Hero Tales from History — Moses, The Greatest Law-giver, and the Meekest Man

MIGHTY MEN OF LONG AGO

MOSES, THE GREATEST LAW-GIVER, AND THE MEEKEST MAN

Long ago in the land of Egypt there lived as slaves to the Egyptians a race of white people called the Hebrews.

There were so many of them that the Egyptians began to be afraid that they would over-run the land.

So the cruel king, or the Pharaoh, as he was called, commanded that all the baby boys of the slave race should be thrown into the River Nile.

But one little child escaped this fate, for his poor slave mother disobeyed the king and hid her baby in her hut.

When he was three months old, his mother was afraid she could not keep him quiet any longer.

So she made a basket, and plastered it inside with pitch, so that it would be water-tight and float like a boat.

Into this basket-boat she put her baby.

The mother set the strange little boat on the edge of the River Nile, among the tall reeds called bulrushes, very near the place where she knew the king’s daughter came every day to bathe.

It was a cool spot, well guarded and safe from the terrible crocodiles that lived in the Nile.

After making sure that the little boat would not sink, the mother went back to her work, leaving her daughter Miriam to see what became of her baby brother.

Just as the wise mother had planned, the princess soon came with her ladies-in-waiting, and spied the cradle basket rocking on the waves near the shore.

She told one of her maidens to bring it to her.

The king’s daughter knew too well of her father’s command to drown or kill all the boy babies of the Hebrew slaves.

So when she found a baby crying there, she pitied the poor mother who had obeyed the king by putting him in the river, still fondly hoping to save his life.

When the Pharaoh’s daughter saw the babe, she said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children!

” There was a pleading look in the face of the little child.

He seemed to ask the princess to take him in her arms.

The princess herself was married but she had no children.

That baby, smiling through his tears, touched her mother-heart.

How could she help saving his little life from her father’s cruel law by claiming him as her own?

Just then Sister Miriam bowed before the princess and said, “Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?

” The king’s daughter was, pleased and said, “Yes, go.

” So the happy sister ran and brought her mother to the great stone palace of the Pharaohs.

Then the princess said, as if the mother were only a child’s nurse, “Take this child away and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages.

” So, besides saving his life, that mother was royally paid for taking care of her own son instead of working as a slave out in the hot sun.

Besides, she had a good chance to tell him, as he grew up, of the one true God.

What if her boy should save his father’s people from slavery, when he became a man in the palace of the Pharaohs?

In due time the daughter of the king adopted the young Hebrew as her own son, and named him Moses, which means “Saved,” because she had rescued him out of the river.

When Moses was old enough he went to live with his royal mother, where he was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, who at that time, nearly four thousand years ago, were the most learned people in the world.

Although he studied in the college of the priests, who believed in the Sun, the Moon and many other gods, Moses never forgot what his mother had taught him about the true God.

Young Prince Moses had a great deal to do while he was growing to manhood.

He is said to have become commander-in-chief of the Egyptian army that conquered the black and savage race living a thousand miles up the Nile.

In the Bible story are these words: “And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.

“And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.

“Now when Pharaoh heard this, he sought to slay Moses.

But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian.

” This Pharaoh was not the father of Moses’ foster mother, who was now dead.

It is said that this king was afraid Moses would drive him from the throne and become Pharaoh himself.

For forty long years the exiled prince lived in Midian, studying, planning, and writing.

It was during this time that he made the great decision of his life.

He resolved to save his own people, the million Hebrews who were slaves to the Egyptians.

At last, Moses and his brother Aaron appeared before the Pharaoh, and announced that God had demanded that the king should let the children of Israel go free.

It was a hard thing to ask, for the Egyptians still needed the great army of slave men to build great pyramids and temples.

The king refused, and consented, and refused again, until plague after plague was sent upon the land of Egypt.

At last, when the king’s son, and the oldest child of every Egyptian family in the whole country had died in one night, the terrified and heartbroken king called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, Rise up and get you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go.

” “And the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders.

” This going out of the Hebrew people bound for the Promised Land, nearly four thousand years ago, is called “the Exodus.

” To this day it is celebrated by the Jews every year as the Passover.

When the Pharaoh realized that the great stone temples and pyramids of Egypt might never be finished, he was afraid because he had let the slave people go.

So he ordered out his horses and chariots and drove hard after them till he caught them in camp beside the Red Sea.

The frightened Hebrews began to cry and accuse Moses of deceiving them and leading them out into a great trap, to be killed like a million helpless sheep, by Pharaoh’s army.

But Moses told the wailing crowds not to be afraid.

Before the king’s horses and men caught up with them a strong east wind came up and kept the tide from running in, thus leaving a bare sand bar right in front of them across that arm of the Red Sea.

Moses commanded the people to march over as on dry land, an order which they lost no time in obeying.

Then the Pharaoh and his horsemen came up behind and drove hard after them upon the sand bar.

But the heavy chariots stuck in the mud beneath the sand, and when the Egyptians reached the middle the wind changed, and the tide, which had been held back so long, rushed in and drowned Pharaoh and his army.

Then Miriam and Moses and Aaron led these million freed slaves in a grand victory chorus of song about their hairbreadth escape.

[Illustration: MOSES PRAYING ON MOUNT SINAI.

_From an old print_] But the people were always scolding and complaining against Moses, the dear, gentle leader who had saved them from their cruel bondage.

It was his patient love for his thankless people, while through forty years they wandered in the wilderness, that gave Moses the name of being the meekest man that ever lived.

At Mount Sinai Moses received from God and gave to the people the Ten Commandments, written on two tablets of stone.

He spent his time during the long years of wandering in the wilderness in planning the laws and religion for his beloved people.

He himself never entered the Promised Land, but died in the wilderness, somewhere on a mountain called Nebo.

The Bible makes this statement of his death: