These are all the women who worked to save the child: the two midwives, his sister Miriam, Moses’ mother, and Pharaoh’s daughter. Several women were involved in the survival of baby Moses. With the future of Israel threatened because of the killing of all baby boys, several women acted to provide a future for Israel by saving the life of one baby boy. The purpose of killing baby boys was an effort at killing a nation, for as Siebert- Hommes wrote, “Without sons, the history of a nation has no future” (2011: 298). So, pharaoh ordered that all boys born of Hebrew women should be thrown into the Nile so that they could die (Exodus 1:22). This pharaoh was afraid of the Hebrews because they had become a multitude in Egypt and he was afraid that the Hebrews would join the enemies of Egypt and take control of their land. Moses was born at a time when “a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph” (Exodus 1:8). The name of Jochebed, Moses’ birth mother, is only mentioned later in the book, when the genealogy of her husband is given. The book of Exodus in the Hebrew Bible is called shemot, “the names.” And yet, for a book that emphasizes names, the names of Moses’ two mothers are not mentioned in these two chapters, as if the author of the book was concealing the names of the people involved in the birth of Moses in order to maintain the safety of the child.
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