Exodus 2:7-9

Then said his sister to Pharaoh’s daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child’s mother. And Pharaoh’s daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it.

This is one of those places where the tenderness and wisdom of God shine so clearly. Miriam steps forward at just the right moment and offers a suggestion that seems simple, but it is filled with providence. Pharaoh’s daughter agrees, and before long Jochabed is called in to nurse the very child she had placed in the ark. Only now she is not hiding him in fear. She is receiving him back from the hand of God.

And she is being paid to care for her own son.

That is the kind of thing only the Lord can do. He can take a moment that looked like heartbreak and turn it into a scene of quiet mercy. Jochabed had entrusted that child to God when she set him among the reeds. She had no guarantee of how the story would unfold. She simply acted in faith. And now the Lord gives the child back to her for a season, with provision attached to it. Pharaoh’s daughter says, in effect, Take this child, nurse him for me, and I will pay you for it. What a scene that is. The household of Pharaoh, which had once decreed death, is now funding the care of the deliverer who will one day stand against Pharaoh’s throne.

The Lord has a way of doing things like that. He does not merely preserve. He often preserves with kindness. He does not simply meet the need. He sometimes does it in a way that leaves you standing back in quiet wonder. Jochabed trusted the Lord with what she treasured most, and the Lord honored that trust in a way she could never have scripted for herself. She placed Moses in the ark by faith, and now she gets to hold him, feed him, teach him, and love him in the earliest and most formative years of his life.

That matters more than we might first realize. Those early years were not wasted years. Before Moses would ever be educated in Egypt, he would first be shaped in a Hebrew home. Before he would ever stand in Pharaoh’s court, he would be nursed by a mother who knew the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I have no doubt that while Jochabed held that little boy, she was pouring truth into him. I have no doubt she was planting seeds in his heart about who he was, where he came from, and who the God of his people was. That window of time was a gift from the Lord.

It really is a great story.

And it is more than a touching story. It is a reminder that it pays to trust the Word of God. It pays to walk by faith. It pays to have vision when everyone else is panicking. Jochabed believed God enough to act on what she knew, and the Lord met her there. He did not fail her. He did not forget her tears. He did not leave her empty handed. He gave her back the child, and He made a way for her to care for him under His own watchful hand.

Ask Jochabed if it pays to believe the Lord.

She put her son in the ark, and God put that son right back into her arms.