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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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