The verse anchor
"And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water."
Exodus 2:10 · King James Bible
The story
A long time ago the people of Israel lived in Egypt. There were many of them, and the king of Egypt — called Pharaoh — was afraid. He gave a wicked order: every baby boy born to the Israelites was to be thrown into the great river Nile.
One mother — her name was Jochebed — could not do such a thing. She hid her baby boy in the house for three months. But he was growing bigger, and she could not hide him any longer.
So she took a basket made of bulrushes, and she rubbed it with pitch on the outside so no water could get in. She laid her baby inside the basket, and she set the basket among the tall reeds at the edge of the river. Then she went home and prayed.
The baby's big sister — her name was Miriam — stood a little way off to watch what would happen.
That very morning, Pharaoh's own daughter came down to the river to bathe. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to fetch it. When she opened it, there was the baby, crying. The princess had compassion on him. "This is one of the Hebrews' children," she said.
Little Miriam stepped out from where she was watching. "Shall I go and call thee a nurse of the Hebrew women," she asked, "that she may nurse the child for thee?" The princess said, "Go." So Miriam ran home and brought her own mother.
The princess said to Jochebed, "Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages." So the baby was given back to his own mother to raise — until he was old enough to live in the palace.
When the boy was grown, the princess called him her son, and she gave him the name Moses. It means drawn out — because she drew him out of the water.
That baby, hidden in a basket among the reeds, would grow up to lead God's people out of Egypt one day. Pharaoh had made a wicked law. God had a better plan.
One thing we learn
God saw Moses in the little basket. God sees you too — always, and everywhere. Nothing is too small for him to notice. Nothing is too dark for him to reach into.
Memory verse
"And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water."
Exodus 2:10 · KJV
Say it three times before bed. In seven days you will know it forever.
A prayer
Thank you, God, that you saw baby Moses in the reeds.
Thank you that you see me, too.
Watch over my house tonight.
Amen.
Beneath the story · for grown-ups
To read this whole passage in the King James Bible with your child, or to walk further with the household: