Antiquities of the Jews — Book 2, Chapter 9

1. Now it happened that the Egyptians grew delicate and lazy, as to
pains-taking, and gave themselves up to other pleasures, and in
particular to the love of gain. They also became very ill-affected
towards the Hebrews, as touched with envy at their prosperity; for when
they saw how the nation of the Israelites flourished, and were become
eminent already in plenty of wealth, which they had acquired by their
virtue and natural love of labor, they thought their increase was to
their own detriment. And having, in length of time, forgotten the
benefits they had received from Joseph, particularly the crown being now
come into another family, they became very abusive to the Israelites,
and contrived many ways of afflicting them; for they enjoined them to
cut a great number of channels for the river, and to build walls for
their cities and ramparts, that they might restrain the river, and
hinder its waters from stagnating, upon its running over its own banks:
they set them also to build pyramids, 17 and by all this wore them out;
and forced them to learn all sorts of mechanical arts, and to accustom
themselves to hard labor. And four hundred years did they spend under
these afflictions; for they strove one against the other which should
get the mastery, the Egyptians desiring to destroy the Israelites by
these labors, and the Israelites desiring to hold out to the end under
them.

2. While the affairs of the Hebrews were in this condition, there was
this occasion offered itself to the Egyptians, which made them more
solicitous for the extinction of our nation. One of those sacred
scribes, 18 who are very sagacious in foretelling future events truly,
told the king, that about this time there would a child be born to the
Israelites, who, if he were reared, would bring the Egyptian dominion
low, and would raise the Israelites; that he would excel all men in
virtue, and obtain a glory that would be remembered through all ages.
Which thing was so feared by the king, that, according to this man's
opinion, he commanded that they should cast every male child, which was
born to the Israelites, into the river, and destroy it; that besides
this, the Egyptian midwives 19 should watch the labors of the Hebrew
women, and observe what is born, for those were the women who were
enjoined to do the office of midwives to them; and by reason of their
relation to the king, would not transgress his commands. He enjoined
also, that if any parents should disobey him, and venture to save their
male children alive, 20 they and their families should be destroyed.
This was a severe affliction indeed to those that suffered it, not only
as they were deprived of their sons, and while they were the parents
themselves, they were obliged to be subservient to the destruction of
their own children, but as it was to be supposed to tend to the
extirpation of their nation, while upon the destruction of their
children, and their own gradual dissolution, the calamity would become
very hard and inconsolable to them. And this was the ill state they were
in. But no one can be too hard for the purpose of God, though he
contrive ten thousand subtle devices for that end; for this child, whom
the sacred scribe foretold, was brought up and concealed from the
observers appointed by the king; and he that foretold him did not
mistake in the consequences of his preservation, which were brought to
pass after the manner following:—

3. A man whose name was Amram, one of the nobler sort of the Hebrews,
was afraid for his whole nation, lest it should fail, by the want of
young men to be brought up hereafter, and was very uneasy at it, his
wife being then with child, and he knew not what to do. Hereupon he
betook himself to prayer to God; and entreated him to have compassion on
those men who had nowise transgressed the laws of his worship, and to
afford them deliverance from the miseries they at that time endured, and
to render abortive their enemies' hopes of the destruction of their
nation. Accordingly God had mercy on him, and was moved by his
supplication. He stood by him in his sleep, and exhorted him not to
despair of his future favors. He said further, that he did not forget
their piety towards him, and would always reward them for it, as he had
formerly granted his favor to their forefathers, and made them increase
from a few to so great a multitude. He put him in mind, that when
Abraham was come alone out of Mesopotamia into Canaan, he had been made
happy, not only in other respects, but that when his wife was at first
barren, she was afterwards by him enabled to conceive seed, and bare him
sons. That he left to Ismael and to his posterity the country of Arabia;
as also to his sons by Ketura, Troglodytis; and to Isaac, Canaan. That
by my assistance, said he, he did great exploits in war, which, unless
you be yourselves impious, you must still remember. As for Jacob, he
became well known to strangers also, by the greatness of that prosperity
in which he lived, and left to his sons, who came into Egypt with no
more than seventy souls, while you are now become above six hundred
thousand. Know therefore that I shall provide for you all in common what
is for your good, and particularly for thyself what shall make thee
famous; for that child, out of dread of whose nativity the Egyptians
have doomed the Israelite children to destruction, shall be this child
of thine, and shall be concealed from those who watch to destroy him:
and when he is brought up in a surprising way, he shall deliver the
Hebrew nation from the distress they are under from the Egyptians. His
memory shall be famous while the world lasts; and this not only among
the Hebrews, but foreigners also:—all which shall be the effect of my
favor to thee, and to thy posterity. He shall also have such a brother,
that he shall himself obtain my priesthood, and his posterity shall have
it after him to the end of the world.

