The rescue of Moses

Frances L. West

Long before the time of Christ Jesus, the people of Israel were slaves in Egypt. They helped to build cities for Pharaoh, the Egyptian king, or worked in the fields. Although the slaves were useful to Pharaoh, he was afraid because there were so many of them. He feared they would rise up against him, so he tried to destroy every boy baby that was born.^{See Ex. 1:7–2:10 .}

After Moses was born, his mother hid him for three months so Pharaoh's men wouldn't find him. When he was too big and made too much noise to be hidden in the house any longer, his mother took a little basket of papyrus reeds and gave it a coating of pitch so it would float like a small boat and not leak. Then she put her little baby in the basket, or ark, as the Bible calls it. She took him down to the bank of the river Nile and set the basket at the edge of the water among the tall reeds. It must have been a sad moment for her, for she didn't know if she would ever again see her son.

In places this river is as wide as a lake, and in those days there were many animals along the water's edge. Lions, leopards, and cheetahs roamed in the shrubland and forests further to the south. In some places, crocodiles lay on the river's mudbanks. And big black hippopotamuses loved to wade and swim in the cool river.

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