child of thine, and shall be concealed from those who watch to destroy him, and when he is brought up, in a surprising way he shall deliver the Hebrew nation from the distress they are under from the Egyptians. His memory shall be famous while the world lasts; and this not only among the Hebrews, but foreigners also; all which shall be the effect of my favour to thee, and to thy posterity. He shall also have such a brother, that he shall himself obtain my priesthood. and his posterity shall have it after him to the end of the world." 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. Thermuthis, the king's daughter, was now diverting herself by the banks of the river; and seeing a cradle borne along by the current, she sent some that could swim, and bid them to bring the cradle to her. When those that were sent on When the Vision had informed him of these this errand came to her with the cradle, and she things, Amram awaked, and told it to Jochebed, saw the little child, she was greatly in love with his wife and now the fear increased upon them, it, on account of its largeness and beauty, for God on account of the prediction in Amram's dream, had taken such great care in the formation of for they were under concern, not only for the child, Moses, that he caused him to be thought worthy but on account of the great happiness that was to of bringing up and providing for by all those that come to him also. However, the mother's labour had taken the most fatal resolutions, on account was such as afforded a confirmation to what was of their dread of his nativity, for the destruction foretold by God; for it was not known to those of the rest of the Hebrew nation. Thermuthis who watched her by the easiness of her pains, bid them bring her a woman that might suckle and because the throes of her delivery did not fall the child, yet would not the child admit of her upon her with violence; and now they nourished breast, but turned away from it, and did the like the child at home privately for three months. But to many other women. Now Miriam was by after that time, Amram fearing he should be dis- when this happened; not to appear to be there covered, and by falling under the king's displea- on purpose, but only as staying to see the child; sure, both he and his child should perish, and so and she said, "It is in vain that thou, O queen, he should make the promise of God of none effect, callest for these women for the nourishment of he determined rather to trust the safety and care the child, who are by noway of kin to it: but if of the child to God, than to depend on his own thou wilt order one of the Hebrew women to be concealment of him, which he looked upon as a brought, perhaps it may admit the breast of one thing uncertain, and whereby both the child, so pri- of his own nation. Now, since she seemed to vately to be nourished, and himself, should be in speak well, Thermuthis bid her procure such a imminent danger; but he believed that God would one; so when she had such authority given her, some way for certain procure the safety of the she came back, and brought the mother, who was child, in order to secure the truth of his own predic-known to nobody there; and now the child gladly tions. 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 much 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 endeavours about it, fail of their purpose; but that others are, * An. 1616. admitted the breast, and seemed to adhere closely to it; and so it was that at the queen's desire the nursing of the child was entirely intrusted to the mother. Hereupon it was that Thermuthis imposed this name, Mouses, upon him, from what had happened when he was put into the river, for the Egyptians call water by the name of Mo, and such as are saved out of it by the name of Uses; so, by putting these two words together, they imposed this name upon him; and he was, by the confession of all, according to God's prediction, as well for his greatness of mind, as for his contempt of difficulties, the best of all the Hebrews. Abraham was his ancestor of the seventh generation, for Moses was the son of Amram, who was the son of Caath: whose father, Levi, was the son of Jacob, who was the son of Isaac, who was the son of Abraham. Now Moses's understanding became far superior to his age, and when he was taught, he discovered greater quickness of apprehension than was usual in youth, and his action at that time promised greater, when he should come to the age of a man. God also gave him that tallness, when he was but three years* old, as was wonderful, and every one that saw him was greatly surprised at the beauty of his countenance. Nay, it happened frequently, that those that met him, as he was carried along the road, were obliged to turn again upon seeing the child; that they left what they were about, and stood still a great while to look on him; for the beauty of the child was so remarkable on many accounts, that it