Moses' Trial By Water

 

This week we are beginning the Book of Exodus and it starts off with the introduction of Moses and his rise to honor in the house of Pharoah. It was not an easy path to get there by any means. In just the first 2 chapters of this book we see a huge span of time being covered from his birth to him leaving the House of Pharoah. 

 

 There is however a very important topic that surrounds Moshe being recovered from the water that seems to get overlooked. And that is the auestion of why was Moses allowed to survive when Pharoah's daughter finds him, knowing that he was a Hebrew? Remember the hebrew boys were to be thrown into the river to be killed. This is what is known as the Trial By Water in the ancient world.

 

Most nations in the ancient near east practiced this means of trial in some shape or fashion. The mindset behind it is that these nations held belief the the Rivers or Oceans were gods and gteways to the underworld. They were also seen as courts of judgement essentially. If you were suspected of being guilty of a crime they took you down to the river and threw you in. If you drowned, that was the gods renedering a guily verdict proving one committed the crime. If you survived, then that was rendered vindication and innocence to the accused.

 

 Moses was supposed to be thrown into the river and die just as the other hebrew boys. Instead he is placed in a basket to hopefully be saved by this river trial. As Pharoah's Daughter finds him, there would be no way that Moses would have then been killed due to they saw him as being found innocent by the gods by surviving.

 

Others that survived trials by water in Scripture,

Noah during the Flood,

Jonah during the whale incident

Israel crossing the Red Sea.

Peter as he attempted to walk to Yeshua.

 

Also of importance and irony is that Pharoah and the Egyptian army do not survive the Red Sea crossing as YHWH the only true. Elohim renders a guilty verdict and swallows them up by the water.

 So much more is discussed in the teaching below

 

Shabbat shalom!