The Baby Moses
Do you remember reading about Abraham? When Abraham lived in Ur, he was a polytheist—he believed in the moon god and many other gods. But after Abraham heard a voice telling him to go to Canaan, he became a monotheist.
He believed there was only one god, and that the voice that spoke to him was the voice of that one god.Abraham had a son named Isaac, and Isaac had a son named Jacob. Jacob didn’t have just one son. He had twelve! Each one of those sons had a big family too. All together, Jacob’s sons and their families made up a whole new nation. This nation was called “Israel.” The Israelites—the people of Israel—were unusual in the ancient world, because they were monotheists. They only worshipped one god, and they tried to obey his commands.
Because God had told them to live in Canaan, the Israelites tried to stay there, even though it was a dry and rocky place. But then a famine came. It stopped raining. Plants wouldn’t grow. Animals died. The Israelites had no food for their flocks, or for themselves. They were afraid that they would die, too.
Do you remember the story of Joseph? Joseph’s brothers sold him to be a slave in Egypt. But Joseph became a very important man in Egypt. And he had plenty of grain and water. So he invited the Israelites down into Egypt. They packed up their tents, their animals, their families, and all their belongings and traveled down to Egypt. They started to keep their flocks and grow their crops on the banks of the Nile.
At first the Egyptians didn’t mind having the Israelites in their country. But then they saw the Israelite nation growing larger and larger. Soon, the Egyptians started saying to each other, “What if these people decide to attack us? They might even take our kingdom away!” After all, that was exactly what the Hyksos had done, years before.
So the Egyptians made the Israelites into slaves.
They forced the Israelites to make the mud bricks that they used to build their houses and temples. The Israelites were not allowed to carry any kind of weapons. They had to work hard for no pay.But the Israelite nation kept growing bigger and bigger, and the Egyptians were still afraid. The book of Exodus, in the Bible, tells us the story of what happened next.
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he pharaoh of Egypt sat on his throne, a frown on his face. “What will I do about all those Israelites in my country?” he thought to himself. “There are more and more of them all the time! Soon they will take over Egypt. If only they didn’t have so many children.”
And then he had an idea—a terrible, cruel idea. He called his soldiers to him. “Men,” he said, “go out into the land of Egypt, to every Israelite home. Find out when the Israelite mothers are about to have their babies. Then kill every baby boy as soon as it is born!”
When the Israelites heard about this dreadful command, they wept and mourned. “God, save us!” they cried out. “Send us someone to deliver us from this wicked pharaoh of Egypt!”
An Israelite woman who lived near the banks of the Nile was just getting ready to have her baby when she heard the order. “Quickly!” she said to her daughter Miriam. “Help me hide! I don’t want the soldiers to see me!”
So Miriam helped her mother hide in a back room of their house. When the baby was born, it was a boy—a fine, strong boy with a very loud cry.
“Quiet!” the mother whispered to her baby. “Don’t cry so loud, or the soldiers will hear you!”
For three months, the mother and baby hid from the soldiers of the pharaoh. But the baby got older and louder. He started to giggle and coo. The mother knew she could not hide him forever.
So she wove a basket out of reeds and coated the outside with tar so that it would float. She wrapped the baby in a warm, soft blanket, put him into the basket, and pushed it out onto the Nile River.
And she sent her daughter Miriam to stand by the riverbank and watch to see what would happen next.The baby floated down the river. He smiled at the sunshine and at the bird that landed on the edge of the basket to see what was inside. Finally, the gentle rocking of the basket lulled him to sleep. The basket drifted closer and closer to the side of the Nile, until it caught in the weeds at the water’s edge.
Now, the daughter of the pharaoh liked to walk down to the Nile at the hottest part of the day, so that she could swim. She came to the edge of the water and saw the basket.
“What’s in that basket?” she demanded. “Get it for me!”
One of her maids ran to fetch the basket. When the daughter of the pharaoh looked inside, she saw the baby boy. He opened his eyes and smiled at her.
“Oh!” she cried out! “Such a beautiful baby! I’ll keep him and raise him as my own!”
When Miriam heard this, she ran forward. “Lady,” she said, “would you like me to find you a nurse to take care of the baby?”
“Yes,” the daughter of the pharaoh said. “Bring me this woman and she can take care of my baby for me.”
So Miriam hurried home and got her mother. And so the baby and his mother were together again. She took care of him until he was old enough to live in the pharaoh’s palace alone. The daughter of the pharaoh named him Moses.
