God Is Still Good / Exodus 2:1-10
Amen. Well, if you have your Bibles, open to Exodus chapter two. We are going to cover verses 1 through 10. Welcome to those of you who are guests with us at midweek, and welcome to those joining us via video. We are in a series called The Redeemer, covering the book of Exodus through about the first 15 chapters. We find ourselves in chapter two looking at a fascinating backstory.
Shadows of Heritage
I grew up in a home out in Clovis, out in the country. Now, when I say “country,” it was five and a half acres. For those of you with real property, that is basically a cul-de-sac. But for me, it was a big deal. We had chickens, pigs—which, if you put them together, is “pickings”—cows, and the whole deal. I spent most of my childhood fixing fences because the cows always thought the grass was greener on the other side and were constantly getting out.
Before that, my family lived in Los Angeles. They lived in Cerritos, and we moved when I was four. I remember we lived on a corner, and our front yard was elevated with red brick around it. I remember seeing pictures of me running toward the brick like I was going to do a swan dive off it while somebody chased after me. My dad worked for the airlines throwing bags, among other things, and my mom was a police officer and did security work. I vaguely remember our neighbors, the Comers. You know how you have those little flashes from early childhood where a name rings a faint bell?
I know my family was originally from Pond Creek, Oklahoma. I have never been there, but that is where they came from. I heard stories of the Dust Bowl and how they migrated west when they could not make a living there anymore. My grandfather was twenty-one and my grandmother was thirteen when they got married—do the math on that one. When they headed west, they could not find a vehicle big enough, so they bought a hearse, piled all the kids into it, and still did not have enough room. Several of my uncles had to hop trains.
I once tried to research my family heritage to figure out what boat we came over on and what tribe or clan we belonged to. I found out I am Scots-English. I don’t really know what that does for me, but I found out. Yet honestly, I don’t know much about that heritage. I don’t know where my family was originally from, what our history was, what we valued, or what the Bell clan stood for with their kilts. It is simply too far removed. I can’t remember that far back.
Four Hundred Years of Silence
In the book of Exodus, we are dealing with a people asked to remember that far back. Let me explain. At the end of Genesis, Jacob and his family—seventy people in all—moved to Egypt because of a severe famine in the land.
Genesis 46:1-27 (NASB)
So Israel set out with all that he had, and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, ‘Jacob, Jacob.’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ’I am God, the God of your father; do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you a great nation there. ‘I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also surely bring you up again; and Joseph will close your eyes.’ Then Jacob arose from Beersheba; and the sons of Israel carried their father Jacob and their little ones and their wives in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. They took their livestock and their property, which they had acquired in the land of Canaan, and came to Egypt, Jacob and all his descendants with him: his sons and his grandsons with him, his daughters and his granddaughters, and all his descendants he brought with him to Egypt. Now these are the names of the sons of Israel, Jacob and his sons, who went to Egypt: Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn. The sons of Reuben: Hanoch and Pallu and Hezron and Carmi. The sons of Simeon: Jemuel and Jamin and Ohad and Jachin and Zohar and Shaul the son of a Canaanite woman. The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. The sons of Judah: Er and Onan and Shelah and Perez and Zerah (but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan). And the sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul. The sons of Issachar: Tola and Puvvah and Iob and Shimron. The sons of Zebulun: Sered and Elon and Jahleel. These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan-aram, with his daughter Dinah; all his sons and his daughters [numbered] thirty-three. The sons of Gad: Ziphion and Haggi, Shuni and Ezbon, Eri and Arodi and Areli. The sons of Asher: Imnah and Ishvah and Ishvi and Beriah and their sister Serah. And the sons of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel. These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Leah; and she bore to Jacob these sixteen persons. The sons of Jacob’s wife Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. Now to Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, bore to him. The sons of Benjamin: Bela and Becher and Ashbel, Gera and Naaman, Ehi and Rosh, Muppim and Huppim and Ard. These are the sons of Rachel, who were born to Jacob; [there were] fourteen persons in all. The sons of Dan: Hushim. The sons of Naphtali: Jahzeel and Guni and Jezer and Shillem. These are the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Rachel, and she bore these to Jacob; [there were] seven persons in all. All the persons belonging to Jacob, who came to Egypt, his direct descendants, not including the wives of Jacob’s sons, [were] sixty-six persons in all, and the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt were two; all the persons of the house of Jacob, who came to Egypt, [were] seventy.
