The mother set the strange little boat on the edge of the River Nile,
among the tall reeds called bulrushes, very near the place where she
knew the king’s daughter came every day to bathe. It was a cool spot,
well guarded and safe from the terrible crocodiles that lived in the
Nile. After making sure that the little boat would not sink, the mother
went back to her work, leaving her daughter Miriam to see what became of
her baby brother.
Just as the wise mother had planned, the princess soon came with her
ladies-in-waiting, and spied the cradle basket rocking on the waves near
the shore. She told one of her maidens to bring it to her. The king’s
daughter knew too well of her father’s command to drown or kill all the
boy babies of the Hebrew slaves. So when she found a baby crying there,
she pitied the poor mother who had obeyed the king by putting him in the
river, still fondly hoping to save his life.
When the Pharaoh’s daughter saw the babe, she said, “This is one of the
Hebrews’ children!” There was a pleading look in the face of the little
child. He seemed to ask the princess to take him in her arms. The
princess herself was married but she had no children. That baby, smiling
through his tears, touched her mother-heart. How could she help saving
his little life from her father’s cruel law by claiming him as her own?
Just then Sister Miriam bowed before the princess and said, “Shall I go
and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the
child for thee?”
The king’s daughter was, pleased and said, “Yes, go.” So the happy
sister ran and brought her mother to the great stone palace of the
Pharaohs. Then the princess said, as if the mother were only a child’s
nurse, “Take this child away and nurse it for me, and I will give thee
thy wages.”
So, besides saving his life, that mother was royally paid for taking
care of her own son instead of working as a slave out in the hot sun.
Besides, she had a good chance to tell him, as he grew up, of the one
true God. What if her boy should save his father’s people from slavery,
when he became a man in the palace of the Pharaohs?
In due time the daughter of the king adopted the young Hebrew as her own
son, and named him Moses, which means “Saved,” because she had rescued
him out of the river. When Moses was old enough he went to live with
his royal mother, where he was educated in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians, who at that time, nearly four thousand years ago, were the
most learned people in the world. Although he studied in the college of
the priests, who believed in the Sun, the Moon and many other gods,
Moses never forgot what his mother had taught him about the true God.
Young Prince Moses had a great deal to do while he was growing to
manhood. He is said to have become commander-in-chief of the Egyptian
army that conquered the black and savage race living a thousand miles up
the Nile.
In the Bible story are these words:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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