Moses in the Bullrushes

The Egyptians were in dread
of the people of Israel.
Exodus 1:12

All that we know about Moses is contained in the Biblical narratives. The tradition that he was brought up and trained in Egyptian circles is authentic. In fact, it has been suggested that Israel’s worship of one God may have come about through the Egyptian connection.

The Amarna period in Egyptian history was presided over by the so-called “heretic pharaoh” Akhenaten, who took the revolutionary step of abolishing the old Egyptian gods and substituting in their place the worship of the solar disk, called “Aten.” Akhenaten’s revolution did not last. His son, Tutankhamen, better known as King Tut, turned back to the traditional religion, and in all the surviving inscriptions from Akhenaten’s reign, his name has been systematically obliterated.

The account of Moses’ birth is coloured with elements of folklore. The story of the baby in the basket of ballrushes is reminiscent of a similar account of Sargon of Akkad. In an inscription Sargon says that his mother gave birth to him in secret, placed him in a basket of rushes sealed with bitumen, and cast the basket adrift on the river.

Akki, the drawer of water, lifted him out of the water and reared him as his son. So from humble beginnings Sargon rose to be the mighty king of the city from which the Akkadians took their name.

The theme of Moses’ humble birth and his upbringing in the pharaoh’s court is the sort of thing that delights popular imagination. The Hebrew story-teller tries to derive Moses’ name from a Hebrew verb meaning “to draw out” (Exodus 2:10), but, in fact, it comes from an Egyptian verb “to beget a child,” and may originally have been joined with the name of an Egyptian deity.

The idyllic scene of Moses in the bullrushes, like the idyllic scene last week of the quest for a bride for Isaac, contrasts with the fear and anger which presently grip the Middle East. But these negative elements are not totally absent from our narrative.

The story begins with the Egyptians’ fear of the Israelites. Fear makes people do cruel things, and the oppression of the Israelites, including the attempt to have all the male children murdered at birth (Exodus 1:15-16), is the dark background for the happy ending of Moses being reared as the son of pharaoh’s daughter (Exodus 2:10).

Our second lesson (Luke 18:35 – 19:10) shows Jesus on the way to Jerusalem, where he is to meet his death. Jesus’ healing of the blind beggar on the outskirts of Jericho (18:42-43) is followed by Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus, a tax collector, who is moved to give away half his goods to the poor and hears from the Lord the saving words: “Today salvation has come to this house, since Zacchaeus also is a son of Abraham” (19:9).

Today, as we continue to pray for all Abraham’s children, both Jews and Arabs, we ask the Son of man to seek and save those who have lost their way in the blind hatred of war.
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March 30, 2003