When Pharaoh's proclamation was issued, decreeing that the men children
of the Hebrews were to be cast into the river, Amram, who was the
president of the Sanhedrin, decided that in the circumstances it was
best for husbands to live altogether separate from their wives. He set
the example. He divorced his wife, and all the men of Israel did
likewise,[27] for he occupied a place of great consideration among his
people, one reason being that he belonged to the tribe of Levi, the
tribe that was faithful to its God even in the land of Egypt, though
the other tribes wavered in their allegiance, and attempted to ally
themselves with the Egyptians, going so far as to give up Abraham's
sign of the covenant.[28] To chastise the Hebrews for their impiety,
God turned the love of the Egyptians for them into hatred, so that they
resolved upon their destruction. Mindful of all that he and his people
owed to Joseph's wise rule, Pharaoh refused at first to entertain the
malicious plans proposed by the Egyptians against the Hebrews. He spoke
to his people, "You fools, we are indebted to these Hebrews for
whatever we enjoy, and you desire now to rise up against them?" But the
Egyptians could not be turned aside from their purpose of ruining
Israel. They deposed their king, and incarcerated him for three months,
until he declared himself ready to execute with determination what they
had resolved upon, and he sought to bring about the ruin of the
children of Israel by every conceivable means. Such was the retribution
they had drawn down upon themselves by their own acts.[29]
As for Amram, not only did he belong to the tribe of Levi,
distinguished for its piety, but by reason of his extraordinary piety
he was prominent even among the pious of the tribe. He was one of the
four who were immaculate, untainted by sin, over whom death would have
had no power, had mortality not been decreed against every single human
being on account of the fall of the first man and woman. The other
three that led the same sinless life were Benjamin, Jesse the father of
David, and Chileab the son of David.[30] If the Shekinah was drawn
close again to the dwelling-place of mortals, it was due to Amram's
piety. Originally the real residence of the Shekinah was among men, but
when Adam committed his sin, she withdrew to heaven, at first to the
lowest of the seven heavens. Thence she was banished by Cain's crime,
and she retired to the second heaven. The sins of the generation of
Enoch removed her still farther off from men, she took up her abode in
the third heaven; then, successively, in the fourth, on account of the
malefactors in the generation of the deluge; in the fifth, during the
building of the tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues; in the
sixth, by reason of the wicked Egyptians at the time of Abraham; and,
finally, in the seventh, in consequence of the abominations of the
inhabitants of Sodom. Six righteous men, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Levi,
Kohath, and Amram, drew the Shekinah back, one by one, from the seventh
to the first heaven, and through the seventh righteous man, Moses, she
was made to descend to the earth and abide among men as aforetime.[31]
Amram's sagacity kept pace with his piety and his learning. The
Egyptians succeeded in enslaving the Hebrews by seductive promises. At
first they gave them a shekel for every brick they made, tempting them
to superhuman efforts by the prospect of earning much money. Later,
when the Egyptians forced them to work without wages, they insisted
upon having as many bricks as the Hebrews had made when their labor was
paid for, but they could demand only a single brick daily from Amram,
for he had been the only one whom they had not led astray by their
artifice. He had been satisfied with a single shekel daily, and had
therefore made only a single brick daily, which they had to accept
afterward as the measure of his day's work.[32]
As his life partner, Amram chose his aunt Jochebed, who was born the
same day with him.[33] She was the daughter of Levi, and she owed her
name, "Divine Splendor," to the celestial light that radiated from her
countenance.[34] She was worthy of being her husband's helpmeet, for
she was one of the midwives that had imperilled their own lives to
rescue the little Hebrew babes. Indeed, if God had not allowed a
miracle to happen, she and her daughter Miriam would have been killed
by Pharaoh for having resisted his orders and saved the Hebrew children
alive. When the king sent his hangmen for the two women, God caused
them to become invisible, and the bailiffs bad to return without
accomplishing their errand.[35]
The first child of the union between Amram and Jochebed, his wife, who
was one hundred and twenty-six years old at the time of her marriage,
was a girl, and the mother called her Miriam, "Bitterness," for it was
at the time of her birth that the Egyptians began to envenom the life
of the Hebrews. The second child was a boy, called Aaron, which means,
"Woe unto this pregnancy!" because Pharaoh's instructions to the
midwives, to kill the male children of the Hebrews, was proclaimed
during the months before Aaron's birth.[36]