About 400 years after Joseph and his family settled in Egypt, their descendants had become a large number of people. They were such a large number, in fact, that the Pharaoh wanted to decrease the number of Hebrews, as they were called, in his kingdom.

To do this, the Pharaoh told the Hebrew midwives, "When you act as midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live."

But the midwives knew that killing the babies would make God angry, so they did not do as Pharaoh commanded, but let the boys live.

When Pharaoh found out, he called the midwives together and said, "Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?"

They answered, "Because the Hebrew women are so healthy they give birth before the midwives come to them."

The Hebrew people continued to multiply and grow strong. Finally Pharaoh commanded all his people, "Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live."

Soon after this, a Hebrew woman gave birth to a son. She was able to hide him for three months. When she could hide him no longer, she got a basket made of bulrushes, and covered it with tar. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister, Miriam, stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.

The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her maidens walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it to her. When she opened it she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. "This must be one of the Hebrews’ children," she said.

Miriam approached the Pharaoh’s daughter and said, "Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?"

Pharaoh’s daughter said, "Yes." So Miriam went to get her mother, the mother of the baby.

Pharaoh’s daughter said to the mother, "Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages." So the mother took the child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, "because," she said, "I drew him out of the water."