The word used for “basket” is a special word that is only used two times in the Bible, here, and in Genesis 6:14 where it is used to describe the ark or boat that Noah built. As God had commanded Noah to do in the days of the flood, now Moses’ mother made a little ark for her son so that he too might escape the waters of judgment. As it was in the days of Noah, so also in Moses’ days, the ark, sealed off from the waters of death with pitch, became the place through which God would bring deliverance. For God would use this same Moses, who passed through the reeds of the waters of the Nile into the receiving arms of Egypt, to later lead his people out of the oppressive arms of Egypt through the reeds of the Red Sea to their new life in his kingdom. Although God’s servant and instrument of redemption was at the gates of Sheol, he was rescued from death so that he might bring God’s people into life. We can see how our text anticipates the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the need for all believers to be baptized into death in order to be raised to new life (see Romans 6:1–23).
3 When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank.