Aggada -- Translations into English; Bible. Old Testament -- Legends; Jewish legends; Midrash -- Translations into English
Seeing this, the king and the princes knew that Moses had not acted
with knowledge in taking the crown from off the king's head, and they
refrained from slaying him.[65] God Himself, who protected Moses,
turned the king's mind to grace, and his foster-mother snatched him
away, and she had him educated with great care, so that the Hebrews
depended upon him, and cherished the hope that great things would be
done by him. But the Egyptians were suspicious of what would follow
from such an education as his.[66]
At great cost teachers were invited to come to Egypt from neighboring
lands, to educate the child Moses. Some came of their own accord, to
instruct him in the sciences and the liberal arts. By reason of his
admirable endowments of mind, he soon excelled his teachers in
knowledge. His learning seemed a process of mere recollecting, and when
there was a difference of opinion among scholars, he selected the
correct one instinctively, for his mind refused to store up anything
that was false.[67]
But he deserves more praise for his unusual strength of will than for
his natural capacity, for he succeeded in transforming an originally
evil disposition into a noble, exalted character, a change that was
farther aided by his resolution, as he himself acknowledged later.
After the wonderful exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, a king of
Arabia sent an artist to Moses, to paint his portrait, that he might
always have the likeness of the divine man before him. The painter
returned with his handiwork, and the king assembled his wise men, those
in particular who were conversant with the science of physiognomy. He
displayed the portrait before them, and invited their judgment upon it.
The unanimous opinion was that it represented a man covetous, haughty,
sensual, in short, disfigured by all possible ugly traits. The king was
indignant that they should pretend to be masters in physiognomy, seeing
that they declared the picture of Moses, the holy, divine man, to be
the picture of a villain. They defended themselves by accusing the
painter in turn of not having produced a true portrait of Moses, else
they would not have fallen into the erroneous judgment they had
expressed. But the artist insisted that his work resembled the original
closely.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account