Woman in Sacred History / A Series of Sketches Drawn from Scriptural, Historical, and Legendary Sources

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

[MIRIAM, SISTER OF MOSES.]

I t has been remarked by Montalembert that almost all the great leading men in history have been intimately associated with superior women. If we look on Moses in a merely human light, and judge him by what he accomplished, as we do other historic characters, he is in certain respects the greatest man of antiquity. The works of the legislators, kings, and conquerors of ancient history were perishable. Their cities have crumbled, their governments and commonwealths have dissolved as waves of the sea. Moses alone founded a nation that still lives with an imperishable vitality,—a people whose religious literature still expresses the highest aspirations of the most cultivated nations of the earth.

His advent, therefore, forms an era in the history of humanity, and the very opening of his career presents us with pictures of imposing and venerable female characters. The mother of Moses is mentioned, in the epistle to the Hebrews, as one of those worthies of ancient time, who triumphed over things seen by the power of a sublime faith in the invisible God and his promises. The very name of the mother (Exodus vi. 20), Jochebed,—"the glory of Jehovah,"—shows that a deep spirit of religious enthusiasm and trust was the prevailing impulse in the family. She was of that moral organization whence, through the laws of descent, might spring the prophet and prophetess. By faith she refused to obey the cruel order of the king, and for three months hid the beautiful child.

And here comes in the image of the first, and one of the most revered, of the race of Hebrew prophetesses, Miriam, the elder sister of Moses. According to the Rabbinic tradition, the gift of prophecy descended upon her even in childhood. The story is that Miriam's mother, Jochebed, was one of the midwives to whom Pharaoh gave the command to destroy the children, and that when the child Miriam heard it, being then only five years old, her face flushed scarlet, and she said in anger: "Woe to this man! God will punish him for his evil deeds." After this the tradition says that when the decree went forth for the destruction of every male child, Amram separated himself from his wife Jochebed, lest he should bring on her the anguish of fruitless motherhood. After three years, the spirit of prophecy came on Miriam as she sat in the house, and she cried out suddenly: "My parents shall have another son, who shall deliver Israel out of the hands of the Egyptians." The angel Gabriel guided Amram back to find his wife, whom he found blooming in all the beauty of youth, though more than a hundred years old. When she found herself with child, she feared that it might prove a boy, to be cruelly slain. Then the Eternal One spake in a dream to the father, bidding him be of good cheer, for he would protect the child, and all nations should hold him in honor.

The tradition goes on to say that the boy was born without pain, and that when he was born the whole house was filled with a light as of bright sunshine. The mother's anxiety was increased when she saw the beauty of the child, who was lovely as an angel of God. The parents called him Tobias, "God is good," to express their thankfulness, and Amram kissed Miriam on the brow and said: "Now know I that thy prophecy is come true."

In contrast to this ornate narrative is the grave and chaste simplicity of the Scripture story. It is all comprised in two or three verses of the second chapter of Exodus. "And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child she hid him three months. And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein and laid it in the flags by the river's brink. And his sister stood afar off to see what would be done to him. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along the river's side: and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him and said: This is one of the Hebrew children. Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, 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 unto her, Go. And the maid went and called the child's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages; and the woman took the child and nursed it. And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water."

To this, we may add the account which St. Stephen gives when standing before the Jewish council. "In which time Moses was born, who was exceeding fair,[2] and nourished up in his father's house three months. And when he was cast out, Pharaoh's daughter took him up and nourished him for her own son. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds."

Such are the extremely brief notices of a great event and of a group of characters whose influence on mankind every one of us feels to-day. For, the Jewish nation, in being chosen of God to be a sacerdotal race, was to pass through a history which should embody struggles, oppressions, agonies, victories, and deliverances, such as should represent to all time the sorrows and joys, the trials and hopes, of humanity. To this day, the events of Jewish history so well express universal experiences, that its literature in all languages, and under all difference of climate and custom, has an imperishable hold on the human heart. It has been well said that nations struggling for liberty against powerful oppressors flee as instinctively to the Old Testament as they do to mountain ranges. The American slave universally called his bondage Egypt, and read the history of the ten plagues and the crossing of the Red Sea as parts of his own experience. In the dark days of slavery, the history of Moses was sung at night, and by stealth, on plantations, with solemn rhythmic movements, reminding one of old Egyptian times. It was the Marseillaise of a rude people, forbidden by the master, and all the dearer to the slave.

We must take the full force of the anguish, the ignominy, the oppression of slavery acting on noble and sensitive natures, elevated by faith in a high national destiny, and looking with earnestness and prayer for its evolution, in order to get a full idea of the character of Miriam. Such periods produce children with that highly exalted organization which is predisposed to receive the prophetic impulse. The Rabbinic traditions with regard to Miriam, which we have added, are detailed at length by Josephus in his history, and show how strong is the impression which the personality of this woman made on those of her time, in connection with the life of their great lawgiver.