Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” (Exodus 2:7, NRSV)
I was reading an interesting article by the actor and writer Patton Oswalt the other day. He was describing how he will rewatch a movie countless times and then wonder about the minor characters and what happens, as he writes, to their “horizons and destinies that don’t happen until after the final credits roll.” He continues: “There are many people like me, narrative deep-divers who can’t stop imagining the side alleys and possible spinoffs of our favorite movies.”
I connected with that because I tend to do that with Scripture passages, especially if it’s a story I’ve read many times. I was reading the story of Moses’ birth last Sunday and was kind of skimming it because I know the story well: Hebrew baby born, mother fears for his life so puts him in a basket and sends him down the river, Pharaoh’s daughter finds him and raises him. It was an unnamed character in the passage that caught my attention: “Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, ‘Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?'” Later we learn that Moses has a sister named Miriam and we can assume that’s who’s approaching Pharaoh’s daughter here, but she is unnamed. I then noticed earlier in verse 4 that she had followed her brother down the river to see what would happen to him.
She’s unnamed here, but she shows remarkable courage in speaking up. As she watches all of this unfold–Pharoah’s daughter spotting the baby, picking him up, wondering about his identity–what must be going through her mind? Should she say something? Dare she address someone so powerful? Will she get in trouble? Will she get her brother in trouble? She sets all that aside, however, and boldly speaks up.
The picture above is a shot of my son and me at a baseball game. The Apple software Photos can identify facial characteristics once it knows what to look for so it correctly identified the two main characters in the photo, my son and me. But for the woman sitting behind us, Photos simply uses a box that says, “unnamed.” I don’t know her, I don’t know her story, But she obviously has a name and I wonder what her story is.
It’s easy to go unnamed in our lives. To just go along with the crowd, not wanting to make a scene, not wanting to stand out. But there are moments that compel us to speak up and ask a question and make our identities known, like Moses’ sister. May her courage be an inspiration to all of us, that God would move us to make our presence known so that another life can flourish.