By Faith Moses' Parents

This is the twelfth post in a series from Hebrews 11. You'll find all the posts done so far in this series listed here.

After he shows us the faith of the patriarch's, the author of Hebrews moves on to Moses, beginning with the faith of Moses' parents.

By faith, when Moses was born, his parents hid him for three months, because they saw the child was beautiful and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. (Hebrews 11:23 NET)

Do you remember the circumstances that Moses's parents found themselves in? The king of Egypt became afraid of the potential power of the Israelite people and ordered that all Israelite sons born be thrown into the river (Exodus 1:22). So when Moses was born, instead of obeying the king's edict, his parents hid him for three months (Exodus 2:1,2). When you read the Exodus account, you'll notice it's the mother that's singled out--she saw that he was a fine child, so she hid him--while the writer of Hebrews attributes this to both parents. It may be that it was primarily his mother who kept little Moses hidden, but her doing so would have required that her husband at least consent to it. The child could not have been concealed in the house without the father knowing and approving of it.

Why did Moses's parent decide to disobey the king's edict and hide him? Because they saw he was a beautiful child. I'm not sure exactly what this means, except that they saw that the little one had value. It may be that they had an inkling that God had a special purpose for him.

We can assume that there were dire consequences for anyone who defied the edict of the king, but because of their faith they were not afraid of them. They trusted God in the face of possible punishment and did what they believed was right, preserving the life of their young son. For this they are included in the list of faithful people of old.