In Genesis 49, Jacob charges his sons, gives his final commissioning, dies, and is gathered to his people. They take him back and bury him in the land of Canaan.
Genesis 49:33 (NASB)
When Jacob finished charging his sons, he drew his feet into the bed and breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.
Joseph, his son who had risen to power in Egypt, eventually dies as well, along with his brothers and that entire generation.
Exodus 1:6 (NASB)
Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation.
By the time we arrive at Exodus chapter two, four hundred years have passed. Think about that for a moment. Do you remember your family heritage from the 1600s? Do you remember what your ancestors stood for, what they believed, what they were passionate about, or how they worshiped? For most of us, it is not just a shadowy memory; it is a total fog. Most people don’t have a clue because we live in the immediate present.
For four hundred years, the Hebrew people were surrounded by the paganism and polytheism of Egypt. Keep in mind, they had no written Bible yet. There were no scrolls to turn to, no holy texts to read, and nothing with which to sit down and have family devotions with their children. All they had was oral tradition. All they had was the hope that when a grandmother passed down the story she received from her grandmother, who received it from her grandmother four hundred years earlier, the core truths survived.
All they had was oral tradition saying, “God created the world in six days and then He rested on the Sabbath. Then there was a great flood where the whole earth was covered, but Noah built an ark—a giant boat—and was saved. And then God made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Meanwhile, they were immersed in a relentless influx of Egyptian paganism. You walked to the river, and people were worshiping the Nile. You woke up in the morning and saw the sunrise, and they were worshiping the sun god. It rained on your crops, and they worshiped the rain. You gave birth to a child, and they worshiped the goddess of childbirth, whose head was depicted as a frog. They worshiped the elements, the earth, and Pharaoh himself as a god among gods.
For four centuries, that pagan worldview was the cultural norm. Yet in Exodus 1, we see little seeds of faith that took root and endured. It was as though God, in His sovereignty, carried His people through the swamp of paganism and preserved them. The Hebrew midwives feared the one true God—capital-G God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who spoke the universe into existence, not Pharaoh or the sun god.
Exodus 1:17 (NASB)
But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded them, but let the boys live.
These women took a stand of faith, declaring by their actions, “Pharaoh, you may be a ruler, but we will not murder these children.” Because they feared God, He blessed them and multiplied their families.
Exodus 1:20-21 (NASB)
So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied, and became very mighty. Because the midwives feared God, He established households for them.
Driven by fear of the burgeoning Hebrew population, Egypt responded with escalating brutality. The taskmasters made the Hebrews suffer bitterly under harsh labor.
Exodus 1:13-14 (NASB)
The Egyptians compelled the sons of Israel to labor rigorously; and they made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and bricks and at all [kinds] of labor in the field, all their labors which they rigorously imposed on them.
Then came the horrific royal decree of state-sponsored infanticide: throw every newborn Hebrew boy into the Nile.
Exodus 1:22 (NASB)
Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, ‘Every son who is born you are to cast into the Nile, and every daughter you are to keep alive.’
If you were a believer in the true God living through that, you had to wonder, Where are You in this chaos? A decree goes out, and newborn boys are tossed like stones into the river. You can imagine the agony: God, that was my baby boy who just splashed into the water. That was my nephew. That was my neighbor’s son they had prayed for over years. I have heard the stories of Your power, but where are You right now?
Centuries later, the prophet Habakkuk gave voice to that very same heart cry during a time of national distress.
Habakkuk 1:2 (NASB)
How long, O LORD, will I call for help, And You will not hear? I cry out to You, ‘Violence!’ Yet You do not save.
