Tar or pitch is also what we know as asphalt or bitumen, a sticky, black substance. Bitumen is used today for road construction and for waterproof roofing materials. Moses’s mother was clever. She made sure the escape pod for her baby would float safely down the river by coating it with a substance that would keep the water out. We can’t know for sure why she chose this way to save her baby from discovery, but it’s possible she was very wise indeed. In a river known for dangers such as crocodiles, venomous snakes, and hippos, we could assume that Pharaoh’s daughter would not have been allowed to bathe in just any place. It’s likely that her attendants and guardians had selected a safe part of the river where perhaps the water was shallow and allowed for them to see any threatening creatures. When Moses’s mother set her baby’s basket in the water, she may have judged (correctly) that the flow of the river would take Moses gently into the arms of the safest person in that country for him—a woman who had compassion and power. Also, as an Egyptian, Pharaoh’s daughter may have believed in the river as a life-giving force—she may have seen the baby appearing in the water as a gift from the goddess of the Nile.
Another interesting fact is that the Hebrew word, _tevah_, used for “basket” in this passage, is the same word used for the ark that God commanded Noah to build. Perhaps the writer of the account of Moses’s birth selected this word in particular to remind readers that the same God who saved Noah and his family was now watching over Moses.