LESSONS FROM THE BASKET

I never studied Hebrew, so much of the following reflection is borrowed from a footnote on Genesis Chapter 2:3 from the Catholic New American Bible Revised Edition.

You remember the story of the birth of Moses, and how his mother saved him from being killed by pharaoh's soldiers by placing him in a basket and placing him among the reeds at the side of the river. Then pharaoh's  daughter took him out of the river and adopted him as her own son. 

When we hear that story, very few of us pay much attention to that papyrus basket. But it’s actually a very interesting feature if you look into the original Hebrew.

BABY MOSES' BASKET

THE BASKET. The same Hebrew word is used for the ark that Noah built at God’s command in Genesis 6:14. Although the word is used throughout the Flood narrative, it is used nowhere else in the Bible. In the Moses story, the ark or chest was made of papyrus. One scholar suggests that “presumably the illusion to Genesis is intentional.“ Just as Noah and his family were preserved safe from the threatening waters of the flood by means of the ark he built, so now in Exodus Moses is preserved from the threatening waters of the Nile in the basket, the “ark” prepared by his mother. 

AMONG THE REEDS. The Hebrew noun for “reed“ will appear many times as the story of Moses unfolds, because it appears in the name “the Sea of Reeds, “or “the Reed Sea,” (traditionally translated “Red Sea”). Surely the first readers and listeners to the story of the basket made of “reeds” and then hidden in the "reeds" would not have missed the connection between the reeds of the basket and the reeds of the sea through the Lord delivered the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. 

GOD"S CONSTANT WORK OF DELIVERING

So that little basket should be a nice reminder to each of us about God‘s constant care, the Lord’s actions in history to deliver his people in the Scriptures, culminating in God’s rescuing Jesus from death at Easter. 

But the story of the Basket doesn’t end with the last book of Holy Scripture. No, our faith tells us that God continues to deliver each one of us as well at every moment. 

It should remind us to be watching for those saving helps sent by God to “deliver us from evil” as we pray in the Lord’s prayer.

A HYMN TO PRAY WITH

Here are three verses from an old hymn that I’ve been meditating with this past week. They seem to fit well with the above reflections about God the Deliverer.

How firm a foundation, O saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in his excellent Word!
What more can he say than to you he has said
Who unto the Savior for refuge have fled?

Fear not, I am with you. Oh, be not dismayed,
For I am your God and will still give you aid;
I'll strengthen you, help you, and cause you to stand,
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

When through the deep waters I call you to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow,
For I will be with you your troubles to bless
And sanctify to you your deepest distress.