Have you ever felt like that? That is raw, authentic human emotion. God’s response to Habakkuk was profound.
Habakkuk 1:5 (NASB)
’Look among the nations! Observe! Be astonished! Wonder! Because [I am] doing something in your days– You would not believe if you were told.
In moments of intense difficulty, God has not forgotten His people. He did not misplace Israel in Egypt. He was acutely aware of their plight. Psalm 121 reminds us that the Keeper of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.
Psalms 121:3-8 (NASB)
He will not allow your foot to slip; He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel Will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is your keeper; The LORD is your shade on your right hand. The sun will not smite you by day, Nor the moon by night. The LORD will protect you from all evil; He will keep your soul. The LORD will guard your going out and your coming in From this time forth and forever.
What we often lack in times of tragedy is perspective. We live in an instant-gratification culture. We want answers immediately, like a Google search response. We don’t want to wait until tomorrow, let alone wait through generations. We expect God to move on our timetable and explain Himself on demand. But God plays the long game.
Psalms 90:4 (NASB)
For a thousand years in Your sight Are like yesterday when it passes by, Or [as] a watch in the night.
God is patient, orchestrating His redemptive plan across centuries. And that brings us directly into chapter two.
Faith Amidst Fear
Against the dark backdrop of genocide and suffering, a quiet event takes place: a man from the house of Levi marries a Levite woman.
Exodus 2:1 (NASB)
Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a daughter of Levi.
Notice the narrative simplicity. We learn their names later in chapter six—Amram and Jochebed—but here the emphasis is on their heritage from the priestly line. The woman conceives and gives birth to a son.
Exodus 2:2 (NASB)
The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months.
Pharaoh’s command was unequivocal: drown the boy. But when this mother looked at her son, she saw that he was special. The text calls him “beautiful.” In the New Testament, Stephen describes him as “lovely in the sight of God.”
Acts 7:20 (NASB)
’It was at this time that Moses was born; and he was lovely in the sight of God, and he was nurtured three months in his father’s home.
Every parent thinks their own baby is beautiful, but there was an unmistakable mark of divine destiny upon this child. Jochebed hid him for three months. That was not merely maternal instinct; it was an act of profound, courageous faith.
Hebrews 11:23 (NASB)
By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.
Imagine the tension of those three months. Every cry had to be muffled. Every knock at the door brought terror. Every passing neighbor was a potential threat. Mothers, imagine living under an edict where taking your baby out for fresh air could mean his immediate execution. And outside your walls, you could hear the wailing of neighboring families whose sons had been discovered and thrown into the river.
This baby had two older siblings: Miriam, an older sister, and Aaron, who was three years older and had been born before the extermination decree took effect. But as a newborn grows, hiding him becomes impossible. Discovery meant death for the child and likely execution for the entire household.
An Ark in the Reeds
When she could hide him no longer, she constructed a basket made of papyrus reeds, coated it with tar and pitch to make it watertight, placed the baby inside, and set it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.
Exodus 2:3 (NASB)
But when she could hide him no longer, she got him a wicker basket and covered it over with tar and pitch. Then she put the child into it and set [it] among the reeds by the bank of the Nile.
The Hebrew word translated here as “basket” is the exact same word used for Noah’s “ark” in Genesis. It can also describe a small chest or casket. She built an ark of preservation, placed her son inside, and set him carefully among the reeds. This was not a reckless act of abandonment; it was a deliberate, strategic, and prayerful entrustment.
She did not simply cast the basket adrift into the open current. She placed it intentionally, and his sister Miriam stood at a distance to watch over what would happen.
Exodus 2:4 (NASB)
His sister stood at a distance to find out what would happen to him.
Then Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe at the Nile, accompanied by her attendants. She spotted the basket among the reeds and sent her maidservant to retrieve it.
Exodus 2:5 (NASB)
The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the Nile, with her maidens walking alongside the Nile; and she saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid, and she brought it [to her].
