MOSES IS GROWING IN PHARAOH'S DOMAIN

Robin Mann © 1994. I had invited Peter Lockwood, a good friend and classmate at school (in our final year, he topped the State in Classical Greek, I came bottom. But we both got A's - we were the only two doing the subject!) to preach at Golden Grove while our pastor was on leave. Dr. Peter is a lecturer at Luther Seminary, a specialist in Old Testament, and he told me he planned to preach on Exodus 2:1-10, the story of Moses' birth, concealment, and then adoption by Pharaoh's daughter. I couldn't find a song that really fitted with it, so, inspired by what Peter told me about the text, I wrote this one. The reading is very rich. There are themes of redemption, rescue, life and death; themes about God's mercy, and the role of women, both pagans and Israelites, in the salvation of Israel and ultimately the whole world. Peter told me that the Hebrew word for basket is only used in one other place, and that's in Genesis, where it's the word that we translate as "ark". So the vessel of safety is there for Noah and for Moses. And in Christian history, the boat has been a symbol for the church...