After hundreds of years Jacob’s children and grandchildren and their children became a great nation in Egypt. There were so many days to count them all.
Then a new king began to rule over Egypt who didn’t care anything about Joseph and all he had done to save Egypt. When the new king saw how many of Jacob’s descendants there were, he was afraid of them. He thought that some day when his enemies came to fight against him, Jacob’s huge family would turn against him and help his enemies, then run away and go back to their own country. He didn’t want that to happen; he wanted them always to stay in Egypt as slaves to do his work.
So this wicked king persuaded the Egyptians to treat Jacob’s family (now known as the Israelis, or people of Israel) very cruelly.
They made slaves of them, making them build houses for the Egyptians and work in their fields. But the more cruelly the Israelis were treated, the more of them there were. God had promised Abraham and Isaac and Jacob that their children would become a great nation, and now God was doing as He had promised.
Pharaoh told the women who took care of the babies to kill all the all the Israeli-boys as soon as they are born. The girls could live, he said, because they would never be able to fight against him.
But these women feared God ad did not obey the king. They let the little boys live, too, and God blessed these women for doing this. Then Pharaoh told all his people that when ever they saw a baby boy among the Israeli’s , they must throw him into the river so he can drown or be eaten by crocodiles. What a cruel king he was! But God protected His people from this evil king.
Now I’m going to tell you about what happened to one of the little Israeli babies, whose name was Moses’. Moses’ became one of the greatest men in all the world when he grew up.
His mother and father loved him very much, and they were afraid that the Egyptian king’s men would come and take their baby away and kill him. So the baby’s mother hid him at home for three months after he was born. Then she made a little basket from the stems of long weeds that grew by the river and smeared the outside of it with tar to keep the water out. It was a little boat that would float safely on the water.
She put her baby in the little boat and floated it out among the bushes at the edge of the river. She told her daughter, whose name was Miriam, to hide there and watch to see what would happen to the baby and to try to help him in any way she could.
Soon a princess came along. She was one of the daughters of Pharaoh and had come to bathe in the river. She and her maids were walking along the river’s edge when she saw the little boat in the bushes’. She sent one of her maids to get it and bring it to her, so that she could open it and see what was inside. And when she opened it, there was a little baby! She felt sorry for him and decided to adopt him as her own son.
“This must be one of Hebrew children,” she exclaimed. “Miriam, the baby’s sister, had been watching; and now she went over to the king’s daughter and asked, “May I go and get one of the Hebrew women to take care of the baby for you?” The princess said yes, so Mariam ran home and got her mother! When her mother came, the princess said to her, “Take care of this baby for me, and I will pay you well!” So the baby’s mother took him (Moses’) home again.
Questions:
What did the new king do to the Israelis?
Why did Moses’ mother put her baby in a boat in the water?
Who found the baby (Moses’)?
What did the baby Moses, sister do?
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“The Israelites Oppressed”
These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.
Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.
Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”
So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”
The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”
So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”
“The Birth of Moses”
Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.
Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.
Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”
“Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him.
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