Children of the Old Testament

by Anonymous

The Hebrews expected to return to Canaan soon, but that was not to be. In course of time Joseph and his brothers died, but still the Hebrews, or Israelites, as they were also called, stayed on in Egypt, and in time grew into a great nation. Then a new king came to the throne, who was afraid of their numbers, and made slaves of them all, forcing them to make bricks and build for him great walls, forts, and buildings of all kinds.

They were taken in gangs, guarded by soldiers, to the place where the brown river clay was thick; there they dug it out with spades, trod it with their feet, and worked it with their hands until it was wet and soft. Then they shaped it with little square boxes into brown bricks for building. Other workers placed the bricks in baskets and carried them away to the boats in the river, for the boatmen to take up to the great cities where the walls were being built.

Some of the Israelites toiled at building these high brick walls, storehouses, forts, and even cities for the great king; and it is not unlikely that some of the Pyramids, which we now see standing on the banks of the Nile, were built by these poor slaves in the days now long gone by.

Others, again, were driven out to the fields to drag wooden ploughs up and down like cattle, to dig with small wooden spades, and to clear the land of stones; and when the harvest came, they cut down the crops and threshed out the grain, and carried it off to their master's storehouses.

Others had to stand on the bank of the river all day long, filling buckets with water and emptying them into little drains that ran away into the fields. And over all these slaves were slave-drivers, who stood beside them with long whips to lash them if they did not work hard enough. So the poor Israelites were very unhappy, and often prayed to God that they might be set free again; for they were the lowest labourers in the land, toiling for those who gave them no money for their work.

But for all this they increased more and more in numbers, until the king was afraid that they might some day side with his enemies and fight against him, and then he would be in great danger; so he treated them more cruelly still, and at last ordered all the boy children that were born to the Israelites to be thrown into the river.

The babe among the bulrushes.

There was great weeping and sorrow amongst the Hebrew mothers when they heard of the king's cruel order. And they did many strange and brave things to save their little ones, and did indeed save many of them; but many others perished, so that there was grief instead of joy in the poor Hebrew huts whenever a baby boy was born.