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Why did Mosesās mother place him in a reed basket on the Nile River?
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Moses
Moses Showing the Tables of the Law to the People, oil painting by Rembrandt, 1659; in the Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin.
Mosesās mother placed him in a reed basket on the Nile River as a desperate measure to save his life. At the time, the Egyptian authorities had ordered the death of all newborn Hebrew males in an effort to restrict the growth of the Hebrew population. After hiding her son for three months, his mother, Jochebed, set him afloat in the basket, which was daubed with pitch to make it watertight, in hopes of protecting him from the decree.1