4. When the vision had informed him of these things, Amram awaked and
told it to Jochebed who was his wife. And now the fear increased upon
them on account of the prediction in Amram's dream; for they were under
concern, not only for the child, but on account of the great happiness
that was to come to him also. However, the mother's labor was such as
afforded a confirmation to what was foretold by God; for it was not
known to those that watched her, by the easiness of her pains, and
because the throes of her delivery did not fall upon her with violence.
And now they nourished the child at home privately for three months; but
after that time Amram, fearing he should be discovered, and, by falling
under the king's displeasure, both he and his child should perish, and
so he should make the promise of God of none effect, he determined
rather to trust the safety and care of the child to God, than to depend
on his own concealment of him, which he looked upon as a thing
uncertain, and whereby both the child, so privately to be nourished, and
himself should be in imminent danger; but he believed that God would
some way for certain procure the safety of the child, in order to secure
the truth of his own predictions. When they had thus determined, they
made an ark of bulrushes, after the manner of a cradle, and of a bigness
sufficient for an infant to be laid in, without being too straitened:
they then daubed it over with slime, which would naturally keep out the
water from entering between the bulrushes, and put the infant into it,
and setting it afloat upon the river, they left its preservation to God;
so the river received the child, and carried him along. But Miriam, the
child's sister, passed along upon the bank over against him, as her
mother had bid her, to see whither the ark would be carried, where God
demonstrated that human wisdom was nothing, but that the Supreme Being
is able to do whatsoever he pleases: that those who, in order to their
own security, condemn others to destruction, and use great endeavors
about it, fail of their purpose; but that others are in a surprising
manner preserved, and obtain a prosperous condition almost from the very
midst of their calamities; those, I mean, whose dangers arise by the
appointment of God. And, indeed, such a providence was exercised in the
case of this child, as showed the power of God.

5. Thermuthis was the king's daughter. She was now diverting herself by
the banks of the river; and seeing a cradle borne along by the current,
she sent some that could swim, and bid them bring the cradle to her.
When those that were sent on this errand came to her with the cradle,
and she saw the little child, she was greatly in love with it, on
account of its largeness and beauty; for God had taken such great care
in the formation of Moses, that he caused him to be thought worthy of
bringing up, and providing for, by all those that had taken the most
fatal resolutions, on account of the dread of his nativity, for the
destruction of the rest of the Hebrew nation. Thermuthis bid them bring
her a woman that might afford her breast to the child; yet would not the
child admit of her breast, but turned away from it, and did the like to
many other women. Now Miriam was by when this happened, not to appear to
be there on purpose, but only as staying to see the child; and she said,
"It is in vain that thou, O queen, callest for these women for the
nourishing of the child, who are no way of kin to it; but still, if thou
wilt order one of the Hebrew women to be brought, perhaps it may admit
the breast of one of its own nation." Now since she seemed to speak
well, Thermuthis bid her procure such a one, and to bring one of those
Hebrew women that gave suck. So when she had such authority given her,
she came back and brought the mother, who was known to nobody there. And
now the child gladly admitted the breast, and seemed to stick close to
it; and so it was, that, at the queen's desire, the nursing of the child
was entirely intrusted to the mother.

6. Hereupon it was that Thermuthis imposed this name Mouses upon him,
from what had happened when he was put into the river; for the Egyptians
call water by the name of Mo, and such as are saved out of it, by the
name of Uses: so by putting these two words together, they imposed this
name upon him. And he was, by the confession of all, according to God's
prediction, as well for his greatness of mind as for his contempt of
difficulties, the best of all the Hebrews, for Abraham was his ancestor
of the seventh generation. For Moses was the son of Amram, who was the
son of Caath, whose father Levi was the son of Jacob, who was the son of
Isaac, who was the son of Abraham. Now Moses's understanding became
superior to his age, nay, far beyond that standard; and when he was
taught, he discovered greater quickness of apprehension than was usual
at his age, and his actions at that time promised greater, when he
should come to the age of a man. God did also give him that tallness,
when he was but three years old, as was wonderful. And as for his
beauty, there was nobody so unpolite as, when they saw Moses, they were
not greatly surprised at the beauty of his countenance; nay, it happened
frequently, that those that met him as he was carried along the road,
were obliged to turn again upon seeing the child; that they left what
they were about, and stood still a great while to look on him; for the
beauty of the child was so remarkable and natural to him on many
accounts, that it detained the spectators, and made them stay longer to
look upon him.

7. Thermuthis therefore perceiving him to be so remarkable a child,
adopted him for her son, having no child of her own. And when one time
had carried Moses to her father, she showed him to him, and said she
thought to make him her successor, if it should please God she should
have no legitimate child of her own; and to him, "I have brought up a
child who is of a divine form, 21 and of a generous mind; and as I have
received him from the bounty of the river, in, I thought proper to adopt
him my son, and the heir of thy kingdom." And she had said this, she put
the infant into her father's hands: so he took him, and hugged him to
his breast; and on his daughter's account, in a pleasant way, put his
diadem upon his head; but Moses threw it down to the ground, and, in a
puerile mood, he wreathed it round, and trod upon his feet, which seemed
to bring along with evil presage concerning the kingdom of Egypt. But
when the sacred scribe saw this, [he was the person who foretold that
his nativity would lay the dominion of that kingdom low,] he made a
violent attempt to kill him; and crying out in a frightful manner, he
said, "This, O king! this child is he of whom God foretold, that if we
kill him we shall be in no danger; he himself affords an attestation to
the prediction of the same thing, by his trampling upon thy government,
and treading upon thy diadem. Take him, therefore, out of the way, and
deliver the Egyptians from the fear they are in about him; and deprive
the Hebrews of the hope they have of being encouraged by him." But
Thermuthis prevented him, and snatched the child away. And the king was
not hasty to slay him, God himself, whose providence protected Moses,
inclining the king to spare him. He was, therefore, educated with great
care. So the Hebrews depended on him, and were of good hopes great
things would be done by him; but the Egyptians were suspicious of what
would follow such his education. Yet because, if Moses had been slain,
there was no one, either akin or adopted, that had any oracle on his
side for pretending to the crown of Egypt, and likely to be of greater
advantage to them, they abstained from killing him.