Exodus 2:1-10 Study Guide: Drawn Out

Community Group Study Guide — Exodus 2:1-10 Drawn Out

Study Information:
The beginning of Exodus was framed with a lot of darkness and a seemingly absent God. The people of God previously found refuge in Egypt from the famine through God’s providential use of Joseph but that favor shifted over the decades and centuries. A new Pharaoh came to power who did not know Joseph and he began to treat the Israelites harshly with slavery and genocide. This brought us as the readers into the tension of wondering "how will God save his people?” The Old Testament has a pattern of God’s people crying out for help and God responding by sending a person. This pattern was ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ who came for us and our salvation. 

Exodus 2 clues us in on how God was at work in all the darkness and evil of Egypt. God used Pharaoh’s own law to save and rescue Moses, subverting Pharaoh’s own power, and God used that experience to train Moses in the ways of Egypt. 

God Rescued Moses
Exodus 2:1-6
After the darkness of chapter one, the simple word “now” primes our hearts for hope and a change in circumstance. Something different will happen and God is at work! A man and woman from the tribe of Levi (the tribe that becomes the priesthood in Israel) got married and had a baby. Normally a joyful occasion, but during that time they’d be on pins and needles wondering if they were having a boy or girl because of Pharaoh’s genocide law would require the death of the baby boys (Exodus 1:22). The mom had a son and saw that he as a “fine child,” which is the Hebrew word “Tov” meaning beautiful or good. This word is another example of language from the creation story of Genesis 1-3 being used to talk about how God was forming his people. Tov was the same word used for each day of creation being “good” in God’s sight. There was something special and wonderful about this boy and that led this mom to take great risk to care for him and to try and hide his birth from the Egyptian people. She was able to successfully hide this boy for three months. Think about the first three months of a child’s life and how difficult that would be! 

It grew increasingly difficult to hide this boy from everyone, so in what appeared to be a desperate attempt to save him and entrust him to God this mom followed the literalness of Pharaoh’s order and put him in the Nile River. However, she did it in such a way to give her son a chance to live like forming a basket from plants, bitumen and pitch. The word “basket” in our text is the same word used for “ark” in Genesis. She entrusted her son to the waters and to the Lord. This boy’s older sister wanted to see what would happen and followed the ark down the Nile as God providentially worked to rescue this boy. Pharaoh’s own daughter just happened to be at the river bathing and saw the basket and recognized the boy as a Hebrew child. Instead of following her own father’s order, she took pity on the child and rescued him from the water. This moment is actually how the boy got his name “Moses” which means “drawn out;” she drew him out of the waters. 

God’s Providence
Exodus 2:7-10
There are many examples of God’s providence to rescue Moses that foreshadow God’s providence to rescue his people through the events of Exodus. 

First, Pharaoh’s plan to destroy the Hebrew boys became the very method of rescue for Moses. This theme of being rescued through waters will show up again as God saved his people from Egypt through the parting of the Red Sea. 

Second, Pharaoh’s daughter had compassion for this child. Someone from Pharaoh’s own household refused to follow the evil edict to kill the Hebrew boys. This shows the foolishness of Pharaoh’s power, not even his own family followed this evil law. 

Third, Moses’s sister, who will later be revealed to be Miriam, stepped out from her hiding and offered to help make sure that Moses was taken care of with a Hebrew woman as a nurse (Exodus 2:7).

Fourth, Miriam ran to their own mom! In a dramatic turn of events, Moses’s mom went from losing a son to being reunited with him and being paid to serve as a nurse. This was not a permanent reunion but it did give her more time with her son before she had to hand him over to Pharaoh’s daughter. 
 
God’s Work Behind the Scenes
We do not get a clear and definitive answer to why God allowed for all this evil and suffering at the hands of Pharaoh, but we do get hints to his work behind the scenes. When the people of God cry out he often responds by sending a person. 

God was using events like this to build skills into the person he’d use to deliver his people from slavery. In the next study guide we learn that Moses had experience with leading in the wilderness and as a shepherd, both of which would come in handy when leading hundreds of thousands of freed slaves through the same area. At the moment though we learn that God subverted Pharaoh’s own decree to kill the newborn boys and that Pharaoh’s own decree would lead to his undoing. Moses went down the Nile and into Pharaoh’s very own household, where he’d get a front row seat to the ways of Egypt and gain valuable experience and knowledge that would be utilized in their escape. 

God can use the plans of evil people for good, even when we do not understand what is happening. The ultimate example of this is the cross. God’s people were oppressed and cried out for deliverance. At the fullness of time God sent forth his son (Galatians 4:4). Jesus suffered and died by the hands of jealous religious leaders and the overwhelming power of the Roman system. Yet the cross was the victory of God over sin, death and the devil and the very instrument God used to deliver us from slavery to sin. The story of Moses’s rescue points forward to the rescue experience in Christ and though we may not fully understand why we suffer as we do, we can take confidence that we have a God who is at work behind the scenes for our good.

At your community group:
Take 15-20 minutes to share about how God has been at work in your life, prayer concerns and pray for one another.

How did God speak to you through the scripture and the sermon this week? 

Discussion Questions:
Read Exodus 2:1-10

How did Moses’s mom follow the literalness of Pharaoh’s order and what examples do we see in this story of how God subverted Pharaoh’s power? 

What are some examples of God’s providence at work behind the scenes in the story of Moses’s rescue? 

This study guide mentioned the pattern in the Old Testament of God’s people crying out and God sending a person. What are some other examples in scripture? Do you think God equips his people today to respond to each other’s suffering in a similar way?

What are some things we can do to remind ourselves that God is at work behind the scenes even when we do not understand the hardship we suffer?