Selections from Josephus - Kostenloses Hörbuch

II. SPECIMENS OF AMPLIFICATION OF THE BIBLICAL NARRATIVE

(5) Moses, the Infant Prodigy, introduced to Pharaoh

For Moses’ beauty, cf. Acts vii. 20. The name of Pharaoh’s daughter, Thermuthis, occurs also in the Book of Jubilees (xlvii. 5, Tharmuth); elsewhere she is called Bithiah (cf. 1 Chron. iv. 18). For Rabbinical parallels, see art. “Moses” in the Jewish Encyclopædia.

When he was three years old, God added wondrously to his stature; and there was no one so lost to an appreciation of beauty as, on seeing Moses, not to be amazed at his comeliness. It often happened that persons meeting him as he was carried along the road, attracted by the child’s appearance, turned round and, leaving their pursuits, gave themselves up to gazing at him. Such boyish charm, so remarkable and perfect as his, held the onlookers spellbound.

Such was Moses when Thermuthis, who was not blessed with offspring of her own, adopted him as her son. Now on one occasion she brought him to her father and showed him to him, and told him how, in case it was God’s will that she should have no child of her own, she had made provision for a successor, by bringing up a boy of divine beauty and noble spirit, and by what a miracle she had received him from the bounteous river. “And I thought,” she added, “to make him my child and the heir to your kingdom.”

With these words she laid the babe in her father’s arms; and he took him and hugged him to his breast, and, to please his daughter, affectionately placed his diadem upon his head. But Moses, in mere childishness, tore it off and dashed it to the ground and trampled upon it.

The incident was thought ominous, portending ill to the kingdom. The sacred scribe, who had foretold that the child’s birth would cause the humiliation of the Egyptian Empire, witnessed the scene and rushed forward to kill him, with an alarming cry. “This, O king,” so he cried, “is that child of whom God told us that if we kill him we need fear nothing. By his action^[75] in trampling on (the symbol of) thy sovereignty and treading the diadem under foot^[76], he bears out my prediction. Kill him, then, and at one stroke relieve the Egyptians of their fear of him and deprive the Hebrews of the confident hopes which he inspires.”

But Thermuthis was too quick for him and snatched the child away. The king, too, was reluctant to slay him, being inclined to mercy by God, whose providence watched over Moses’ life. Great care was accordingly devoted to his upbringing; the Hebrews resting high hopes upon him for their future, while the Egyptians viewed his education with suspicion.—Ant. II. 9. 6 f. (230-237).