Miriam followed the little ark, as it floated on the wash of the river, and swam in and out among the reeds; for Miriam was wondering whether the prophecy would come true, or whether it would fail. This was on the twenty-first of the month Nisan, on the day, chosen from the beginning, on which in after times Moses should teach his people the Song of Praise for their delivery at the Red Sea.[466]
Then the angels surrounded the throne of God and cried, “O Lord of the whole earth, shall this mortal child fore-ordained to chant, at the head of Thy chosen people, the great song of delivery from water, perish this day by water?”
The Almighty answered, “Ye know well that I behold all things. They that seek their salvation in their own craftiness and evil ways shall find destruction, but they who trust in Me shall never be confounded. The history of that child shall be a witness to My almighty power.”
Melol, king of Egypt, had then only one daughter, whom he greatly loved; Bithia (Thermutis or Therbutis)[467] was her name. She had been married for some time to Chenephras, prince of a territory near Memphis, but was childless. This troubled her greatly, for she desired a son who might succeed her father upon the throne of Egypt.
At this time God had sent upon Egypt an intolerable heat, and the people were affected with grievous boils.[468] To cure themselves, they bathed in the Nile. Bithia also suffered, and bathed, not in the river, but in baths in the palace; but on this day she went forth by the Nile bank, though otherwise she never left her father’s palace. On reaching the bathing-place she observed the ark lodged among the bulrushes, and sent one of her maids to swim out and bring it to her; but the other servants said, “O princess, this is one of the Hebrew children, who are cast out according to the command of thy royal father. It beseems thee not to oppose his commands and frustrate his will.”
Scarcely had the maidens uttered these words than they vanished from the surface of the earth. The angel Gabriel had sunk them all, with the exception of the one who swam for the ark, into the bosom of the earth.
But the eagerness of the princess was so great, that she could not wait till the damsel brought her the basket, and she stretched forth her arm towards it, and her arm was lengthened sixty ells, so that she was able to take hold of the ark and draw it to land, and lift the child out of the water.
No sooner had she touched the babe, than she was healed of the boils which afflicted her, and the splendor of the face of the child was like that of the sun.[469] She looked at it with wonder, and admired its beauty. But her father’s stern law made her fear, and she thought to return the child to the water, when he began to cry, for the angel Gabriel had boxed his ears to make him weep, and thus excite the compassion of the princess. Then Miriam, hid away among the rushes, and little Aaron, aged three, hearing him cry, wept also.
The heart of the princess was stirred; and compassion, like that of a mother for her babe, filled her heart. She felt for the infant yearning love as though it were her own. “Truly,” said Bithia, “the Hebrews are to be pitied, for it is no easy matter to part with a child, and to deliver it over to death.”
Then, fearing that there would be no safety for the babe, if it were brought into the palace, she called to an Egyptian woman who was walking by the water, and bade her suckle the child. But the infant would not take the breast from this woman, nor from any other Egyptian woman that she summoned; and this the Almighty wrought that the child might be restored to its own mother again.