The Nile was central to Egyptian religious rituals, and members of royalty regularly bathed there. We don’t know how much Amram and Jochebed knew about Pharaoh’s daughter, but they knew the God who directs the hearts of rulers like channels of water.
Proverbs 21:1 (NASB)
The king’s heart is [like] channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes.
Divine Compassion and Bravery
Pharaoh’s daughter opened the basket and saw the crying baby.
Exodus 2:6 (NASB)
When she opened [it], she saw the child, and behold, [the] boy was crying. And she had pity on him and said, ‘This is one of the Hebrews’ children.’
There is a distinct difference between hearing a stranger’s baby cry and hearing your heart moved for a child in distress. When she looked into that basket and heard his cry, the Bible says she felt deep compassion for him. The Hebrew word for “pity” means to be moved with mercy, to spare, to deliver. She recognized immediately that this was one of the Hebrew children whose lives were outlawed. Yet compassion overcame royal protocol.
At that exact moment, Miriam stepped forward in an astonishing act of courage. She seized the opportunity and spoke directly to the princess: “Shall I go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”
Exodus 2:7 (NASB)
Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, ‘Shall I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women that she may nurse the child for you?’
She spoke the right words at the precise moment—not too early, not too late, assuming mercy rather than destruction. Pharaoh’s daughter agreed: “Go.” Miriam ran home and brought back the child’s own mother.
Exodus 2:8 (NASB)
Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, ‘Go [ahead].’ So the girl went and called the child’s mother.
Picture the intensity of that moment. Jochebed walked toward the daughter of the very monarch who had commanded the murder of her child. Pharaoh’s daughter held the baby, looked at Jochebed, and said, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.”
Exodus 2:9 (NASB)
Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, ‘Take this child away and nurse him for me and I will give [you] your wages.’ So the woman took the child and nursed him.
Think about the providence of God in that outcome. A mother entrusts her child to the Lord in a small ark among the reeds, hoping for mercy from the royal house, and God arranges it so that she is officially commissioned and paid wages by the royal treasury to raise her own son. That is the unmatched grace of our God, who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.
Ephesians 3:20-21 (NASB)
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him [be] the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
Jochebed took her son home and raised him during those foundational early years. When the boy grew older, she brought him back to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. The princess named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”
Exodus 2:10 (NASB)
The child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. And she named him Moses, and said, ‘Because I drew him out of the water.’
The Invisible Hand of God
Even though Moses was raised in the royal courts of Egypt, surrounded by pagan splendor, the seeds of true faith had been deeply planted in his heart. Scripture records that when Moses grew up, he refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing to endure mistreatment with the people of God rather than enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.
Hebrews 11:24-25 (NASB)
By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin,
Where did Moses gain that conviction? In Jewish tradition, boys were educated under their mothers’ care until around the age of twelve or thirteen before entering manhood. Whether Jochebed had him for a few nursing years or through his early youth, she parented with urgency, knowing that one day she would have to release him into Pharaoh’s household. She poured the truths of the living God into his heart while she had the time.
Yet the true hero of this narrative is neither Jochebed, nor Miriam, nor Pharaoh’s daughter. The true hero is God. God was quietly working behind the scenes, directing hearts, orchestrating circumstances, and positioning Moses exactly where He needed him to be. David captures this all-encompassing presence of God in Psalm 139.
Psalms 139:7-14 (NASB)
Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night,’ Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike [to You]. For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.
God is present even in what seems unseen and ordinary. He took a condemned Hebrew infant and placed him inside the palace of the greatest empire on earth to prepare him to lead an exodus.
God was there when famine forced Jacob’s family into Egypt. He was there when Joseph was sold into slavery, falsely accused, left in prison, and then exalted to second-in-command. He was there during the four hundred years of silence and under the brutal whip of the slave masters. He was there in the tragedy of the Nile, and He was there when the deliverer was drawn out of the water. God is always present.
Is God Still Good in the Midst of Loss?
