Exoduschapter 2

25 verses · ASV

This chapter sends 197 cross-references outward and receives 172 — heaviest partner: Genesis.

Chapter summary

Moses born, hidden, and drawn from the water. Three months in the ark of bulrushes; then Pharaoh's daughter at the river. The sister Miriam's ready word secures the mother as nurse. Forty years pass in a sentence. Moses, grown, looks on his brethren's burdens; he kills an Egyptian; the deed is known; he flees to Midian. At another well, he waters Reuel's daughters; he marries Zipporah; a son Gershom is born — ‘I have been a stranger in a strange land’. The chapter closes with the LORD hearing Israel's groaning; God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Drafted from Matthew Henry, Calvin, Gill, Clarke, JFB, and Barnes.

Context

Law · Moses — see the Exodus overview for the book's full setting.

1 And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.

2 And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.

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 she put the child therein, and laid it in the flags by the river’s brink.

4 And his sister stood afar off, to know what would be done to him.

5 And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river-side; and she saw the ark among the flags, and sent her handmaid to fetch it.

6 And she opened it, and saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews’ children.

7 Then said his sister to Pharaoh’s daughter, Shall I go and call thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?

8 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, Go. And the maiden went and called the child’s mother.

9 And Pharaoh’s daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it.