Then Miriam, the sister, mingled with those who came up, and said to Bithia, with sobs, “Noble lady! vain are all thine attempts to give the child the breast from one of a different race. If thou wouldst have a Hebrew woman, then let me fetch one, and the child will suck at once.”[470]
This advice pleased Bithia, and she bade Miriam seek her out a Hebrew mother.
With winged steps Miriam hastened home, and brought her mother, Jochebed, to the princess. Then the babe readily took nourishment from her, and ceased crying.
Astonished at this wonder, the king’s daughter said, but unawares, the truth, for she spake to Jochebed, “Here is thy child; take and nurse the child for me, and the wage shall be two pieces of silver a day.”
Jochebed did what she was bidden, but better reward than all the silver in Pharaoh’s house was the joy of having her son restored to his mother’s breast.
The self-same day the soothsayers and star-gazers said to Pharaoh, “The child of whom we spake to thee, that he should free Israel, hath met his fate in the water.”
Therefore the cruel decree ordering the destruction of all male infants was withdrawn, and the miraculous deliverance of Moses became by this means the salvation of the whole generation. In allusion to this, Moses said afterwards to the people when he would restrain them (Numbers xi.): “Verily ye number six hundred thousand men, and ye would all have perished in the river Nile, but I was delivered from the water, and therefore ye are all alive as at this day.”
After two years Jochebed weaned him, and brought him to the king’s daughter. Bithia, charmed with the beauty and intelligence of the child, took him into the palace, and named him Moses (he who is drawn out of the water). Lo! a voice from heaven fell, “Daughter of Pharaoh! because thou hast had compassion on this little child and hast called him thy son, therefore do I call thee My daughter (Bithia). The foundling that thou cherishest shall be called by the name thou gavest him—Moses; and by none other name shall he be known, wheresoever the fame of him spreads under the whole heaven.”
Now, in order that Moses might really pass for the child of Bithia, the princess had feigned herself to be pregnant, and then to be confined; and now Pharaoh regarded him as his true grandchild.
On account of his exceeding beauty, every one that saw him was filled with admiration, and said, “Truly, this is a king’s son.” And when he was taken abroad, the people forsook their work, and deserted their shops, that they might see him. One day, when Moses was three years old, Bithia led him by the hand into the presence of Pharaoh, and the queen sat by the king, and all the princes of the realm stood about him. Then Bithia presented the child to the king, and said, “Oh, sire! this child of noble mien is not really my son; he was given to me in wondrous fashion by the divine river Nile; therefore have I brought him up as my own son, and destined him to succeed thee on thy throne, since no child of my body has been granted to me.”