Paul Kretzmann Commentary - Exodus 2:1 - 2:4

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Paul Kretzmann Commentary - Exodus 2:1 - 2:4


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The birth of Moses

v. 1. And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.
Amram, a grandson of Levi, married his aunt Jochebed, the daughter of Levi; in spite of the troublous times he had dared to enter into the state of marriage, and the marriage, as the later history shows, had been blessed with a daughter and a son. The special reference is here to the time when the cruel mandate of Pharaoh went into effect.

v. 2. And the woman conceived, and bare a son; and when she saw him that he was a goodly child,
a handsome, well-proportioned baby, that also gave promise of fine development, she hid him three months, in the hope of saving his life somehow, Act_7:20; Heb_11:23.

v. 3. And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink.
When it became increasingly difficult to hide the boy from the eyes and ears of prying Egyptians, the mother constructed for him a small chest, or ark, out of the papyrus reeds that grew on the banks of the Nile, making it water-tight by means of asphalt and pitch, and placed this in the rushes on the brink of the river.

v. 4. And his sister stood afar off to wit what would be done with him.
Miriam had thus reached an age at which she could volunteer to watch over the baby, to find out what would happen to him. The place chosen by the anxious mother was one frequented by the daughter of Pharaoh for bathing, and this fact entered into her plans. She trusted in the Lord that He would take care of her son, for faith will dare many things for the sake of a thing which has the approval of God.