She Reads Truth: Women In The Bible, Part 1Sample

Jochebed and Miriam: He is on the Throne

Labor was hard but Jochebed was strong. With a midwife by her side, the baby was almost here.

One more push... IT’S... A... it’s a boy...

A boy. His arrival announced with a whisper. In his first breath of life, sentenced to death. She loved him instantly. And instantly she breathed an anguished plea to the Lord to protect her son.

And in that room - in that very moment - with orders for the baby to be thrown into the Nile, God was at work.

Three months later, I can see her there - sitting in silence, staring out the window of her home. There were no words left to say, no more tears to cry, barely enough air in her lungs to catch her next breath. Breasts heavy with milk, heart heavy with sorrow. Her empty arms felt an ache she never knew existed.

She could hide him no longer. The baby whom she had nursed and protected and kept hidden for three precious-yet-sleepless months was gone. Whatever was to become of him in his makeshift cradle-boat, she knew she would never lay eyes on him again.

And in that room - in all of Egypt - in the hearts of many, God was at work.

There she sat. A woman who feared The Lord, who waited on Him expectantly, but who had seen with her own eyes that for her people, waiting meant slavery, toil, injustice, and death.

And then she saw her - through the window, down the alley, her daughter Miriam running, breathless, calling to her mother.

God had indeed been at work! Her baby had not drowned or been lost in the river - he had been rescued! The news was too good to be true! The woman who found him was the Pharaoh’s own daughter! She took pity on him and wanted to take him as her own. But God’s mercies didn’t end there. “The princess wants you to be his nurse! She wants to give the baby back to you to raise him and she’ll pay you to do it!”

It’s one of the most miraculous stories of motherhood and God’s mercy in the Bible!

But if we’re going to talk about God’s mercy, perhaps we should take a step back... Where was this merciful God when Pharaoh gave the order for all of the Hebrew baby boys to be killed? Where was He when Jochebed kissed her child for what she thought would be the last time? And what about all the other Hebrew women whose babies really had been killed?

Where was this merciful God when the same miraculous news was not received by so many of Jochebed’s friends and neighbors?

God was on the throne. Sovereign and good and evermore at work.

He acted mercifully on Jochebed's behalf - giving her more than she could ask or imagine.

And on behalf of the Hebrew men and women well-acquainted with slavery and death? In His mercy, He sent a rescuer for them in that tiny baby who would one day be their great leader - out of slavery into the Promised Land.

And that baby, “Moses” as the Pharaoh’s daughter named him, was just a foreshadowing of The Rescuer who, too, would be born under an edict of death, but would one day save His people to live with Him forever in the Promised Land.

In our darkest hours, God is at work.

When our best-case-scenarios pale in comparison to the mercies He gives us, God is at work.

And when we can see Him at work in the lives of our neighbors, but it’s hard to see His hand in our own life -- Sisters, the great, sovereign God of mercy is still very much at work!

Let us fear the great God of Israel together! Let us be faithful in the waiting, though it be hard and unclear. And let us praise Him for the Rescuer who has already come to free us from slavery and our very own edict of death. Thanks be to God!

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