When Moses was in his third year, Pharaoh was dining one day, with the
queen Alfar'anit at his right hand, his daughter Bithiah with the
infant Moses upon her lap at his left, and Balaam the son of Beor
together with his two sons and all the princes of the realm sitting at
table in the king's presence. It happened that the infant took the
crown from off the king's head, and placed it on his own. When the king
and the princes saw this, they were terrified, and each one in turn
expressed his astonishment. The king said unto the princes, "What speak
you, and what say you, O ye princes, on this matter, and what is to be
done to this Hebrew boy on account of this act?"
Balaam spoke, saying: "Remember now, O my lord and king, the dream
which thou didst dream many days ago, and how thy servant interpreted
it unto thee. Now this is a child of the Hebrews in whom is the spirit
of God. Let not my lord the king imagine in his heart that being a
child he did the thing without knowledge. For he is a Hebrew boy, and
wisdom and understanding are with him, although he is yet a child, and
with wisdom has he done this, and chosen unto himself the kingdom of
Egypt. For this is the manner of all the Hebrews, to deceive kings and
their magnates, to do all things cunningly in order to make the kings
of the earth and their men to stumble.
"Surely thou knowest that Abraham their father acted thus, who made the
armies of Nimrod king of Babel and of Abimelech king of Gerar to
stumble, and he possessed himself of the land of the children of Heth
and the whole realm of Canaan. Their father Abraham went down into
Egypt, and said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister, in order to make
Egypt and its king to stumble.
"His son Isaac did likewise when he went to Gerar, and he dwelt there,
and his strength prevailed over the army of Abimelech, and he intended
to make the kingdom of the Philistines to stumble, by saying that
Rebekah his wife was his sister.
"Jacob also dealt treacherously with his brother, and took his
birthright and his blessing from him. Then he went to Paddan-aram, to
Laban, his mother's brother, and he obtained his daughters from him
cunningly, and also his cattle and all his belongings, and he fled away
and returned to the land of Canaan, to his father.
"His sons sold their brother Joseph, and he went down into Egypt and
became a slave, and he was put into prison for twelve years, until the
former Pharaoh delivered him from the prison, and magnified him above
all the princes of Egypt on account of his interpreting the king's
dreams. When God caused a famine to descend upon the whole world,
Joseph sent for his father, and he brought him down into Egypt his
father, his brethren, and all his father's household, and he supplied
them with food without pay or reward, while he acquired Egypt, and made
slaves of all its inhabitants.
"Now, therefore, my lord king, behold, this child has risen up in their
stead in Egypt, to do according to their deeds and make sport of every
man, be he king, prince, or judge. If it please the king, let us now
spill his blood upon the ground, lest he grow up and snatch the
government from thine hand, and the hope of Egypt be cut off after he
reigns. Let us, moreover, call for all the judges and the wise men of
Egypt, that we may know whether the judgment of death be due to this
child, as I have said, and then we will slay him."
Pharaoh sent and called for all the wise men of Egypt, and they came,
and the angel Gabriel was disguised as one of them. When they were
asked their opinion in the matter, Gabriel spoke up, and said: "If it
please the king, let him place an onyx stone before the child, and a
coal of fire, and if he stretches out his hand and grasps the onyx
stone, then shall we know that the child hath done with wisdom all that
he bath done, and we will slay him. But if he stretches out his hand
and grasps the coal of fire, then shall we know that it was not with
consciousness that he did the thing, and he shall live."
The counsel seemed good in the eyes of the king, and when they had
placed the stone and the coal before the child, Moses stretched forth
his hand toward the onyx stone and attempted to seize it, but the angel
Gabriel guided his hand away from it and placed it upon the live coal,
and the coal burnt the child's hand, and he lifted it up and touched it
to his mouth, and burnt part of his lips and part of his tongue, and
for all his life he became slow of speech and of a slow tongue.
Seeing this, the king and the princes knew that Moses had not acted
with knowledge in taking the crown from off the king's head, and they
refrained from slaying him.[65] God Himself, who protected Moses,
turned the king's mind to grace, and his foster-mother snatched him
away, and she had him educated with great care, so that the Hebrews
depended upon him, and cherished the hope that great things would be
done by him. But the Egyptians were suspicious of what would follow
from such an education as his.[66]
At great cost teachers were invited to come to Egypt from neighboring
lands, to educate the child Moses. Some came of their own accord, to
instruct him in the sciences and the liberal arts. By reason of his
admirable endowments of mind, he soon excelled his teachers in
knowledge. His learning seemed a process of mere recollecting, and when
there was a difference of opinion among scholars, he selected the
correct one instinctively, for his mind refused to store up anything
that was false.[67]
But he deserves more praise for his unusual strength of will than for
his natural capacity, for he succeeded in transforming an originally
evil disposition into a noble, exalted character, a change that was
farther aided by his resolution, as he himself acknowledged later.
After the wonderful exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, a king of
Arabia sent an artist to Moses, to paint his portrait, that he might
always have the likeness of the divine man before him. The painter
returned with his handiwork, and the king assembled his wise men, those
in particular who were conversant with the science of physiognomy. He
displayed the portrait before them, and invited their judgment upon it.
The unanimous opinion was that it represented a man covetous, haughty,
sensual, in short, disfigured by all possible ugly traits. The king was
indignant that they should pretend to be masters in physiognomy, seeing
that they declared the picture of Moses, the holy, divine man, to be
the picture of a villain. They defended themselves by accusing the
painter in turn of not having produced a true portrait of Moses, else
they would not have fallen into the erroneous judgment they had
expressed. But the artist insisted that his work resembled the original
closely.
Unable to decide who was right, the Arabian king went to see Moses, and
he could not but admit that the portrait painted for him was a
masterpiece. Moses as he beheld him in the flesh was the Moses upon the
canvas. There could be no doubt but that the highly extolled knowledge
of his physiognomy experts was empty twaddle. He told Moses what had
happened, and what he thought of it. He replied: "Thy artist and thy
experts alike are masters, each in his line. If my fine qualities were
a product of nature, I were no better than a log of wood, which remains
forever as nature produced it at the first. Unashamed I make the
confession to thee that by nature I possessed all the reprehensible
traits thy wise men read in my picture and ascribed to me, perhaps to a
greater degree even than they think. But I mastered my evil impulses
with my strong will, and the character I acquired through severe
discipline has become the opposite of the disposition with which I was
born. Through this change, wrought in me by my own efforts, I have
earned honor and commendation upon earth as well as in heaven."[68]