Humor in the Unlikeliest of Places - Reflections on Ex 1:8-2:10, 13th Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

by John C. Holbert on Thursday, June 18, 2026

         Before I begin a closer look at this fabulous text, I must announce that Aug.23 is a very important day in my life: it is my wife’s and my 57th wedding anniversary! Diana, or more formally, the Rev. Dr. Diana Brown Holbert, has been much more than my boon companion for nearly six decades. She has been pillar and post, lover and friend, mother of our two children, grandmother to our two grandchildren, and my unfailing supporter for all these years. “Thank you” is a feeble comment for these long and fruitful years together. Even now, she remains at work in our United Methodist Church as Minister of Care, coordinating the many pastoral caring outreach ministries that our busy congregation conducts. Diana is a real gem in every way imaginable!

         Back to the Bible! I am always astounded by two facets related to great narrative texts from the Hebrew Bible: they are invaribly laced with humor, even and especially in the midst of deeply serious matters, and that humor is nearly invaribly overlooked by over-serious commentators. The authors of our scripture knew well what all of us surely know: without humor literature and life lose color. All great literature is marked by humor, and all lives worth living are studded with great laughter. The beginning of the tale of Exodus, the central story of Israel’s life, indeed Israel’s tale of its resurrection, has humor woven into its fabric. I wish to point out a few of those places as we examine today’s lectionary.

         The initial problem that Israel presents to the land of Egypt, according to the story, is that they are masters at multiplication: “The children of Israel were fruitful, they swarmed, and multiplied, and grew so vast that the land was filled with them” (Ex.1:7). This is of course in marked contrast to the constant inability of the patriarchs and matriarchs in Genesis to have any children at all! Sarah’s and Rebekah’s difficulties in conceiving are now long forgotten in Egypt where Israel has become astoundingly fertile. Pharaoh is deeply alarmed by this exploding population and resolves to try to slow their birthrate. (Please note that all my comments are based on the literary text we read. Any history here plays little to no role. Frankly, it is absurd to imagine that the mightiest monarch in the world would be in any way historically alarmed by his fecund slaves.) 

         He tries three plans, all of which fail miserably. First, he, after claiming that “the children of Israel are more numerous and powerful than we,” determines that “we deal cleverly with them lest they continue multiplying, and then, should war occur, they will join our enemies and fight against us and leave the land” (Ex.1:9-10). So, he resolves to work them hard, to place forced-labor foremen over them, to build store-cities, Pithom and Ramses for him with the result that when they stop work for the day the very last thing on their mind as they return home is multiplication! Exhaustion will surely quell the natural urges of these Israelites! Alas! Plan A is a rank failure, “as the more they were abused, the more they multiplied and spread, so that they (the Egyptians) came to loathe the Israelites” (Ex.1:11-12). Something decidedly odd appears to be happening here: more work leads to more children!

         Plan B is to crush them with even more work; 16 hours at their labor was clearly not enough to stop them. How about 18 or 20? (Ex.1:13-14). That, too, fails. So, the pharaoh turns to genocide for a plan C, hiring two midwives, Shiphrah and Puah by name, and commands them quite specifically: “When you deliver the Hebrew women on the birth stool, if it is a boy, kill him, but if it is a girl, she may live” (Ex.1:16). Is that not a ridiculous plan? After all it is the women who make birthing possible, and it only takes one or two boys to continue the fast-multiplying Israelites—why not kill the girls? It may be that the pharaoh, in his desperation to stop these foul foreigners from their ceaseless birthing, is not thinking too clearly. Even so, plan C also fails, since the midwives “feared God” (the first mention of God in the tale), and let all the children live. And when pharaoh, upon looking at the census lists sees no diminution among the Israelite births, calls the midwives to the throne room, and asks why the birthing continues unabated, they say, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous (the word derives from Hebrew “life”) and give birth before the midwives get to them” (Ex.1:19). This is a rich and delightful lie, of course, and demeans Egyptian women into the bargain! We cannot get to these Israelite women fast enough; by the time we arrive, the babies are born and the women are back at work! 

         Pharaoh now ups the genocidal ante another notch in a horrifying plan D: “Pharaoh commanded all his people, ‘Every son that is born you shall toss into the Nile, but every daughter you shall allow to live” (Ex.1:22). The monarch still cannot see that allowing the girls to live will not solve his problem, but ironically, his command to throw all the boy babies into the Nile is delightfully fulfilled in the next scene, as Moses is indeed tossed into the Nile, but hardly to drown but to become a pain in the royal side.

         Moses is born into a Levite family and is hidden for three months, since he is clearly a viable infant. As such, hiding soon becomes impossible, so his mother takes her son and puts him into a “wicker ark,” caulking it with resin and pitch, and floating it on the Nile. The ubiquitous translation of this Hebrew word, tevah, as “basket” covers the narrator’s clear intent to connect this story with that of Noah in Gen.6. Noah’s boat is also a tevah, and it also is daubed by him with “resin and pitch.” In fact, these are the only two places in the Hebrew Bible where this word tevah is found! Just as Noah was in an ark, and floated on water to save humanity, so Moses is in an ark to float on water to save Israel. The ark floats right into the palace of Pharaoh, and the monarch’s daughter sees it bobbing among the reeds by the river. She opens the ark, “and saw the child, who was weeping, and she took pity on him, saying ‘this is a child of the Hebrews’” (Ex.2:6). We hold our breath at this point in the tale. Who better than Pharaoh’s own daughter knows the terrible edict of her father that all male children are to die in the Nile. We could expect her to turn the ark over and drown the weeping child!

         But immediately, Moses’ own sister, who has been following the course of the ark on the river, rushes up to Pharaoh’s daughter and asks if she needs a nursing woman for the child. I guess so, says the daughter, and Moses’s sister runs to fetch Moses’ own mother to perform the job! And Pharaoh’s daughter tells her, “I myself will pay you your wages” (Ex.2:9). Not only is Moses’s mother now suckling her own child; she is getting paid for it to boot! And a grand laughter is heard by all who are reading this remarkable tale.

         And one other fact is not to be missed: Moses is saved by five women—Shiphrah, Puah, Pharaoh’s daughter, Moses’ sister, and his mother, who first saves him with her ark and then nurses him while he grows up. Pharaoh was definitely wrong to save those girls! Without them, there would be no Moses and ultimately no exodus from Egypt. Such a delightful story, fairly brimming with humor and joy!