EXODUS 2 | On Bulrushes, Riches, and Exile

A Levite man married a Levite woman, something about some birds and some bees, then the woman gave birth to a son.  Seeing that he was a healthy nifty little child, the mother hid him for three months.  Unable to hide him any longer, she put him in a papyrus basket coated with tar and pitch and placed him in the bulrushes in the Nile River.  The baby's sister looked on to see what would happen to him.

Pharaoh's daughter was down at the Nile to bathe and she saw the baby floating along in his basket.  She immediately sent one of her attendants to fetch the child.  He was crying (which sort of happens when you're ditched in a river) and she felt sorry for him.  "This is one of the Hebrew babies," she observed.

I refuse to believe Moses wasn't born with a beard.

The baby's sister asked Pharaoh's daughter if she should get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby.  She agreed, and the baby's sister got their mother.  Pharaoh's daughter said "I'll pay you to nurse this baby for me."

I'd like to take the time to point out here that the baby's sister just doesn't get enough credit for her sheer awesomeness and quick wit.

So the baby's mother was paid to nurse him for Pharaoh's daughter.  When the child grew older, Pharaoh's daughter named him Moses.

In a film, a montage of the boy growing up would be included right about here.

After Moses grew up, he went out to watch the Hebrews--his own people--working hard under slavery.  He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew and, seeing that there was no help around, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.  The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting and asked one of them why he's hitting his fellow Hebrew.

"What right do you have to judge me?  Are you going to kill me like you killed the Egyptian?" the man asked.  Moses was terrified to find that knowledge of last night's murder had become widespread.

When Pharaoh heard of it, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses hauled it and went to live in Midian.  He was sitting by a well one day when seven women came to draw water to feed their father's flock.  Some shepherds drove them away, but Moses came to their rescue and watered the flock.

When the girls returned to their father, a priest named Reuel, he was surprised that they'd come home so early.  Responses varied from "An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds and he even drew water for us and watered the flock" to "mmm dat azz" and "dem ABS, son, dem ABS!"

"Where is he?!" Reuel asked.  "Why'd you leave him?  Bring him back here and invite him for a meal!"

Moses agreed to stay with Reuel, who gave his daughter Zipporah to him in marriage.

Yet Another Biblical Marriage Model:  Giving your Daughter to a Beefy Well-Man

Zipporah and Moses married, something about some birds and some bees, and Zipporah gave birth to a son Moses named Gershom.

Anyway, after a while the king of Egypt died.  The groans and cries of the Isralites in their slavery went up to God, who then remembered "oh yeah, I have a covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob who lopped off parts of their willies for me."  He looked down at the Israelites and was concerned about them.