Moses

Jochebed’s musings slowly drifted off to a mid-morning, already warm, hot muggy day. Not sweltering mind you, for that time of year, but it was still looking like it was going to be a hot one. It was 1393 before Christ or thereabouts and Pharaoh was on the warpath regarding male Hebrew infants. “Summer pregnancies are the worst, aren’t they?” Jochebed said to herself. Thankfully it has been a fairly easy birth. But an arduous clandestine journey to arrive safe and in an undiscovered state with her three-month-old contraband son at their chosen launch site. I estimate it to be about 62 miles from their home with a fairly grown-up daughter Miriam in tow as well. Jochebed’s family likely did not reside in close proximity to what she decided was safe harbor to launch her son’s ark, basket on the Nile. The Princess, daughter of the Pharaoh, Egyptian Royalty, as I’m sure you can understand, does not reside anywhere near the slave quarters. Jochebed knelt down at the water's edge holding fast to one side of her precious cargo. She kissed her son one last time, with tears welling up deep in her eyes. She reflected on the fact that God had blessed her with a son despite Pharaoh’s edict and an enormous amount of prayers on her and her husband's part. Her and her husband prayed for a second daughter as opposed to another male child so there would be no chance of having to grieve over his loss because of the Pharaoh’s death edict. Jochebed knew well, this was clearly the last time she was ever going to see him. And yet she felt an inexplicable peace that she could not understand. Her beautiful daughter Miriam steadied herself the best she could, holding fast to the woven basket handle. She too highly cherished her little baby brother and knew full-well the burden and responsibility of her getting this basket launched just right and that his little life this morning depended a great deal upon her and yes, their faith in God. “Try to do it just the way we practiced sweetie,” Jochebed encouraged her daughter. Miriam slipped one leg into the muddy Nile which was still a little mid-morning chilly and bracing herself mostly by the baskets handle slid her left leg in after and now her entire lower body was fully immersed. And she stood upright chest deep in the murky Nile at the water's edge. Almost immediately, Miriam motioned her hand rapidly through the air trying to get her attention, signaling to her mother accompanied by the words. “Mama….. Mama the bottom is very uneven and something is wrong. It’s moving, the bottom is moving Mama” Both of them knew what the bottom moving under her feet had to mean, but they had ventured too far to just stop and she was too deep to jump out of the water. Miriam’s body continued to come up out of the water at an alarming rate of its own volition becoming close to parallel to the water's surface. Under her, just barely visible Jochebed began to see the scaly body of an ancient Jurassic monster rising with her daughter on its back. “JUMP Miriam,” Jochebed screamed, “please JUMP Miriam!” Her young frame is now entirely exposed above the surface of the waters. In moments so unimaginably swift, another massive crocodile’s wide open gaping mouth suddenly unchecked comes spiraling, sideways out of the water and clamps its unrelenting jaws around the mid abdominal to lower extremity of Miriam’s petit tender frame. Jochebed screamed as she tried with all her might to pull her daughter free with the basket handle as if they were fighting over its contents and again back onto the bank. “Miriam," Jochebed screamed, “please MIRIAM please jump!” In an immeasurable instant a third leviathan the length of a horse and chariot breached the water's surface as if in flight latching onto the upper thoracic of her small figure. Its jaws clamping tightly, just below Miriam’s neck, basically beginning the process of tearing her young compliant body in two. Miriam was nothing short of helpless- hand still desperately clasping to the basket handle, as if it could possibly move her back onto the bank and safely reversing the whole of what was transpiring. Jochebed watched powerlessly, breathlessly having to herself jump back further onto the bank to avoid the lunge of another prehistoric beast reaching for her as well. And then the basket ever so slowly- as if in slow motion- began to glide horrifically sideways off the edge of the bank, pulled by Miriam’s still clinging hand, into the murky deep. “Please Lord, please, No!!!!” Jochebed now concentrating on saving the basket as she can clearly see saving her precious daughter is now impossible. But before Jochebed can breathe even one more breath a fourth monster's vise-like grip, in one fell swoop, closes upon the innocent basket savagely ripping it from both Miriam and Jochebed, viciously thrashing its unyielding body as it disappears with its now wailing contents below the muddy waters of the Nile. And then just as suddenly… …as if they were never there…both the Ark and Miriam and the basket were gone. Jochebed’s hollow motionless eyes were fixed on the now completely stilled peaceful waters of the Nile. Her mouth splayed wide open falls back to her knees and buries her forehead into the ground finally emitting an unintelligible animal like sound ending in, “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God,” and then dead silence…!” Jochebed suddenly snaps out of her horrific daydream with the words, “Well Lord, that’s not going to work, is it?”