The Story of the Bible

"Fear not. Am I in God's place to punish and to reward? It is true that you meant evil to me, but God turned it to good, so that all your families might be kept alive. Do not be afraid; I will care for you, and for your children."

After this Joseph lived to a good old age, until he was a hundred and ten years old. Before he died he said to his children, and to all the children of Israel, who had now increased to very many people:

"I am going to die; but God will come to you, and will bring you up out of this land, into your own land, which he promised to your fathers, to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. When I die do not bury me in Egypt, but keep my body until you go out of this land, and take it with you."

So when Joseph died they embalmed his body, as the Egyptians embalmed the dead; so that the body would not decay, and they placed his body in a stone coffin, and kept it in the land of Goshen among the people of Israel. Thus Joseph not only showed his faith in God's promise, that he would bring his people back to the land of Canaan; but he also encouraged the faith of those who came after him. For as often as the Israelites looked on the stone coffin that held the body of Joseph, they said to one another.

There is the token, the sign, that this land is not our home. This coffin will not be buried until we bury it in our own land, the land of Canaan, where God will lead us in his own time."

The Beautiful Baby Who Was Found in a River

Exodus i: 1, to ii: 22.

The children of Israel stayed in the land of Egypt much longer than they had expected to stay. They were in that land about four hundred years. And the going down to Egypt proved a great blessing to them. It saved their lives during the years of famine and need. After the years of need were over, they found the soil in the land of Goshen, that part of Egypt where they were living, very rich, so that they could gather three or four crops every year.

Then, too, some of the sons of Israel, before they came to Egypt, had begun to marry the women in the land of Canaan, who worshipped idols, and not the Lord. If they had stayed there, their children would have grown up like the people around them, and soon would have lost all knowledge of God.

But in Goshen, they lived alone and apart from the people of Egypt. They worshipped the Lord God, and were kept away from the idols of Egypt. And in that land, as the years went on, from being seventy people, they grew in number, until they became a great multitude. Each of the twelve sons of Jacob was the father of a tribe, and Joseph was the father of two tribes, which were named after his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.

As long as Joseph lived, and for some time after, the people of Israel were treated kindly by the Egyptians, out of their love for Joseph, and who had saved Egypt from suffering by famine. But, after a long time another king began to rule over Egypt, who cared nothing for Joseph or Joseph's people. He saw that the Israelites (as the children of Israel were called) were very many; and he feared lest they would soon become greater in number and in power than the Egyptians.

He said to his people, "Let us rule these Israelites more strictly. They are growing too strong."

Then they set harsh rulers over the Israelites, who laid heavy burdens on them. They made the Israelites work hard for the Egyptians, and build cities for them, and give to the Egyptians a large part of the crops from their fields. They set them at work in making brick, and in building store-houses. They were so afraid that the Israelites would grow in number, that they gave orders to kill all the little boys that were born to the Israelites; though their little girls might be allowed to live.

But in the face of all this hate, and wrong, and cruelty, the people of Israel were growing in numbers, and becoming greater and greater.

At this time, when the wrongs of the Israelites were the greatest, and when their little children were being killed, one little boy was born. He was such a lovely child that his mother kept him hid, so that the enemies did not find him. When she could no longer hide him, she found a plan to save his life, believing that God would help her and save her beautiful little boy. She made a little box like a boat, and covered it with something that would not let the water into it. Such a boat as this, covered over, was called "an ark." She knew that at certain times the daughter of King Pharaoh, ,—all the kings of Egypt were called Pharaoh, ,—would come down to the river for a bath. She placed her baby boy in the ark, and let it float down the river where the princess, Pharaoh's daughter, would see it. And she sent her own daughter, a little girl named Miriam, twelve years old, to watch close at hand. How anxious the mother and the sister were as they saw the little ark floating away from them on the river.

THE BABY IN THE ARK FLOATS DOWN THE RIVER