What a story! Hollywood writers should be envious. Only this is not just a story; all through this week’s Scripture we can see God’s hand moving ordinary people and kings to accomplish His will. It was not a coincidence that the baby’s mother chose that day to place him in the ark (basket) that she had prepared.

In today’s Scripture we again find a Hebrew woman who trusted in God over the edict of Pharaoh (see Hebrews 11:23). Any one who has had a three month old can understand the difficulty in trying to hide a baby; if a baby wants to cry, it will.

Yesterday we were introduced to Shiphrah and Puah, the heroes of this week’s Scripture. Today we find them faced with that question that they knew would come when they made the decision to save the baby boys: “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?” (Exodus 1:18).

I love this Scripture! Two women who probably lived respected, but humble lives in their communities, had the wisdom and confidence to defy the most powerful man in their world at that time. Pharoah had the power to immediately have them put to death for their failure to carry out his instructions; these women knew this.

Imagine living where you are allowed to prosper and freely raise your family and then having all of that stripped away and being forced into slavery and severe hardship. Having lived in abundance would make such suffering that much more difficult to endure.