I’m excited to share with you a story from my new book, Seers, Sayers, Schemers & Saints. Here’s chapter one, drawn from the account found in Exodus 1 & 2:
The young mother, frantic to conceal her infant son who was under a death sentence, knew her time was running out. In desperation she attempted a wild scheme. She gently placed her son in a waterproof basket and set it afloat near the royal women bathing in the river, hoping both in God and in the latent maternal instinct of a sheltered princess. The boy drifted in the reeds and was soon discovered safe and sound by the daughter of the king.
We need to take a quick look at the history of Israelites in Egypt in order to really understand what comes next. The descendants of Israel lived, just as they had for the past 400 years, in Egypt—driven there by the great famine during the time of Joseph. It was in Egypt that they multiplied into a large nation. So large, in fact, that Pharaoh, the king of the Egyptians, started to get nervous. “The Swayer of the Universe,” as he was sometimes called, worried that the Hebrews might join his enemies in a future invasion, despite 400 years of good citizenship. So, like any respectable despot, Pharaoh enslaved the Hebrews, forcing them to labor on the great cities he was building to honor himself. The Egyptians ruthlessly exploited the Hebrews. Not confident that he could work the Hebrews to death, Pharaoh embarked on a fresh genocidal policy, decreeing that all the newborn boys of the Hebrews were to be thrown into the Nile and drowned. Naturally, the Hebrews did all they could to protect their babies.
Which brings us to a little boy named Moses. Born during this brutal time, his distraught yet resourceful mother hid him as long as she could before embarking on her plan. The waters of the Nile guided the basket to the hands of Bithiah, Pharaoh’s daughter, showing that God is nothing if not ironic. Bithiah ordered her servants to pull Moses from the river and she immediately recognized him as Hebrew.
The next decision she made was critical. The policy was to kill all the Hebrew baby boys, but Bithiah took pity and rescued Moses. This defied the edict of her own father, and she could have been killed for her disregard of Pharaoh’s orders. Nevertheless, Bithiah took Moses as her son and raised him in the royal house of Egypt. This act of mercy—also an act of civil disobedience—saved the rescuer of Israel.
A leader is nothing without mercy. It’s one thing to stride forward in victory, to make the impossible happen or to finally secure the job that sets you up for life. It’s another issue altogether to advance by stepping on the backs of others. To live your life, to enjoy the fruits of success and the wonders offered to you, but to ignore the baby in the bulrushes misses the point of leadership. The helpless and vulnerable, the person in need of mercy, is the point. Jesus tells us, “blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:7). Truly, aren’t we all babies floating helplessly along, waiting for a savior to pull us from the water and give us life? Blessed was Bithiah, the daughter of a wicked king. Her mercy still instructs today and a leader will do well to emulate her example.
