It is very important to be a big sister, especially when you have a secret like Miriam had. It doesn’t matter if I tell you her secret now, but it mattered a lot then.
Her secret was that there was a new baby brother in her home, and everybody knew that King Pharaoh had ordered that all Hebrew baby boys should be thrown into the Nile River. The Hebrews were the king’s slaves, and he was afraid the Hebrew boys would grow up to be too strong for him. He was afraid there would be so many of them that they would fight against him and win their freedom.
People without God and without Christ are often afraid and try all sorts of ways to make sure that nobody and nothing will be too strong for them. But it was Isaiah who said, “The Lord . . . is my strength and my song; He also is become my salvation” (Isaiah 12:2). I’m sure the king did not know anything about the Lord or he would not have made such a wicked command because he was afraid.
The Hebrew midwives who helped the mothers having new babies knew the king’s command, but they didn’t listen to him; they saved the baby boys alive. That was brave, wasn’t it?
After three months, Miriam’s baby brother must have become rather noisy, and so his mother did a very surprising thing. She put him in the Nile River herself, but not the way the king intended. She took a big basket made of bulrushes and waterproofed it with tar. Then she carefully laid her baby boy in it, covered him up and set the basket afloat among the tall weeds by the river. Big sister Miriam watched from a distance to see what would happen to him.
That was the time that King Pharaoh’s daughter, the princess, came down to the river to bathe, and her servants walked along by the riverbank. When she saw the basket among the weeds, she sent her maid to get it. When the princess opened the basket, the baby cried, and his cries melted her heart.
“This is one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. She knew her father’s command about the Hebrew baby boys, but she felt sorry for the little crying baby and decided she wanted that baby for herself. But she was going to have a problem very soon - how would she feed the baby?
Before she had time to wonder, Miriam ran to the princess and asked if she should call a Hebrew nurse to feed the baby for her. “Go,” said the princess. Miriam probably ran all the way home and burst into the house to tell her mother the good news. Mother was ready to run faster than Miriam did and to hold out her arms gladly to her very own baby.
“Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages,” said the princess.
The princess may not have known who the nurse really was, but there was no need to hide the baby any more. This Hebrew baby boy lived because the princess had saved him, and nobody could argue with that.
We don’t know what name his parents gave the baby, but the princess called him “Moses.” And that was his name from then on, and he lived for one hundred and twenty years.
When Moses was old enough to walk by himself, that brave mother took him to the palace of the princess and left him there. It was a hard thing to do, but do you know something? It is more important to belong to God because the Lord Jesus has saved you than it is to belong to anybody on earth. His mother went home and put away his little things, but she knew that little Moses was God’s good gift, and God never changes His mind about gifts. Both the parents were not afraid of the king’s commandment.
As Moses grew up, he was given a good education, and he could talk about important matters with anybody. But he never forgot that he was a Hebrew, and it showed up in his life. Perhaps we’ll tell you about it at another time.
Today’s story about the baby Moses is a story of doing what God says, no matter what anybody else says. You can find what God wants you to do by reading His book, the Bible. And if you aren’t brave enough to do what God says, ask Him for the courage, and He will give it to you. It takes courage to obey Him even today!
“We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
You can read this story for yourself in Exodus 2.
ML-09/08/2002