And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink.
She took for him an ark of bulrushes, х teebat (H8392); Septuagint, thibeen] - a chest, coffer, or small vessel; "bulrushes," the papyrus Nilotica-a thick, strong, and tough reed, which anciently grew in great abundance on the banks of the Nile-but now that the river has been opened to commerce, has totally disappeared, except in a few sequestered localities. The ancient Egyptians applied it, as the Scriptures show, at an early date, to a great variety of uses: making arms, shoes, baskets, vessels of different kinds, especially boats and light skiffs.
And daubed it with slime and with pitch. "Slime," the Nile mud which, when hardened, is very tenacious; and "pith," mineral tar coating of pitch rendered the papyrus boats impervious to water. Boats of this description are seen daily floating on the surface of the river, frequently with no other caulking than Nile mud (cf. Isaiah 18:2), and they are perfectly watertight, unless the coating is forced off by stormy weather.
Flags, х bacuwp (H5488)] - a general term for seaweed or river-weed [Septuagint, eis to helos, into the fen]. The chest was not, as is often represented, committed to the bosom of the water, but laid on the bank, where it would naturally appear to have been drifted by the current and arrested by the reedy thicket. The spot is traditionally said to be the Isle of Rodah, near Old Cairo.