Hebrews 11:23 NIVUK
[23] By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. https://bible.com/bible/113/heb.11.23.NIVUK
Hollywood and Marvel and Sony have all conditioned us to believe that our heroes should wear outlandish dress, have superpowers, be flawed individuals but somehow save the day in the end – and preferably have a bit of romance (sometimes tragic) along the way.
But tell me this: have you ever met anyone like that? Even at ComicCon?
I didn’t think so.
Because for all their fanfare and proclamation, heroes like that are fiction and do not exist.
But quiet heroes, who save the day through small decisions that are resolutely right – they exist and are absolutely real.
In this post, we will discuss two of them – Amram and Jochebed – who are relative unknowns, minor figures, and their actions are only discussed about in Hebrews and a single chapter in Exodus.
But their small actions have titanic implications for the Israelites.
Let’s look first of all at their context.
And in this case, context is absolutely everything.
Because, while it’s clear that Joseph was greatly respected by the Egyptians, we read this verse:
Exodus 1:8 NIVUK
[8] Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. https://bible.com/bible/113/exo.1.8.NIVUK
So all of Joseph’s achievements and how he, a foreigner, saved Egypt were wiped of history by a nationalist revisionist to whom these achievements were meaningless.
And the Jews became a persecuted and rapidly growing minority.
Which triggered suspicion.
Exodus 1:9-10 NIVUK
[9] ‘Look,’ he said to his people, ‘the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. [10] Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.’ https://bible.com/bible/113/exo.1.9-10.NIVUK
And what did this xenophobia lead to?
Exodus 1:11-14 NIVUK
[11] So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labour, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. [12] But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites [13] and worked them ruthlessly. [14] They made their lives bitter with harsh labour in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labour, the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.
So xenophobia lead to ill-treatment. Ill-treatment lead to enslavement. Enslavement lead to this:
Exodus 1:15-16 NIVUK
[15] The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, [16] ‘When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.’ https://bible.com/bible/113/exo.1.15-16.NIVUK
Do you understand what this is?
Genocide.
Now, roll this back and you see the history of mankind being played out before you.
Ultra-nationalism.
Suspicion.
Xenophobia.
Ill-treatment.
Enslavement.
Genocide.
The very worst of human nature.
We have had more than two thousand years of this. We have seen how this has played out time and time again:
World War 1.
World War 2.
Balkan War 1.
Balkan War 2.
Massacres of Hutus and Tutsis.
Russia’s attacks on Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine.
Hamas and Israel.
Einstein's definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
What does it make us?
Certainly not geniuses.
When will we learn?
And at the heart of this hatred and hubris, ordinary people who want nothing to do with it are always the people who suffer, and always the people who struggle to survive.
Here, under the jackboot of an immoral king full of paranoia and hatred and racism and xenophobia, ordinary heroes begin to emerge.
The first are two Hebrew midwives:
Exodus 1:17-21 NIVUK
[17] The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. [18] Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, ‘Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?’ [19] The midwives answered Pharaoh, ‘Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.’ [20] So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. [21] And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
Their ingenuity kept them alive and caused them to prosper.
But the other set of heroes are not even named in Exodus 2 or in Hebrews 11. Instead, they are named in Exodus 6:20. They are Moses’ parents, Amram and Jochebed.
Because inside their context they face a quandary.
Jochebed became pregnant with her firstborn.
Being pregnant as a Jew in that incredibly hostile atmosphere, when the king of the land where they lived was effectively looking to carry out a genocide, would have been scary enough. In those days there were no scans that could tell them what gender their baby was.
But to then give birth to a live and health male baby – the very gender the king was looking to eliminate?
That would have been terrifying.
This was Pharaoh’s command:
Exodus 1:22 NIVUK
[22] Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: ‘Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.’
So here is their quandary:
Do they obey the command and kill their own son, or do they defy the comma d and let their son live?
What a terrible choice!
But let’s not kid ourselves: there are numerous people of faith in countries where our beliefs are outlawed who face similar quandaries. And here is where we have to be honest: some of them don’t make it.
Matthew 24:9-13 NIVUK
[9] ‘Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. [10] At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, [11] and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. [12] Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, [13] but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.
Amram and Jochebed’s situation became more and more worrisome by the day. Moses grew bigger and became almost impossible to hide.
And it is here where their utter ingenuity, forged in the ruthless fires of unrelenting necessity, comes to the fore. Because having seen their context and quandary, we now more on to the their compliance.
I have to admit, this is brilliant:
Exodus 2:3-4 NIVUK
[3] But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. [4] His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. https://bible.com/bible/113/exo.2.3-4.NIVUK
Jochebed has obeyed the king’s law. He commanded that all baby boys should be placed into the Nile. His intention was that they should drown. But this would not happen in a papyrus basket.
Jochebed has complied with the letter of the law, but not it’s spirit.
This is known as ‘malicious compliance’: using a loophole to comply with an edict, but with the completely opposite intention than the law.
What is more, the location where she did this was highly significant as it was a short distance from where the king’s own daughter bathed (Exodus 2:5-6).
Whether or not she had prior information on how the princess was likely to react, this was an enormous risk that had the potential to cost her the life of her son. But the princess’ nature and what followed next takes us from their context, quandary and compliance to their collusion.
And this, again, is really special:
Exodus 2:5-10 NIVUK
[5] Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. [6] She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. ‘This is one of the Hebrew babies,’ she said. [7] Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, ‘Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?’ [8] ‘Yes, go,’ she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. [9] Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, ‘Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.’ So the woman took the baby and nursed him. [10] When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, ‘I drew him out of the water.’ https://bible.com/bible/113/exo.2.5-10.NIVUK
This is remarkable. A wonderful turn of events sees Moses moving into the Egyptian Palace, but cared for by his own mother.
Now, this is powerful and particularly poignant.
This led to Moses having all the access and privileges to the Palace as if he was the king’s grandson but – and this important – he did not loss his identity as a Jew.
He was, in the truest sense, in the world, but not of it.
And he also had the credentials to gain access to the king’s Palace – Pharaoh’s residence – in order to approach him with God’s message.
I doubt if you'll have heard of Nils Bohlin. He was an engineer working for Volvo when, in 1958, he came up with an idea that has saved millions of lives:
The three point seat belt.
One man. One great idea. One incredible outcome.
Moses’ parents saved an estimated one million people.
How?
By not killing Moses. By floating him down the Nile towards the king’s daughter. By quietly and unobtrusively serving God in a brutal context with a simple act of malicious compliance that had incredible ramifications.
Superheroes do not always wear a cape, or arrive swinging on a piece of spider web, or have muscles so exaggerated that you're tempted to test them for steroids.
The greatest of heroes are those who simply take a resolute decision to do what is right, no matter the risk. That is what Moses’ parents Amram and Jochebed did.
And yes, it seems strange to collude with the self same power that is seeking the extinction of your race, but it’s easy to judge them for what they did with the hindsight of history.
But we cannot evade the fact that their decision saved their race.
May we be as brave and as faithful under pressure as they were.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank You for the clever, inventive faith of Amram and Jochebed. Help me to learn from them, to seek you when I am in a tricky position, and to take decisions that glorify You. Amen.
Questions
1. What Amram and Jochebed do that deserved their inclusion in the Hall of Faith?
2. What can we learn from what they did? 3. How will you exhibit the same creative and inventive faith in your situation?
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