detained the spectators, and made them stay longer to look upon him. Thermuthis, therefore, perceiving him to be so remarkable a child, adopted him for her son, having no child of her own; and when one time she had carried Moses to her father, she showed him to him, and said, "she thought to make him her father's successor, if it should please God she should have no legitimate child of her own;" and said to him, "I have brought up a child who is of a divine form and of a generous mind; and as I have received him from the bounty of the river, in a wonderful manner, I thought proper to adopt him for my son, and the heir of thy kingdom." And when she had said this, she put the infant into her father's hands; so he took him, and pressed him to his breast; and on his daughter's account, in a pleasant way, put the diadem upon his head. But Moses threw it down to the ground, and in a puerile mood he wreathed it round, and trod upon it with his feet, which seemed to bring along with it an evil presage concerning the kingdom of Egypt. But when the sacred scribe saw this, (he was the same person that foretold that his nativity would bring the dominion of that kingdom low,) he made a violent attempt to kill him; and crying out in a frightful manner, he said, "This, O king! this child is he of whom God foretold, that if we kill him we shall be in no danger; he himself affords an attestation to the prediction of the same thing, by his trampling upon thy government, and treading upon thy diadem. Take him, therefore, out of the way, and deliver the Egyptians from the fear they are in about him, and deprive the Hebrews of the hope they have of being encouraged by him." But * An. 1609. †This history of Moses, as general of the Egyptians against the Ethiopians, is wholly omitted in our Bibles; but is thus cited by Irenæus, from Josephus, and that soon after his own age: "Josephus said that when Moses was nourished in the king's palace, he was appointed general of the army against the Ethiopians, and conquered them, when he married that king's Thermuthis prevented him, and snatched the child away; and the king was not hasty to slay him, God himself, whose providence protected Moses, inclining the king to spare him: he was therefore educated with great care; so the Hebrews depended on him, and were of good hopes that great things would be done by him. The Egyptians, indeed, were suspicious of what would follow his education; yet because, if Moses had been slain, there was no one, either akin or adopted, that had any oracle of his side, for pretending to the crown of Egypt, and likely to be of greater advantage to them, they abstained from killing him. CHAP. X. OF THE WAR WHICH MOSES MADE WITH THE ETHIOPIANS. MOSES, therefore, when he was born, and brought up in the foregoing manner, and came to the age of maturity, made his virtue manifest to the Egyptians, and showed that he was born for the bringing them down, and raising the Israelites: and the occasion he laid hold of was this: the Ethiopians, who are next neighbours to the Egyptians, made an incursion into their country, which they seized upon, and carried off the effects of the Egyptians, who, in their rage, fought against them, and revenged the affronts they had received; but being overcome in battle, some of them were slain, and the rest ran away in a shameful manner, and by that means saved themselves. Hereupon the Ethiopians followed after them in the pursuit, and thinking it would be a mark of cowardice if they did not subdue all Egypt, they went on to subdue the rest with great vehemence; and when they had tasted the sweets. of the country, they never left off the prosecution of the war, and as the nearest parts had not courage enough at first to fight with them, they proceeded as far as Memphis, and the sea itself, while not one of the cities was able to oppose them. The Egyptians, under this sad oppression, betook themselves to their oracles and prophecies; and when God had given them his counsel, to make use of Moses, the Hebrew, and take his assistance, the king commanded his daughter to produce him, that he might be the general of their army;† upon which, when she had made him daughter, because out of her affection for him, they delivered the city up to him." See the fragments of Irenæus, ap. edit. Grab. page 472. Nor, perhaps, did St. Stephen refer to any thing else, when he said of Moses, before he was sent by God to the Israelites, that he was not only learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, but was also mighty in words and in deeds. Acts vii. 22. swear he would do him no harm, she delivered him to the king, and supposed his assistance would be of great advantage to them. She also reproached the priest, who, although he had before admonished the Egyptians to kill him, was not ashamed now to own their want of his help. Moses, at the persuasion both of Thermuthis and the king himself, cheerfully undertook this