he time of the birth of Moses, because Aaron, the brother
of Moses, and three years older, certainly was not killed.

Whether Moses was the son of Pharaoh's daughter, his father an
Israelite, or both of his parents were Israelites, is problematic. Royal
families are not apt to adopt an unknown waif into the royal household
and bring him up as their royal own, especially if this waif belongs to
what is regarded as an inferior race. The tie of motherhood is the only
one that could over-rule caste and override prejudice. If the daughter
of Pharaoh, or more properly "the Pharaoh," were the mother of Moses,
she had a better reason for hiding him in the bulrushes than did the
daughter of a Levite, for the order to kill these profitable workers is
extremely doubtful. The strength, skill and ability of the Israelites
formed a valuable acquisition to the Egyptians, and what they wanted was
more Israelites, not fewer.

Judging from the statement that there were only two midwives, there were
only a few hundred Israelites--perhaps between one and two thousand, at
most.

So leaving the legend of the childhood of Moses with just enough mystery
mixed in it to give it a perpetual piquancy, we learn that he was
brought up an Egyptian, as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and that it
was she who gave him his name.

Philo and Josephus give various sidelights on the life and character of
Moses. The Midrash or Commentaries on the History of the Jews, composed,
added to or modified by many men, extending over a period of twenty
centuries, also add their weight, even though the value of these
Commentaries is conjectural.

Egyptian accounts of Moses and the Israelites come to us through
Hellenic sources, and very naturally are not complimentary. These
picture Moses, or Osarsiph, as they call him, as an agitator, an
undesirable citizen, who sought to overturn the government, and failing
in this, fled to the desert with a few hundred outlaws. They managed to
hold out against the forces sent to capture them, were gradually added
to by other refugees, and through the organizing genius of Moses were
rounded into a strong tribe.

That Moses was their supreme ruler, and that to better hold his people
in check he devised a religious ritual for them, and impressed his god,
Jehovah, upon them, almost to the exclusion of all other gods, and thus
formed them into a religious whole, is beyond question. No matter what
the cause of the uprising, or who w