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OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY.

PART II.

Chapter XLIII.

THE SUFFERINGS OF GOD'S PEOPLE, AND THE BIRTH OF MOSES.

AFTER Joseph and all his brethren were dead, their children and families still lived in the land of Egypt. And they had children and grandchildren, and increased and multiplied exceedingly. So the children of Jacob became a great people. They were called the children of Israel, or Israelites, because God had changed Jacob's name to Israel.

About one hundred years after the death of Jacob, there were very many thousands of the children of Israel. God had now begun to fulfil the promise which He had made to Abraham, that his seed should be as many as the sand upon the sea-shore, and as the stars in the heaven, which he could not count.

The king Pharaoh who had known Joseph was now dead, and there was a new king in Egypt; his name was also Pharaoh. And this king Pharaoh was jealous of the children of Israel, and afraid of them, because they were so many. So he set taskmasters over them to make them build cities for him. These taskmasters made the Israelites work very hard, and used them cruelly.

But the more the Egyptians afflicted the children of Israel, the more they multiplied and grew; for God had promised that they should be a great nation, and Pharaoh could not prevent what God willed.

Then Pharaoh commanded that every son that should be born among the children of Israel should be cast into the river and drowned. Pha

raoh did this, that the children of Israel might not become stronger than the Egyptians. The male children only were killed, the female children were left alive.

Among the children of Israel there was a man named Amram, of the tribe of Levi. And his wife, Jochebed, had a son; and when she saw that he was a goodly boy, she hid him in her house three months, that the Egyptians might not find him and kill him.

When her son was three months old, and she could not hide him from Pharaoh any longer, she made a little ark of bulrushes, and put the child in it; and she took the ark and laid it by the edge of the river. And she left Miriam, his sister, to watch the babe, and see what would become of him.

And the daughter of king Pharaoh came down to the river; and she saw the little ark among the flags by the side of the river, and she sent her maid to fetch it. When she had opened the ark, she saw the child; and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, “This

is one of the Hebrews' children." She meant one of the children of the Israelites, for the Israelites were sometimes called Hebrews.

Then Miriam, the child's sister, who was watching near, came to the daughter of Pharaoh, and said, "Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?" And Pharaoh's daughter said that she might go. And Miriam went and called the

child's own mother.

Then Pharaoh's daughter gave the child to its own mother to nurse for her. And his mother took him and nursed him.

And when the child grew older, the daughter of king Pharaoh took him, and brought him up as if he had been her own son. And she called his name Moses.

Moses means,

drawn out of the water.

Exodus i. ii.

Compassion, means pity.

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