this wore them out, and forced them to learn all sorts of mechanical arts, and to accustom themselves to hard labour: and four hundred years did they spend under these afflictions, for they strove one against another which should get the mastery; the Egyptians desiring to destroy the Israelites by these labours, and the Israelites desiring to hold out to the end under them.

While the affairs of the Hebrews were in this condition, there was this occasion offered itself to the Egyptians, which made them more solicitous for the extinction of our nation. One of these sacred scribes,* who are very sagacious in foretelling future events truly, told the king, that about this time a child would be born to the Israelites; who, if he were reared, would bring the Egyptian dominion low, and would raise the Israelites; that he would excel all men in virtue, and obtain a glory that would be remembered through all ages; which thing was so feared by the king, that, according to this man's opinion, he commanded that every male child, which was born to the Israelites, should be cast into the river, and destroyed; that besides this, the Egyptian† midwives should watch the labours of the Hebrew women, and observe what was born; for those were the women who were enjoined to the office of midwives to them, and by reason of their relation to the king would not transgress his commands.‡ He enjoined, also, that if any parents should

this does not so well agree with the Israelites' labours, which are said to have been in brick, and not in stone, as Mr. Sandys observes in his Travels, page 127, 128.

* Dr. Bernard informs us here, that instead of this single priest, or prophet of Egyptians, without a name in Josephus, the Targum of Jonathan, names the two famous antagonists of Moses, Jannes and Jambres. Nor is it at all unlikely, that it might be one of these who foreboded so much misery to the Egyptians, and so much happiness to the Israelites, from the rearing of Moses.

† Josephus is clear that these midwives were Egyptians, and not Israelites, as in our other copies, which is very probable, it being not easily to be supposed that Pharaoh could trust the Israelite midwives to execute so barbarous a command against their own nation. Consult, therefore, and correct hence our ordinary copies, Exod. i. 15-22; and, indeed, Josephus seems to have had much completer copies of the Pentateuch, or other authentic records now lost, about the birth and actions of Moses, than either our Hebrew, Samaritan, or Greek Bibles afford us, which enabled him to speak so largely particularly about him.

It is generally supposed that the midwives upon this occasion told a lie; but there is no reason for such a supposition, though possibly they might conceal some part of the truth, which is not unlawful, but highly commendable, when it is to

disobey him, and venture to save their male children alive, they and their families should be destroyed. This was a severe affliction, indeed, to those that suffered it, not only as they were deprived of their sons, and while they were the parents them

preserve the innocent: for many of the Hebrew women might be such as are bere described, though not every one of them. The answer of the midwives therefore is so far from being a sneaking lie to save their lives, that it is a bold con⚫ fession of their faith and piety, to the hazard of them, viz. that they saw so plain an evidence of the wonderful hand of God, in that extraordinary vigour in the travail of the women, that do what Pharaoh would, they durst not, would not strive against it, because they would not strive against God. Lightfoot's Sermons on 2 Sam. xix. 29. The making the midwives houses, is, by most interpreters ascribed to God, and the thing is supposed to have been done in a metaphorical sense, i. e. God gave them a numerous offspring or family, and a very lasting succession or posterity. For there are five things, say they, which go to complete the greatness or eminence of a family, as such; its largeness, its wealth, its honours, its power, and its duration. And therefore since the midwives hazarded their own lives to save those of the Hebrew children, and to preserve the Israelites a nume. rous progeny and posterity, the God of Israel, in return, not only made their own lives long and prosperous, but gave them very numerous families, and an enduring posterity, in whom they might be said to live after death, even from genera. tion to generation. But all this is a very forced construction, and what the original words will by no means bear. We should therefore rather think, these houses were built, not for the midwives, but for the Israelites, and that it was not God, but Pharaoh, who built them. The case seems to be this -Pharaoh had charged the midwives to kill the male children that were born of the Hebrew women; the midwives feared God, omitted to do what the king had commanded them, pretending in excuse for their omission, that the Hebrew wo men were generally delivered before they could get to them. Pharaoh hereupon resolving to prevent their increase, gave charge to his people to have all the male children of the Hebrews thrown into the river; but his command could not be strictly executed, whilst the Israelites lived up and down the fields in tents, which was their ancient and customary way of living; for they would shift here and there, and lodge the women in childbed out of the way, to save their children.Pharaoh therefore built them houses, and obliged them to a more settled habitation, that the people whom he had set over them, might know where to find every family, and to take an account of all the children that should be born. So that this was a very cunning contrivance of Pharaoh, in order to have his charge more strictly and effectually executed than it could otherwise have been done; and was a particular too remarkable not to be inserted in Moses's account of this affair. The only seeming difficulty is, to reconcile the words to the text in what has been here advanced; but this will be none at all if the words be rightly translated, and the verses rightly distinguished in this manner. Exod. i. 20. And God dwelt with the midwives, and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty, and this happened, (or was so, or came to pass,) because the midwives feared God, ver. 21, 22. And Pharaoh built them (i. e. Israelites) houses, and charged all his people, saying, every son that is born, ye shall cast into the rivers, and every daughter ye shall save alive.→ Shuckford's Connection, vol. ii. 1. 7. B.

