This week we begin a new book of the Torah with Parashat Shemot, and we meet Moshe at the very beginning of his story — not as a leader or a prophet, but as a fragile infant born into a moment of real danger.
Pharaoh has forgotten Yosef, fear has taken hold of Egypt, and a decree has been issued against the future of the Jewish people. In
Shemot 2, Moshe’s mother Yocheved responds with a quiet, courageous act.
The Torah tells us that she “kept him hidden” — וַתִּצְפְּנֵהוּ.
That same word appears again, generations later, in
Yehoshua 2. As Bnei Yisrael stands at the edge of the land, Yehoshua sends spies into Yericho. When they are discovered and face certain death, it is Rachav who steps in.
The verse tells us that she “hid him” — וַתִּצְפְּנוֹ.
The language is deliberate. The same act of hiding that once protected an infant Moshe now protects an infant nation, not yet ready to reveal itself fully in the land.
What’s especially striking is how Rachav explains her actions. She tells the spies that she knows who they are and who their HaShem is, and in doing so, she repeats Moshe’s own words from
Devarim 4:39: “Hashem is Gd in heaven above and on the earth below”:
כִּ֤י ___ ה֣וּא הָֽאֱלֹקים בַּשָּׁמַ֣יִם מִמַּ֔עַל וְעַל־הָאָ֖רֶץ מִתָּ֑חַת
Moshe had spoken those words years earlier in the wilderness. Now they are being repeated by a Canaanite woman in Jericho — proof that his message has traveled far beyond the people he once led as a hidden child. In Joshua 2:11:
כִּ֚י ____ אֱלֹֽקיכֶ֔ם ה֚וּא אֱלֹקים֙ בַּשָּׁמַ֣יִם מִמַּ֔עַל וְעַל־הָאָ֖רֶץ מִתָּֽחַת
But what makes this parallel even more powerful is who Rachav becomes. After hiding the spies, Rachav marks her home with a red cord — a moment that echoes unmistakably with Pesach imagery — and her entire family is saved.
Chazal tell us that Rachav converts, marries Yehoshua, and from her come some of the greatest prophets of Israel, including Yirmiyahu and Huldah.
As a further connection between Moshe and Rachav, Sifrei to Devarim (Ch. 338) teaches that before Moshe’s death, HaShem showed him through divine inspiration that a great prophetic line would one day emerge from Rachav.
But here’s where the language comes full circle!
The root צ–פ–נ, to hide, doesn’t only mean concealment. It also carries the sense of something hidden for later revelation: something precious set aside until the right moment. We know this word from tzafun, the part of the Seder (another Pesach connection) when what was hidden is finally brought back, when the afikoman reappears, and the story can move toward completion.
- In Shemot, Moshe is hidden so that one day he can lead.
- In Yehoshua, the spies are hidden so that the nation can enter the land.
- And Rachav carries within her a faith that is hidden until it is ready to be revealed.
In both moments, it is a woman on the margins (a Hebrew slave woman in Shemot and a Canaanite prostitute in Yehoshua) who acts quietly, privately, and courageously against powerful regimes to save not only lives, but the future of a people. Without these acts of hiding and defiance, there would be no Israel.
And perhaps that is the lesson as we begin Sefer Shemot … that redemption often begins not in the open, but in what is carefully protected — tzafun — until the world is ready to receive it.
Shabbat shalom!
Postscript: The modern Hebrew word for “to encrypt” is להצפין (l’hitzfin). At a most basic level, encryption is the process of protecting information by securing it in a way so that it can only be read by those who have permission or access to do so. This is precisely what happened in both of these stories!
