The word ark (Hebrew tebah) is the same word used for Noah's ark. Only two arks in Scripture — both vessels of salvation passing through deadly waters.

Daubed with slime and with pitch — sealed against the waters, just as Noah's ark was. The mother's hands prepared the salvation God would use. Faith does what it can while trusting God to do what it cannot.

Pharaoh's daughter recognized the child as Hebrew — meaning condemned by her father's decree. She chose compassion over her father's law. Within Pharaoh's own house, a woman defied his policy of infanticide.

God's deliverers are often raised in the very households appointed to destroy them. The same court that ordered the killing of Hebrew children provided the education for the man who would lead Israel out.

Moses — from the Hebrew root mashah, meaning "to draw out." Pharaoh's daughter gave him a name that prophesied his life mission. She drew him out of one river; he would draw a nation out of another.

The man whose name meant drawn out would lead a nation through waters drawn back. The name was a forty-year-old prophecy when the Red Sea parted.

Acts 7:23 says Moses was forty years old. He had spent forty years as an Egyptian prince. Now he chose his identity — not Pharaoh's daughter's son, but a Hebrew. Hebrews 11:24-26 commends this as faith.

The identification with his people preceded his fitness to lead them. Moses chose Israel before God called him. The call to ministry usually finds people who have already chosen the people they will serve.

He looked this way and that way. The look-around of the man about to do something he knows is wrong. Moses' deliverance plan was right by impulse but wrong by method.

The same Moses who had to flee for killing one Egyptian would later see all Egypt's army killed at God's command. The difference: God's timing, God's method, God's power. The deliverer in his own strength buried bodies in the sand; God's deliverer covered an army in the sea.

Forty years in Egypt as a prince. Forty years in Midian as a shepherd. Forty years leading the nation. Moses' life divides into three forty-year segments — preparation, exile, and ministry.

God did not waste the forty years in Midian. The man who would shepherd a nation needed to learn to shepherd sheep first. Royal training was not enough; wilderness training was required.

Four verbs in two verses (24-25) describe God's response: heard, remembered, looked, had respect. The silence had not been deafness. The delay had not been forgetting.

When God's people groan under affliction, every groan is heard, even when no answer comes for years. The 400 years of Egyptian slavery were not unobserved in heaven. They were the timer running out on Genesis 15:13-16.