business: and the sacred scribes of both nations were glad; those of the Egyptians, that they should at once overcome their enemies by his valour, and that by the same piece of management Moses would be slain; but those of the Hebrews, that they should escape from the Egyptians, because Moses was to be their general. Moses took and led his army before their enemies were apprized of his attacking them; for he did not march by the river, but by land, where he gave a wonderful demonstration of his sagacity: for when the ground was difficult to be passed over, because of the multitude of serpents, which it produces in vast numbers, and indeed is singular in some of those productions which other countries do not breed, and yet such as are worse than others in power and mischief, and an unusual fierceness of sight, some of which ascend out of the ground unseen, and also fly into the air, and so come upon men at unawares, and do them a mischief. Moses invented a wonderful stratagem to preserve the army safe, and without hurt; for he made baskets, like unto arks of sedge, and filled them with ibes,* and carried them along with them, which animals are the greatest enemies to serpents imaginable, for they fly from them when they come near them, and as they fly, they are caught and devoured; but the ibes are tame creatures, and only enemies to the serpentine kind. Of these ibes, however, I say no more at present, since the Greeks are not themselves unacquainted with this sort of bird. As soon, therefore, as Moses was come to the land which was the breeder of these serpents, he let loose these ibes, and by their means repelled the serpentine kind, and used them for his assistants before the army came upon that ground. When he had, therefore, proceeded thus on his journey, he came upon the Ethiopians before they expected him; and joining battle with them, he beat them, and deprived them of the hopes they had of success against the Egyptians, and went on in overthrowing their cities, and indeed made a great slaughter of the Ethiopians. Now when the Egyptian army had once tasted of this prosperous success, by the means of Moses, they did not slacken their diligence, insomuch that the Ethiopians were * Pliny speaks of these birds called ibes, and says the Egyptians invoked them against the serpents. Hist. Nat. X. 28. in danger of being reduced to slavery and complete destruction; and at length they retired to Saba, a royal city of Ethiopia, which Cambyses afterward named Meroe, after the name of his own sister. The place was to be besieged with very great difficulty, since it was both encompassed by the Nile, and the other rivers Astapus and Astaborus, making it a very difficult thing for such as attempted to pass over them; for the city was situate in a retired place, and was inhabited after the manner of an island, being encompassed with a strong wall, and having the rivers to guard them from their enemies; and having great ramparts between the wall and the rivers, insomuch, that when the waters come with the greatest violence, it can never be drowned, which ramparts make it next to impossible, for even such as have passed over the rivers, to take the city. However, while Moses was uneasy at the army's lying idle, (for the enemy durst not come to a battle,) this accident happened: Tharbis, the daughter of the king of the Ethiopians, happened to see Moses, as he led the army near to the walls, and fought with great courage; and admiring the subtilty of his undertakings, and believing him to be the author of the Egyptians' success, when they had before despaired of recovering their liberty, and to be the occasion of the great danger that the Ethiopians were in, when they had before boasted of their great achievements, she fell deeply in love with him, and, upon the prevalency of that passion, scnt to him the most faithful of all her servants, to discourse with him about their marriage. He hereupon accepted the offer, on condition she would procure the delivering up of the city, and gave her the assurance of an oath to take her to his wife; and that when he had once taken possession of the city, he would not break his oath to her. No sooner was the agree ment made, but it took effect immediately; and when Moses had cut off the Ethiopians, he gave thanks to God, and having consummated his marriage, led the Egyptians back to their land. CHAP. XI. OF MOSES'S FLIGHT OUT OF EGYPT INTO MIDIAN. Now the Egyptians, after they had been preserved by Moses, entertained an hatred to him, and were very eager in effecting their designs against him, and suspecting that he would take occasion, from his good success, to raise a sedition, and bring innovations into Egypt, they told the king he ought to be slain. The king had also some intentions of the same nature, and this as well out of envy at his gloStrabo speaks of this island, Meroe, and these rivers, Astapus and Astaborus, XVI. page 771, 786, XVII. page 821. |