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The sacred mirror; or, Compendious view of Scripture history
The sacred mirror or Compendious view of Scripture history Author:Thomas Smith Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 67 CHAP. IV. From the Birlh of Moses, to the Conquest of Canaan by the Israelites. B.C. C 1571. OOME time after the promulgation of Pharaoh's inhuman... more » edict, Amram the son of Kohath, and Jochebed the daughter of Levi were blest with a son, of such exquisite beauty that they felt a more than ordinary reluctance to obey the royal mandate, and accordr ingly ventured to conceal him for the space of three months; but, at length, their dread of a discovery, which would inevitably have been attended with fatal consequences, compelled them to expose him like the rest. Accordingly they enclosed him in a small ark of bulrushes, and committed him to the mercy of the waters, leaving his sister Miriam, at a convenient distance to observe the event. The reeds and flags with which the Nile abounded soon arrested the progress of the ark ; and Pharaoh's daughter, who was approaching the river with an intent to bathe, immediately sent some of her retinue to fetch it. Her surprise at the sight of so lovely a child bathed in its own tears, and thus exposed to destruction, was soon succeeded by the softer emotions of compassion. She justly supposed it to be the child of some unfortunate Hebrew, who groaned beneath her father's oppression, and her pity suggested the idea of saving such a beauteous innocent from the common ruin. Accordingly, she resolved to have it educated as her own son, and jo Miriam, who now approached the princess, was sent to procure a Hebrew nurse; in consequence of which, Jochebed received her infant once more to her arms, with a strict charge to use him as tenderly as if he were her own. As the princess did not know the child's name, she called him Moses, in token of having drawn him out of the water, and dismissed the nurse with a promise of ample remuneration...« less