That truth forces an honest, searching question: Did God’s sovereignty feel different to Moses’s family than it did to the family next door? The neighbor heard the splash of their baby boy drowning in the Nile. Moses was drawn out and preserved. Is God still God in both cases? Is God still good in both cases?
God had the power to instantly liberate the Hebrews on day one, yet He allowed centuries to pass. Why? Because He plays the long game. Over those centuries, He demonstrated His absolute authority over every false deity of Egypt, culminating in the judgments at the Red Sea.
It is easy to worship God when you are experiencing deliverance like Moses’s family. It is much harder to worship God when you are walking through profound loss.
Years ago, my wife and I went to the doctor for an ultrasound around nineteen weeks into a pregnancy. We were so excited to hear our baby’s heartbeat. The doctor placed the wand on my wife’s stomach, listened, and all we heard was static silence. The doctor looked concerned and said, “Let me call someone else in.” He left the room, and my wife began to weep. Another doctor came in, examined the scan, and confirmed there was no heartbeat. We had lost the baby. But then the doctor said, “We see something else on the scan. It looks like a tumor.”
We went in expecting to celebrate our child, and we walked out facing the grief of a miscarriage and the terrifying prospect of cancer. In that moment, as a pastor, I had to confront my own soul: Lord, I have preached Your goodness, but can I walk this out? Are You still God when we lose a child and my wife may have cancer? By God’s grace, the tumor was removed successfully. But the pain of that season was deeply real.
Right now, we have families in our church praying over their infants in the NICU. We have members in our congregation fighting inoperable cancer. Is God still God in those valleys? Absolutely. And we also have people among us celebrating miraculous restorations. Whether you are walking through sorrow or rejoicing in triumph, God is still on His throne. He is working out His eternal purposes, teaching us to trust Him with the long view of eternity.
Eighty years after his rescue, Moses returned to Egypt to declare God’s command to Pharaoh: “Let My people go.” Those surviving neighbors had to exercise great faith to trust that God’s deliverance had finally arrived through the very boy who had been spared decades earlier.
The Greater Redeemer
In the opening chapters of Exodus, three humble women—Jochebed, Miriam, and Pharaoh’s daughter—are used by God to preserve a redeemer. Scripture repeats this pattern. Throughout biblical history, God has used unlikely, ordinary women—like Rahab, Ruth, and a young virgin named Mary—to pave the way for the ultimate Redeemer.
The historical deliverance of Exodus serves as a rich shadow pointing us to Jesus Christ. We have a greater Redeemer who did not merely escape the waters of death, but willingly entered into our humanity, taking the form of a servant and humbling Himself to death on a cross for our sins.
Philippians 2:6-8 (NASB)
who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, [and] being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Jesus offers complete liberation from the bondage of sin that no earthly leader could ever secure. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
John 1:29 (NASB)
The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, ’Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
If your world feels chaotic today, true and lasting peace is not found in politics, economic stability, or personal comfort. Peace is found solely in the person and finished work of Jesus Christ. He conquered sin, overcame the grave, ascended to the Father, and has promised to return. He invites every weary soul to come to Him and find true rest.
Matthew 11:28 (NASB)
’Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
Crossing the Red Sea on dry ground was a magnificent display of God’s power, but it pales in comparison to the eternal redemption won at the cross and the empty tomb. Trust Him with your life today.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for Your Word and for the clear reminder of the finished work of Jesus Christ. Thank You for the faith of Moses’s family and for Your sovereign hand that drew Moses from the water to lead Your people—a shadow of our ultimate Redeemer, Jesus.
We thank You that even when life feels overwhelming and circumstances do not make sense, our hope is secure in Christ. He brings peace in the midst of chaos, calm in the storm, and joy in our deepest tears. Help us to play the long game and trust Your perfect heart. Whether we are grieving in difficult seasons or rejoicing in moments of deliverance, teach us to anchor our souls in the truth that You are always sovereign, always good, and worthy of all our praise. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.