Exodus 2: The Birth of Moses

“There aren’t just bad people that commit genocide; we are all capable of it. It’s our evolutionary history.” -James Lovelock

Now pay attention here, guys, because the people represented in this passage are largely represented by pronouns only; so, if you’re not careful, you can end up spending several hours trying to figure out who is whom. Never fear, though, dearest readers, for I have already, graciously, wasted those hours for you. You’re welcome..!

We begin in the usual manner, in that a Levite dude married a Levite chick, got jiggy with it and ended up with a son; and after determining that he“was a fine child, she hid him for three months” (Ex. 2:1). After this, it apparently became impossible to hide the child, so she made a basket of papyrus and coated it in tar and pitch, tossed the kid inside and stuffed the basket in among the reeds in the Nile (Ex. 2:3). Then we read,“His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him” (Ex. 2:4). There was no mention of a sister, or indeed of any births prior to the kid in the basket, so what’s going on here?

Further digging about reveals that Basket Boy is actually the third-born child, with another boy, Aaron, who is three years older; and a girl, Miriam, who is six years older. The three month hiding period we read about here stems from Exodus 1, where the Pharaoh/King/whatever put out the decree to kill all the male Hebrew babies. This was apparently effected by the royal troops knocking down the door of newly-wed couples nine months after they registered as married and searching for illicit progeny (as well as bein