Beth Moore — A Dance in the Desert
I hope so much these things are on videotape when we get to heaven. That we're just going to go, let's all watch this one. Like that -- and get a big cloud going and suddenly a screen and we're watching all of this. Picture the scene when Miriam walks back in to the house and hands the baby to the mother who thought she would never ever see him again.
I want you to hold something here in exodus, we're coming back to it but go with me to exodus two. I'm not going to read very much of it, I'm just going to narrate it to you.
If you know anything about the beginnings of the life of Moses you know the trauma from the very start. That the egyptians said that the israelites were growing too numerous and they were not only numerous, they had a lot of vitality and strength; that even though they were oppressed they just kept increasing.
It began to intimidate them and that's how our stereotypes work. Why so often there is fear there is because the more we're intimidated somebody is going to take over — the scareder we become and then we start assaulting them. It's sin and it's grievous sin but we see it right here in these passages.
So they're going to start seeing how they can cut back the numbers. So it's got to be the men. If they can make it less men then they have less of a chance of getting together for war against the egyptians. So they go for these baby boys. It's just an unimaginable — we're heard it so many times if we're accustomed to the scriptures that it loses some of its awe and terror to us but imagine this killing of these baby boys.
Just terrible! Terrible! So these parents have this daughter who is a young teenager and they have a three year old son by the name of Aaron. Miriam is the young teenager. Then we have Aaron who is three years old. And then they give birth to this baby, this infant Moses.
Now let me tell you something, the reason why we know that the edict had to be only a couple years old or less is because Aaron was three and was not threatened. So that's how we know that somehow it had gone out, it's been in operation a short enough time to have missed him. So he is not being threatened. It's the baby who is threatened.
They make this decision to build this tiny little basket, put Moses, the baby, in the basket. They're going to take this baby, put him in the basket, put him in the water, and wait and see what happens. It is a beautiful thing. If you know this, I want you to mark it, if you would like to.
She made him a basket. And then she put the child in it. It's a very interesting word, basket. It is only used one other time in the entire old testament scriptures and it is used several times in the narrative of the ark. So it's always used in Noah's ark; that same word is used for this little basket that is built for Moses.
I don't know if that blesses you but I love that God would just build an ark for one — just one! — the salvation of one!