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Moses is the most important biblical character in the Old Testament. In addition to being recognized as the author of the first five books of the Bible, it was him who God entrusted to rescue the Hebrew people from their captivity in Egypt and who led them to the limits of the promised land. In addition, it was also Moses who received from God the Ten Commandments, the heavenly laws by which the Hebrews had to live their lives to earn their way into paradise.
From its inception, the life of Moses was filled with danger. His story is recorded in the Bible between the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy. One of the most outstanding aspects of this story is the fact that, when he was just a three-month-old baby, Moses’ real parents placed him in a basket or floating cradle, and left him among the reeds on the banks of the majestic Nile river.
This action on the part of Moses’ parents raises many questions among those who do not know the full story. Many wonder why a mother would do such a thing, knowing that she could easily have ended in the death of her newborn child. However, as will be explained later, instead of putting her life in danger, this action saved Moses’ life and put him in the best possible position to save the Jewish people from the Egyptian yoke.
In this article, we will narrate the most relevant aspects of the story of Moses and we will explain why, according to the Bible, Moses’ parents left him in a basket in the Nile.
Who were the parents of Moses?
It is known that Moses was a descendant of the tribe of Levi, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. We also know that he belonged to the Kohath clan, however, the biblical text does not reveal the name of his parents. Regarding the birth of Moses, this is what the Bible reveals in the book of Exodus 2:
“1 There was a Levite who married a woman from his own tribe. 2 The woman became pregnant and she had a son, and seeing him so beautiful, she hid him for three months. 3 When she could no longer hide him, she prepared a papyrus basket, smeared it with pitch and asphalt, and putting the child in it, went to leave the basket among the reeds on the banks of the Nile. 4 But the child ‘s sister he stayed at a distance to see what would happen to him.”
As can be seen, beyond the fact that both of Moses’ parents were Levites and that Moses had an older sister, not much else can be deduced from this biblical passage. Most scholars and scholars hold that Moses was a descendant of Jochebed (also known as Jocabel, Yesbeth, Yokebed, Iochebed, Ioquebed, Yokheved, or Jochabed) and Amram, one of the sons of Kohath and grandson of the patriarch Levi.
However, there is no unanimity regarding the degree of consanguinity of Moses with the aforementioned couple. While some maintain that Moses was actually the direct son of Jochebed and Amram and that the sister referred to in the Exodus passage was Miriam, others assert that this is not the case, but that she was a later descendant.
Origin of the name Moses
On the other hand, the name of Moses does not reveal clear information regarding his family or his origin, as happens in other cases of biblical names. In fact, there is no agreement among linguists and historians regarding the meaning of Moses as a name.
It should be noted that even if one knew for sure what exactly Moses means, it is unlikely that it would shed any further light on the origin of the baby in the basket, since it is not entirely clear who named Moses, despite what the Bible suggests. that it was the Egyptian princess who rescued him from the waters of the Nile (more on this later).
Some hold that Moses is derived from the Hebrew term leoshia (להושיה) which is a verb meaning “to bring out” or “to save”. According to the old testament, this is the meaning given to the name, since it alludes to the fact that Moses was saved from the waters of the Nile. However, if it is accepted that it was the princess who named Moses, it can hardly be accepted this theory since, as far as is known, the princess did not know the language of the people that the Egyptians had enslaved. So, most likely the name comes from the Egyptian word for son or child, mose , or that the one who actually named him was his real mother.
The story of the boy among the reeds
As mentioned at the beginning, placing Moses in a basket on the banks of the Nile saved his life. But why?
By the time Moses was born, the pharaoh of Egypt (according to some was Akhenaten and according to others Ramses II, though nowhere does the bible specify which pharaoh he was) had decreed that all newborn Jewish male children were to be thrown away. into the river to drown.
According to the Old Testament, Pharaoh had enslaved the Jews for fear that their population would grow too large and they would end up dominating Egypt. Later, he feared that the Jews would achieve freedom because he saw them as a threat. Based on a prophecy according to which among the children was the one who would later free the people of Israel from slavery (a prophecy that, in the end, turned out to be correct), Pharaoh ordered that the male children of the Jewish slaves should be thrown into the waters of the Nile.
The challenge of the mother of Moses
As the biblical passage presented above reveals, the mother of Moses, upon seeing her beautiful son, decided to defy Pharaoh and hid her son for three months. However, at this point, the child was too big to hide, so she devised a plan to save his life.
He made a floating papyrus basket waterproofed with asphalt and pitch, placed Moses inside it, and with the help of his daughter, placed it among the reeds in a quiet spot on the banks of the Nile, hoping someone would find him. and adopt it.
The plan was not to leave him abandoned and to his fate. In fact, Moses’ sister stayed hidden in the bushes to be able to observe what was happening to her younger brother. The plan could not have worked better, as the following passage reveals:
“5 In that, Pharaoh’s daughter went down to bathe in the Nile. Her maidens, meanwhile, walked along the river bank. Suddenly Pharaoh’s daughter saw the basket among the reeds, and ordered one of her slave girls to go for her. 6 When Pharaoh’s daughter opened the basket and saw a crying child inside, she had compassion on him and exclaimed:
“It’s a Hebrew boy!”
7 The boy’s sister then asked Pharaoh’s daughter:
“Do you want me to go and call a Hebrew nurse to nurse the child for you?”
8 “Go call her,” he replied.
The girl went and brought the child’s mother, 9 and Pharaoh’s daughter said to her:
“Take this child and nurse it to me.” I will pay you to do it.
That was how the boy’s mother took him and raised him. 10 When the boy was grown, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she adopted him as her son; Furthermore, she named him Moses, for he said: “I pulled him out of the river!”
The above passage reveals the cunning of the plan of the mother of Moses. Knowing that it was unlikely that the person who rescued the child would be able to breastfeed him, it seems that the plan from the beginning contemplated that, as if by chance, Moses’ sister would pass by and, seeing the scene unfold, suggest to the own mother as wet nurse.
The plan not only saved the child’s life, but also allowed the mother to raise her own child when most other Jewish mothers mourned the death of their own. In addition, he managed to get the princess to pay him to raise her own child, so that Moses could grow up without wanting for anything, and then go live among Egyptian royalty.
References
Bible Gateway. (nd). Exodus 2:1–10 (NIV) . https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=%C3%89xodo%202%3A1-10&version=NIV
EcuRed. (nd). Tribe of Levi – EcuRed . https://www.ecured.cu/Tribu_de_Lev%C3%AD
Es.Academic. (nd). Yochebed . Dictionaries and encyclopedias about Academician. https://es-academic.com/dic.nsf/eswiki/614785
Chilean etymologies. (nd). Etymology of Moses . http://etimologias.dechile.net/?moise.s#:%7E:text=Hay%20dos%20versiones%20del%20origen,mose%22%2C%20hijo%20o%20ni%C3%B1o .
The Bible. (2021, December 23). THE STORY OF MOSES: WHO WAS MOSES IN THE BIBLE? Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8UfFngtEW4
Laura Egyptology. (2020, August 18). Moses and Ramesses II – Historical and Archaeological Sources . Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUThyVBm95Q
Samper, A. (2019, December 28). Killing of the innocents . Homeland. https://www.lapatria.com/opinion/columnas/alejandro-samper/matanza-de-los-inocentes
Wikiwand. (nd). Levi’s tribe . https://www.wikiwand.com/es/Tribe_de_Lev%C3%AD
