Page:Legends of Old Testament Characters.djvu/268

246 the spirit of prophecy came on Miriam, as she sat in the house, and she cried, "My parents shall have another son, who shall deliver Israel out of the hands of the Egyptians!" Then she said to her father, "What hast thou done? Thou hast sent thy wife away, out of thine house, because thou couldst not trust the Lord God, that He would protect the child that might be born to thee."

Amram, reproved by these words, sought his banished wife; the angel Gabriel guided him on his way, and a voice from heaven encouraged him to proceed. And when he found Jochebed, he led her to her home again.

One hundred and thirty years old was Jochebed, but she was as fresh and beauteous as on the day she left her father's house. She was with child, and Amram feared lest it should be a boy, and be slain by Pharaoh.

Then appeared the Eternal One to him in a dream, and bade him be of good cheer, for He would protect the child, and make him great, so that all nations should hold him in honour.

When Amram awoke, he told his dream to Jochebed, and they were filled with fear and great amazement.

After six months she bore a son, without pain. The child entered this world in the third hour of the morning, of the seventh day of the month Adar, in the year 2368 after the Creation, and the 130th year of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt. And when he was born, the house was filled with light, as of the brightest sunshine.

The tender mother's anxiety for her son was increased when she noted his beauty, he was like an angel of God, and his great height and noble appearance. The parents called him Tobias (God is good) to express their thankfulness, but others say he was called Jokutiel (Hope in God). Amram kissed his daughter, Miriam, on the brow, and said, "Now I know that thy prophecy is come true."

Jochebed hid the child three months in her chamber where she slept. But Pharaoh, filled with anxiety, lest a child should have escaped him, sent Egyptian women with their nurslings to the houses of the Hebrews. Now it is the custom of children, when one cries, another cries also. Therefore the Egyptian women pricked their babes, when they went into a house, and if the child were concealed therein, it cried when it heard