selves they were obliged to be subservient to the destruction of their own children, but as it was to be supposed to tend to the extirpation of their nation; while upon the destruction of their children, and their own gradual dissolution, the calamity would become very hard and inconsolable. Such was the ill state they were in; but no one can overthrow the purposes of God, though he contrive ten thousand subtile devices for that end; for this child, whom the sacred scribe foretold, was brought up, and concealed from the observers appointed by the king; and he that foretold him did not mistake in the consequences of his preservation, which were brought to pass under a singular man

ner:

A man, whose name was Amram, one of the nobler sort of the Hebrews, was afraid of his whole nation lest it should fail, by the want of young men to be brought up hereafter, and was very uneasy at it, his wife being then with child, and he knew not what to do; hereupon he betook himself to prayer to God, and intreated him to have compassion on those men who had no ways transgressed the laws of his worship, and to afford them deliverance from the miseries they at that time endured, and to render abortive their enemies' hope of the destruction of their nation. Accordingly God had mercy on him, and was moved by his supplication; he stood by him in his sleep, and exhorted him not to despair of his future favours. He said farther, that he did not forget their piety towards him, and would always reward them for it; as he had formerly granted his favour to their forefathers, and made them increase from a few to so great a multitude. He reminded him, that when Abraham was come alone out of Mesopotamia into Canaan, he had been made happy, not only in other respects, but that when his wife was at first barren, she was afterward by him enabled to conceive seed, and bare him sons; that he left to Ishmael, and his posterity, the country of Arabia: as also to his sons by Ketura, Troglodytis; and to Isaac, Cannaan. "By my assistance,' said he, "he did great exploits in war, which, unless you be yourselves impious, you must still remember. As for Jacob, he became well known to strangers also, by the greatness of that prosperity in which he lived and left to his sons, who came into Egypt with no more than seventy souls, while you are now become above six hundred thousand. Know therefore, that I

shall provide for you all in common what is for your good, and particularly for thyself what shall make thee famous; for that child, out of dread of whose nativity the Egyptians have doomed the Israelite children to destruction, shall be this 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.”

When the Vision had informed him of these things, Amram awaked, and told it to Jochebed, 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 labour was such as afforded a confirmation to what was foretold by God; for it was not known to those who 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 much straightened. They then daubed it over with slime, which would naturally keep out the water from entering between the bulrushes, and put the

* An. 1616.

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, 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 shewed 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 this errand came to her with the cradle, and she saw the little child, she was greatly in love with it, on account of its largeness and beauty, for God had taken such great care in the formation of Moses, that he caused him to be thought worthy of bringing up and providing for by all those that had taken the most fatal resolutions, on account of their dread of his nativity, for the destruction of the rest of the Hebrew nation. Thermuthis bid them bring her a woman that might suckle the child, yet would not the child admit of her breast, but turned away from it, and did the like to many other women. Now Miriam was by when this happened; not to appear to be there on purpose, but only as staying to see the child, and she said, "It is in vain that thou, O queen, callest for these women for the nourishment of the child, who are by no way of kin to it, but if thou wilt order one of the Hebrew women to be brought, perhaps it may admit the breast of one of his own nation. Now, since she seemed to speak well, Thermuthis bid her procure such a one; so when she had such authority given her, she came back, and brought the mother, who was known to nobody there; and now the child gladly 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.