One hundred and thirty years old was Jochebed, but she was as fresh and beauteous as on the day she left her father’s house.[464] She was with child, and Amram feared lest it should be a boy and be slain by Pharaoh.
Then appeared the Eternal One to him in a dream, and bade him be of good cheer, for He would protect the child, and make him great, so that all nations should hold him in honor.
When Amram awoke, he told his dream to Jochebed, and they were filled with fear and great amazement.
After six months she bore a son, without pain. The child entered this world in the third hour of the morning, of the seventh day of the month Adar, in the year 2368 after the Creation, and the 130th year of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt. And when he was born, the house was filled with light, as of the brightest sunshine.
The tender mother’s anxiety for her son was increased when she noted his beauty,—he was like an angel of God,—and his great height and noble appearance. The parents called him Tobias (God is good) to express their thankfulness, but others say he was called Jokutiel (Hope in God). Amram kissed his daughter, Miriam, on the brow, and said, “Now I know that thy prophecy is come true.”[465]
Jochebed hid the child three months in her chamber where she slept. But Pharaoh, filled with anxiety, lest a child should have escaped him, sent Egyptian women with their nurslings to the houses of the Hebrews. Now it is the custom of children, when one cries, another cries also. Therefore the Egyptian women pricked their babes, when they went into a house, and if the child were concealed therein, it cried when it heard the Egyptian baby scream. Then it was brought out and despatched.
Jochebed knew that these women were coming to her house, and that, if the child were discovered, her husband and herself would be slain by the executioner of Pharaoh.
Moreover they feared the astrologers and soothsayers, that they would read in the heavens that a male child was concealed there. “Better can we deceive them,” said Amram, “if we cast the child into the water.”
Jochebed took the paper flags and wove a basket, and pitched it with pitch without, and clay within, that the smell of the pitch might not offend her dear little one; and then she placed the basket amongst the rushes, where the Red Sea at that time joined the River Nile.
Then weeping and wailing, she went away, and seeing Miriam come to meet her, she smote her on the head, and said, “Now, daughter, where is thy prophesying?”