Nile Babies

It’s a diabolical plan. Kill the male infants but allow the females to live. In a generation or two of no men, the woman will be enslaved spinsters or else they will marry Egyptian men and lose their identity as the children of Israel. Genius as it is ruthless.

God’s project looks like it could have died. So somewhat less than forthright midwives, and mothers with baskets, dance around the letter of Pharaoh’s evil laws. And this preserves the identity of God’s chosen people.

I take baptism as such a simple, formal ceremony. It’s a polite sacrament. An exciting celebration.

This going down in death is all a positive symbol because of the anticipation of being born again. But casting your child into the Nile river, even if you’ve waterproofed a basket and left him in the reeds, is a resignation to the inevitable death that awaits.

She gave Moses to God. No real choices. Her only hope was God and this little basket. It was enough.