As parents, we spend a great deal of time worrying about the safety of our children. We buy bike helmets, car seats, knee pads and accident insurance in an attempt to protect them. When it comes right down to it, their safety is out of our hands.
Jochebed did. While building a basket boat for her son, she considered the dangers. Though she made the basket buoyant, she could not add a safety net to protect Moses from the other threats he would face.
There were animals. Jochebed knew about the venomous, dreadful, giant snakes! Vipers, black mambas and cobras made their homes along this river. Giant hippos were even more deadly. Some considered hippos the most dangerous animals in Africa, with good reason. Their aggressiveness, unpredictability and lack of fear toward people made them an ominous threat to a tiny baby floating in a basket. Crocodiles up to twenty feet long lived here, too. How desperate must a mother have been, to set her baby drifting in that water.
As Jochebed set her precious cargo afloat, she understood she was releasing the safety of precious cargo into the hands of the God of her fathers. She surely sent a prayer Heavenward.
God heard her prayers on behalf of the lad. He faithfully protected the tiny boy and guided the basket boat to the one person able to protect him from the proclaimer of death, Pharaoh's own daughter. She became a safety net, cast by God's hands, to land at the exact spot where a baby boy rested among reeds. How marvelous to know God cared so intimately about the safety of a child. This mom rests easier knowing big, big hands are on the job.
