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Profiles of Faith: Moses - Leader of a Nation
by Jerold Aust
Set adrift on the Nile in a small, woven, waterproof basket, facing death by drowning, starvation or crocodile, a 3-month- old baby boy was surrendered by his father and mother and left to the elements and will of God rather than face certain death at the hands of the Egyptian authorities.
A new ruler of Egypt had issued an edict: All Hebrew male babies were to be killed at birth because the enslaved Israelites were beginning to outnumber their Egyptian masters. So it was that the baby’s parents, Amram and Jochebed, trusted in God to spare their newborn son by setting him afloat on the Nile River rather than see him killed by the Egyptians.
They didn’t know that what transpired after their faithful act was destined to change the course of history, not just for Israel but for everybody. This brief article depicts the rest of that remarkable story: how an abandoned baby, Moses, came to serve his oppressed and disenfranchised people as leader and prophet and how he came to serve all mankind as a type of Jesus Christ.
Hebrew slave to Egyptian prince
The Egyptian historian Manetho records that Moses was born around 1520 B.C. at Heliopolis in Egypt (Merrill Unger, Unger’s Bible Dictionary, Moody Press, Chicago, 1988, p. 886). His life can be divided into three 40-year periods: his time in Egypt, his exile in Arabia and his governance of Israel (Acts 7:23,30,36). After Moses’ birth, Jochebed concealed him from the Egyptian authorities for three months, but when hiding him became no longer feasible she prepared a basket so he could float among the reeds on the Nile. This act takes on even greater significance when set against the backdrop of Pharaoh’s two methods of killing Hebrew children. The Bible tells us that Pharaoh first attempted to solicit the support of Hebrew midwives to kill any Hebrew baby boys they helped deliver. When the midwives quietly refused to cooperate, Pharaoh then directed that newborn Hebrew boys be cast into the Nile to drown.
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