Why Yocheved Could No Longer Hide the Infant Moses

"And she could no longer hide him" (Exodus 2:3). Why could she no longer hide him? Because the Egyptian women would go, they and their children, to the house of Amram, and they would starve their children, and their children would cry out; and Moses our teacher, peace be upon him, was in the hiding place, and the way of an infant is that when one cries the other answers him, and Moses our teacher, peace be upon him, would cry out like the other infants. And by reason of this they knew that a child had been born in the house. This is what is written, "Seize for us the foxes, the little foxes" (Song of Songs 2:15). "And she took for him a wicker basket" (Exodus 2:3). And why did she take papyrus? From here you learn concerning the righteous that their money is more beloved to them than their bodies. And why all this? In order that they not stretch out their hands in robbery. Another interpretation: And why did she take papyrus? Because it is a soft thing, so that it could withstand the soft and the hard. "And she daubed it with clay" and so forth (Exodus 2:3). Clay on the inside, and pitch on the outside, so that the righteous one would not smell a foul smell. "And she placed it among the reeds." Among the reeds; a marsh is called suf, as it is said, "reed and rush wither" (Isaiah 19:6).