Mopping the perspiration from his creased brow, Amram whispered softly, "Jochebed, it's a boy." His wife, still groggy and tired from the long ordeal, could see the sadness on her husband's face as he bent over to turn the lamp a little lower. Not a neighbor in the land of Goshen knew what was happening in Amram's tent that dark and dreary night. It was near the midnight watch with nobody stirring. The only sound that broke the quiet was the bawling of the fretted cattle in the stock pens at the edge of the pasture. Darkness clung stubbornly at the horizon, shrouding the rugged countryside with intense blackness. Only within the home was there light.

Due to the recent order of the king, both Amram and his wife had seriously hoped that this third child would be a girl. Their daughter Miriam was thirteen and Aaron, their little son, had just passed his third birthday.

One year after Aaron was born, Pharaoh, the new king of Egypt, had ordered that all boy babies of the Hebrews should be put to death at birth. This selfish and wicked king was greatly afraid that the Hebrews might rise up and try to take his kingdom from him.

Jochebed and Amram, with a prayer on their lips and with faith in God, hid their baby away safely for three long months. Yet, they both knew that some day the king would find out about their little son and have him put to death; that is, if they didn't do something to save him. There was no doubt in their mind now that God had given them this child and that he would make a way for him to live. They constantly cried unto the Lord, and scarcely was the mother seen away from her tent. "How long can we hide the little fellow?" was her plea.

Late one afternoon, with the rays of the sun slanting in the door of their tent and spotlighting her smiling face, she called her young daughter Miriam and said: "While in prayer a few days ago, God graciously showed me how we are to save the life of your little brother. I must have your help in this, Miriam; so I thought I should tell you now."

For a short moment Miriam's glance was questioning, and then her dark eyes gleamed with joy, and a smile slowly parted her lips as she whispered aloud, "Mother, please tell me!" Soon the plan was disclosed, and Miriam retired for the night as though nothing had been revealed to her.

Next day, Mother Jochebed and her daughter Miriam, traveling alone, walked unsuspiciously out of their tent, across the back yard, and down the pasture lane to the river. There Miriam began to gather long grasses and bulrushes while her mother went about to weave them into the shape of a basket, just big enough to hold her baby. When the basket was finished, they daubed it all over with mud and pitch, so that it would not leak, and then hid it in the bushes to dry, while they returned home to get everything ready for the next and great momentous morning.

Just as the light of day was beginning to invade the waiting earth, Jochebed slowly opened her eyes. It couldn't be morning already. Why, just moments ago she had finished her ironing, and crawled into bed. She sat up and nursed the baby, his tiny pink fingers resting on her breast. Soon the little one was back asleep and tucked neatly in his crib. Then the mother turned away and picked up her robe, tied it about her slender waist, and padded barefooted over to where her young daughter slept. "Get up, Miriam," she whispered.

The girl turned in her sleep and murmured, "I'm getting up, Mother, I'm getting up." She dropped back against the warmth of the bed. Then she remembered, "We'll have to hurry, Mother," she yawned. "Can you get the baby's things, while I dress and get myself ready to go?"

Bright and early that morning, Mother and Miriam, with the little one and his belongings in their arms, rushed from their tent, hurried across the yard, and on down to the river. And just before sunrise that eventful morning, mother Jochebed tucked her darling little baby snugly inside the basket, kissed him good-bye, and then laid the basket gently among the rushes in the edge of the river, choosing the place where the princess, the daughter of the new king, came every morning to bathe.

Pointedly keeping out of sight, Miriam's heart beat very fast as she lay there in the bushes, listening to the mockingbirds singing at sunrise and watching the sleek, black cattle grazing in a nearby meadow. Her mother had charged her, "Watch carefully, see that no beast goes near thy brother."

"God will protect our baby," her mother had assured her when she placed the child in the basket and left Miriam to watch their new-made cradle floating there in the Nile.

Soon Miriam heard someone coming, and then she saw the king's daughter, with her two maids, coming down to bathe. The were approaching the water near the spot where her mother had left little brother.

"What is that among those rushes?" the cautious voice of the princess inquired of one of her maids, who quickly went in search of, and brought back, the snug little basket containing the infant. "A baby!" exclaimed the princess. "Oh, a beautiful brown-eyed boy! How it cries! It must be one of the Hebrews' sons."

"Yes," replied the maid, "and we must report it to the guard; for, as you know, your father has decreed that every newborn male child among the Hebrews must be killed." Looking down with kindly eyes at the upturned face in the basket, the princess shook her head and, with her jet black tresses flouncing in the early morning breeze, replied in a low pitched voice, "I know, but you shall tell no one about this tiny lad. I will keep him for my own." Inconsistently the maid giggled her approval.

Miriam, thrilled to have heard the words of the princess, stepped quickly from her hiding place in the bushes and anxiously asked, "Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?" "Go," replied the princess, "for how could the servants of the princess care for so young a babe?"

Without a moment's delay, Miriam ran and called her mother. And then, whispered in her ear, "Your plan has worked, Mother! Your plan has worked!" "It was God's plan, daughter," her mother assured her, as they joyfully walked back to see the princess, whom they found leaning over the basket, with one arm under the youngster and patting his head with the other.

"Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages," said the princess with a smile on her generous lips. "With my life I will do this," echoed Jochebed, with her daughter Miriam looking on in perfect innocence. Impulsively the mother clasped the lad to her breast in a close embrace, as back to the tent they gaily trotted.

"Look, Dad!" shouted Miriam with a grin, "and see what the Nile washed up." His face covered with a scraggly growth of beard and his hands raised toward heaven, Amram cried out, "Thank God, no one will kill our son now, for he belongs to the princess."

Time went by and then came the day when Pharaoh's daughter called for "her" little boy to come and live in the king's palace. "How strong he is! Nurse, you have given him good care. I think I shall call him Moses, since I drew him out of the water." The wisest of the priests taught Moses, and he soon grew up in the palace as if he were the son of the princess. His mother, however, had him to remember that he was still a Hebrew. She had cautioned him, "Forget not thy heritage, thou son of Israel."

When Moses was grown, his heart was filled with compassion as he looked on his brethren and saw their persecution. And, as we all know, this same Moses became that great Hebrew Prophet and Law Giver, who later brought about Israel's deliverance from Egypt into Canaan.

Yes, my reader, this is the same Moses, who by faith, "when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward" (Heb. 11:24-26).

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