
Bible chapter guide
Exodus 2
A Levite mother hides her baby in a basket among the reeds of the Nile; Pharaoh's daughter finds him and names him Moses. Grown up, Moses kills an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew, flees to Midian, marries Zipporah, and God hears Israel's groaning.
Summary written for the Labs; read the chapter itself for the full text.
See it in the Labs
- Trace the Bible family tree from Adam to Jesus
- See Noah's ark and its size in 3D
- Follow the Exodus route in 3D, from the Red Sea to Sinai
- The Biblical Family TreeMoses · The Biblical Family TreeOpen
- The Bible Time MapMoses · The Bible Time MapOpen
- Life Phases of Old Testament HeroesMoses · Life Phases of Old Testament HeroesOpen
- The Biblical Family TreeZipporah · The Biblical Family TreeOpen
- The Biblical Family TreeGershom · The Biblical Family TreeOpen
- Noah's ArkHull shape · Noah's ArkOpen
- Noah's ArkPitch, inside and out · Noah's ArkOpen
- The Exodus: through the Sea to SinaiThrough the sea · The Exodus: through the Sea to SinaiOpen
- The Exodus: through the Sea to SinaiThrough the sea: The east wind · The Exodus: through the Sea to SinaiOpen
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Also in this chapter
How sure can we be?
- Textually stated
Moses: “Because I drew him out of the water.”
- Textually stated
Gershom: “I have been a stranger in a strange land.”
- Strongly supported
Suph means reeds or papyrus.
Moses' basket was set 'among the reeds (suph)' by the river bank (Exodus 2:3, 2:5; also Isaiah 19:6). A related Egyptian word, ṯwf, means papyrus.
- Strongly supported
"Red Sea" / 「紅海」 or "Sea of Reeds"?: KJV and the 和合本 both follow the Greek with "Red sea" / 「紅海」, as most English and Chinese Bibles do; some modern translations put "Sea of Reeds". The same Hebrew name is used for the Gulf of Aqaba (1 Kings 9:26) and apparently the Gulf of Suez (Numbers 33:10), so the name alone does not locate the crossing.
- Plausible
The word tevah, used elsewhere only for Moses' basket, points to a box-like vessel made to float rather than to sail.
Tevah appears only in Genesis 6–9 and Exodus 2:3–5. The rare word fits a chest that floats, but one word cannot fix the shape.