The scene opens with a standing order by the Pharaoh for all male Hebrew offspring to be thrown into the river. In the clan of Levi, a couple named Amram and Jochebed have a baby boy and manage to hide him for three months. 

When the baby gets too big, Jochebed makes a papyrus basket and coats the outside with bitumen, the same substance that coated the ark. She puts the baby in the reeds by the river, with his older sister, Miriam, watching from a distance. 

The daughter of Pharaoh goes to the river to bathe and sees the basket and takes it from the water. She has pity on the crying child, recognizing him as one of the Hebrew children. Miriam approaches Pharaoh’s daughter and offers to find the baby a wet nurse. The Pharaoh’s daughter pays the baby’s own mother to care for him until he is weaned. She calls him Moses meaning drawn from the water. 

After Moses grows up, he sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. When he thinks no one is looking, Moses kills the Egyptian and hides his body in the sand. Later he encounters two Hebrews fighting and tries to break them up. They ask him if he thinks he’s their prince and if he will kill them like the Egyptian. Realizing his crime is known, and fearing punishment by Pharaoh, Moses runs away to Midian and rests by a well. 

Seven daughters of the priest of Midian arrive at the well, but are driven away by shepherds. Moses stands up for them and helps water their flock. Their father Reuel is grateful and invites Moses to eat with them. Moses stays with the family and marries the daughter named Zipporah. They have a son together and Moses names him Gershom meaning sojourner. 

Meanwhile, God hears the suffering of his people in slavery. He remembers his covenant to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 

Again, we see women finding ways to protect children by clever sidesteps to the rules. Moses, tries a direct approach, but alienates himself from both the Egyptians and his own people. Moses is adopted into a third family of Midianites, the descendants of Abraham’s wife after Sarah died. Life is good in the wilderness, but Moses can’t stay hidden away forever.