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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.

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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.

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