Where is the bank of the Nile today (Exodus 2:3)?

During the Hebrews’ period of enslavement in Egypt, Pharaoh decreed that all male Hebrew babies should be killed (Exodus 1:15–16). A mother named Jochebed, however, kept her baby son hidden for three months. “But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile” (Exodus 2:3). The baby’s name was Moses, and his mother’s faith and courage in saving her son would be pivotal in shaping world history.

The Nile River, which sustains Egyptian civilization, is 4,000 miles long. Its northern section, specifically the land of Goshen within the eastern part of the Nile Delta, is where Moses was placed by the bank of the Nile.

At the time of Moses’ birth, Pharaoh was oppressing the Israelites through forced labor, “and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh” (Exodus 1:11). These cities were probably located in Lower Egypt close to the Nile Delta area. The area had many marshes, reeds, and shallow waterways, corresponding with the biblical account of where Jochebed placed the basket on the bank of the Nile.

The banks of the Nile Delta were abundant in papyrus reeds and would have made an excellent hiding spot for a small basket made of papyrus. In Egyptian culture, papyrus reeds were used for writing and weaving material and had religious symbolic value. For Jochebed, however, the reeds were a cover to camouflage her son and offer him a chance of survival.

With Moses in the basket floating by the bank of the Nile, his sister, Miriam, “stood at a distance to see what would happen to him” (Exodus 2:4). In God’s providence, Pharaoh’s daughter came to that spot on the Nile River to bathe while her female attendants walked by the riverbank. The princess “saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it” (Exodus 2:5).

Opening the basket along the bank of the Nile, Pharaoh’s daughter found a Hebrew baby inside. She took pity on him (Exodus 2:6) and acted compassionately despite her father’s decree. Miriam then ran to the princess and offered to find a Hebrew woman to care for the baby. Pharaoh’s daughter accepted the arrangement, and Miriam brought her mother. In a grand ironic twist, Jochebed nursed her own son and was paid for the service by the daughter of the man who had ordered him killed. When Moses reached an appropriate age, Jochebed “took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son” (Exodus 2:10). In God’s sovereign plan, a child sentenced to death turned into an Egyptian prince and eventually became the liberator of his nation.

To this day, the Nile River flows across Egypt to reach the Mediterranean Sea in the north. The Nile Delta area where Cairo and Zagazig exist today corresponds to the biblical description of the territory. Archaeological researchers have not identified the precise location along the bank of the Nile where Moses was drawn from the water, but faith does not depend on finding the exact spot.

The bank of the Nile mentioned in Exodus 2:3 was different things to different people: to most people, it was a reedy, soggy spot maybe good for fishing. To Jochebed, a place of desperate hope. To Miriam, a place of suspense and exhilaration. To the Egyptian princess, an easily accessible bathing spot. To Moses, a place of rescue. To God, the perfect place for a miracle.

No one—except for God— could have guessed the amazing events that would unfold in Moses’ life. A baby adrift became the leader of a nation, Pharaoh’s challenger, the splitter of the Red Sea, the lawgiver, and one who spoke to the Lord “face to face, as one speaks to a friend” (Exodus 33:11).

It all started in the reeds.