Pharaoh had ordered, "Every boy that is born you shall throw into the Nile ...." Ex. 1:22. In response to this infanticide order, Moses' mother "got a wicker basket for him, and caulked it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child into it and placed it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile." Ex. 2:3. From there she "stationed herself at a distance, to learn what would befall him." Ex. 2:4.
What was this wicker basket? Sarna says this about it:
The receptacle is called a tevah, a term that, in this sense, appears elsewhere in the Bible only as the ark in which Noah and his family were saved from the waters of the Flood. Its use here underscores both the vulnerability of its occupant and its being under divine protection. Evocation of the Flood narrative also suggests, once again, that the birth of Moses signals a new era in history.
Nahum Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus שמות (Jewish Publication Society, 1991).
Scripture quotations from: The Jewish Study Bible, Jewish Publication Society TANAKH translation (Oxford University Press Inc. 2004).
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