Exodus 2:3

An ark. After the baby had been hidden for three months, for some reason unknown to us it seemed practically impossible to conceal him longer. Believing that God would intervene for the preservation of his life, his mother devised a plan whereby she might comply with the letter of the king’s command and yet not take the child’s life. She would do all she could, and trust God for the rest.

The two words translated “ark” and “bulrushes” are both Egyptian, and together with many others found in the Pentateuch show that the writer was intimately acquainted with the Egyptian language. The word tebah, “ark,” was derived from the Egyptian tebet, and is used in the Bible only here and in Gen. 6 and 7, for Noah’s ark. Meaning literally a “box,” it might describe any boxlike container.

The word gome, “bulrushes,” is from the Egyptian qama’. It designates the papyrus plant, famous in antiquity as the chief material from which ancient writing paper was made. The papyrus plant is a sturdy rush with a triangular stem from 10 to 15 ft. in height. Though common in ancient Egypt, it is no longer found there. The papyrus was also employed for building purposes and in the construction of lighter river boats. Such vessels are pictured on many ancient Egyptian monuments, and may have provided Jochebed a model for making Moses’ ark.

Slime. The same word as that used in Gen. 11:3 for asphalt or bitumen, which was imported into Egypt from the region of the Dead Sea. By the Egyptians it was used largely in embalming the dead.

In the flags. Suph, from the Egyptian tjufi, meaning “reed,” is the third word in this verse borrowed from that language. Water plants of all kinds abound in the backwaters of the Nile and in the marshy tracts connected with it. Jochebed’s objective in placing the ark in a thicket of reeds was probably to prevent it from floating away. Some commentators have suggested that Jochebed knew the place to which the Egyptian princess was accustomed to come and placed it there with the hope that her pity might be aroused at the sight of the beautiful and helpless babe (see PP 243).