Scripture · Job 2:13
Exodus 2:3
Moses in the Bullrushes
But when she could no longer hide him, she got him a papyrus basket and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in the basket and set it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.
A woman kneels at the river’s edge, her hands still resting on the basket. Behind her, a second figure watches. Tanner holds the rescue of Moses at the difficult moment of placing him beyond his mother’s arms.
About the artwork
The basket sits beside a narrow patch of light on the Nile. Mother, watcher, shore and water are drawn into the same muted blue, so the hands become more important than facial expression. The child himself is hidden. Tanner asks us to attend to the women’s careful actions before the princess appears and the outcome is known.
The Smithsonian reads the moonlight as a possible sign of God’s presence. Exodus does not specify a nighttime setting: the reflected light is Tanner’s way of giving this concealed act a larger atmosphere. In this 1921 oil painting on wood, divine care can be contemplated through light and human vigilance without an angel entering the scene.
Featured in: Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Bible Paintings: Humiliated at Home, Honoured in Paris
What does Exodus 2:3 mean?
Exodus 2 begins under Pharaoh’s threat against Hebrew boys. After hiding her son for three months, Moses’ mother waterproofs a basket and places him among the reeds at the Nile’s edge. His sister stays nearby to watch. Verse 3 describes careful protection, rather than a child simply abandoned to the current.
Pharaoh’s daughter finds the crying child and has compassion on him. Through the sister’s intervention, his own mother becomes his nurse. The river associated with Pharaoh’s command becomes the place where the child survives, though Tanner’s quiet scene holds the viewer before that outcome is known.
Exodus 2:1–10 supplies the human actions behind Tanner’s moonlit scene: a mother’s preparation, a sister’s vigilance, and another woman’s compassion.
Sources
Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Bible Paintings: Humiliated at Home, Honoured in Paris. Artwork reading adapted from this guide.
Exodus 2 — Berean Standard Bible. Context for Exodus 2:3.
Exodus 1 — Berean Standard Bible. Additional narrative context discussed in the reading.
Also from Exodus:The Finding of MosesMoses Putting Off His Sandals
Continue looking:Joseph, Overseer of Pharaoh’s Granaries