those slaves, who were still the people of God! … What wages a faithful mother has, if she has spent time, strength and prayers in bringing up her children in the ways of the Lord!
One writer applies the princess's words to Christian parents today.
Every Christian parent has the privilege of owning that the child God has given them is under the sentence of death. He may put the child down into those waters of death, owning that this is where the child belongs — but Another has passed through those waters first. And now the One on whom we count to save our children gives the child back to us, saying: "Take this child away and nurse him for Me, and I will give you your wages." It is ours no longer. The One into whose hands we have placed it has accepted it, and now returns it to us to bring up for Himself.
- Risk. The mother had already put her son into the river, under sentence of death, and trusted God with the outcome.
- Return. The child came back to her arms — not by miracle, but by God working through a bathing princess, a crying baby and an alert sister.
- Wages. No mother would ask for pay to nurse her own son. Royal hands paid a slave's wife anyway.
- Trust. The child was hers no longer. She took him back to raise for Another, who had accepted him from her hands.
- Reward. Those brief nursing years shaped the deliverer of a nation — the wages of faith outlasting the throne that tried to kill him.
And when the child was grown, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses, and said, Because I drew him out of the water.
Moses goes back to the palace, and the woman who saved him gives him a name that would describe his whole life. A princess acts out of simple kindness, but God is arranging a rescue: the child drawn out of the river will one day draw a whole people out of Egypt.
The king ordered every Hebrew boy thrown into the Nile. That very order carried Moses into the royal household, at Pharaoh's own cost.
The beautiful faith of Moses' mother here meets its full reward. Satan is defeated, and God shows His wonderful wisdom. Who would have thought it? The king had said, "If it is a son, then you shall kill him," and again, "every son that is born you shall cast into the river." Yet he had in his own court one of those very sons — and such a son! The devil was beaten with his own weapon. Pharaoh, whom he was using to block the purpose of God, is the man God uses to feed and raise Moses. And Moses was to be His instrument in defeating the power of Satan.
The princess names the boy after what she had just done at the water's edge. She spoke better than she knew.
In time the mother gave the child up to Pharaoh's daughter. She called him "Moses," which means "Drawn out," "because," she said, "I drew him out of the water." Moses is an Egyptian name, and it seems it was made up for this very occasion. But the Egyptian lady had no idea how deep her own words went. The "Drawn out" was to draw out of Egypt a people sentenced to death. So even in his name, Moses was a picture of Jesus, God's deliverer from death. He went down into death, and by His death draws God's people out of the doom of this world.
Jochebed had let the child go. Now she gets him back to nurse, with wages attached. One writer even reads her act at the river as obedience to the king's command, carried out in faith.
Jochebed obeys the king. She agrees that the king's command applies to her son too. So she puts him into the river — but hidden inside a basket, so that not one drop of those waters of death could touch him. And God honours her faith in full. The king's daughter takes him up, and the babe's sister runs to "call a nurse," who is no other than the child's own mother. With what joy she takes that little one from the arms of the king's daughter — not for herself now, but for the one who had saved him: "Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages."
The verse gives one line to the years at home, but those years did their work. Egypt's schooling came later and never erased them.
The same faith that had kept him safe for God's service now raised him in a way well suited to the man who would deliver his brothers from the hand of the oppressor. No doubt his mother had impressed on him the moral greatness of his brothers as "the people of God" and "the sons of Israel." Nothing in the tempting wisdom of the Egyptians could ever erase it.
Becoming her son was not a courtesy title. It put a Hebrew child, born under a death sentence, in line for the throne of Egypt.
She raised him from infancy to childhood, and from childhood to manhood, as her own son; and what was the result? By the age of forty, Moses was within direct reach of the throne of Egypt, with every prospect of taking it. Pharaoh had no son. Pharaoh's daughter had no children. If she died, her adopted son would without doubt have taken the throne of Egypt.
Moses chose none of this. Later he walked away from all of it. One writer marks the line between what providence hands you and what faith does with it.
But divine providence is no guide for faith, nothing but the word. Providence brought him in, and faith led him out. "By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward" (Heb. 11:24-26).
- Drawn out. The princess named him "drawn out" because she lifted him from the water. The one drawn out would later draw a doomed people out of Egypt.
- Foiled. Pharaoh ordered the boys drowned. That order carried the future deliverer into his own court, at his own cost.
- Wages. The mother who gave her son to the river got him back to nurse, and the palace paid her wages.
- Formed. At home his mother gave him a sense of "the people of God." All Egypt's learning could not erase it.
- Refused. Providence put Moses in the palace. Faith took him back out, valuing the reproach of Christ above Egypt's treasures.