Pulled from the Torrent, a Redeemer Forgotten
Perhaps you recall that the name Moses or מֹשֶׁה Môsheh means drawn; from drawing out (of the water), i.e. rescued. He is revered as a rescuer of Israel, but how did Moses get to Egypt in the first place? As a baby fleeing harm in a wicker sarcophagus, Moses was plucked from certain death in the waters of a river in Goshen.
Psalm 18:
16 He reached down from on high
and took hold of me;
he pulled me out of deep water.
17 He rescued me from my powerful enemy
and from those who hated me,
for they were too strong for me.
18 They confronted me in the day of my calamity,
but the Lord was my support.
19 He brought me out to a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.
Pharaoh’s daughter then brought Moses into the house of the King of Egypt where he was raised in the best of privileged circumstances. She takes him from a wicker ark closed over him by his Hebrew mother and draws the child from the water into her saving arms.
Exodus 2:
5 Pharaoh’s daughter went down to bathe at the Nile while her servant girls walked along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds, sent her slave girl, took it, 6 opened it, and saw him, the child—and there he was, a little boy, crying. She felt sorry for him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew boys.”
She most certainly would have known her father’s command:
Pharaoh then commanded all his people: “You must throw every son born to the Hebrews into the Nile, but let every daughter live.” – Exodus 1:22
2:10 When the child grew older, she [Moses’ mother, hired as a mid-wife] brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”
Migrant Tribes in the Lands of Others
Perhaps you have not thought of it: peoples or tribes are homeless families looking for a place to live.
The Hebrews were one such people; yet the Lord God is their ever-living חֲיָא Patriarch, even more so than Moses or Abraham. Ever since Abraham they raised sheep, migrated to lands where they could sustain life and became merchants trading with citizens and travelers in lands to which the Lord would lead.
Recall that the persecution of the Hebrews in the time of Moses was consequence of envy of their prosperity by the rulers of the land.
Exodus 1:
8 A new king… said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and powerful than we are. 10 Come, let’s deal shrewdly with them; otherwise they will multiply further, and when war breaks out, they will join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country.”
11 So the Egyptians assigned taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor. They built Pithom and Rameses as supply cities for Pharaoh.
Egypt’s and Israel’s Forgotten Redeemer
Genesis 46:
The words of Zaphnathpaaneah:
“I will go up and inform Pharaoh, telling him, ‘My brothers and my father’s family, who were in the land of Canaan, have come to me.
32 The men are shepherds; they also raise livestock. They have brought their flocks and herds and all that they have.’
33 When Pharaoh addresses you and asks, ‘What is your occupation?’ 34 you are to say, ‘Your servants, both we and our fathers, have raised livestock from our youth until now.’
Then you will be allowed to settle in the land of Goshen, since all shepherds are detestable to Egyptians.”
To be continued…
Herod’s rule as tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, holds no authority over Judea, ruled by Marcus Pontius Pilatus, Roman prefect (governor) under the emperor Tiberius.