Hebrew Life and Times | Page 9

of Suez. And there were a wall and a row of fortresses across the isthmus. But who were those shepherd tribes living just west of the isthmus inside the gateway? They are Hebrews, Rameses was told. They are immigrants from Canaan. "Look out for them," said Rameses. "If they came from Canaan, they may favor the Hittites and help them to get past my fortresses into Egypt. Let them be put at work so that they will have no time for plots."
Rameses was planning just then to build two large granary cities near the northeastern border to be a base of supplies for his armies on their campaigns into Asia. One was to be called Pithom.[2]
So one day armed men came to the Hebrew tents and the order was given to send such and such a number of men to work in the brick-molds of Pa-Tum. And they had to go. The women and the children had to care for the sheep while most of their men trod the clay and straw in the brick molds at Pa-Tum and carried heavy loads of brick on their shoulders to the masons on the walls. Of course the sheep suffered for lack of care. The children also pined from neglect. Life for the Hebrews became a grinding treadmill of hardship and weariness and drudgery.
THE BOYHOOD AND YOUTH OF MOSES
During this time of oppression a Hebrew baby boy was by chance adopted by one of the princesses in Pharaoh's court and brought up by his own mother as his nurse. He was given an Egyptian name with the common Egyptian ending Mesu or M-ses, as in Rameses. The boy was given all the educational advantages that the Egyptian palace could offer. But all the time in secret from his mother he was learning the story of his own people and their wrongs, and was being trained to hate their oppressors. One day after he had grown to manhood he went down to the city of Pa-Tum to see the work on the new granaries which were being built. Here he saw one of his own people being flogged by an Egyptian overseer. In a fury he leaped to the man's defense and killed the Egyptian. Of course Rameses heard of it, and Moses had to flee from Egypt into the desert. In the desert he found a shepherd clan related to the Hebrews and lived there for some years brooding over the hard plight of his people.
=Moses' call and the struggle for freedom.=--One day in the desert, Moses heard from a passing caravan that old Rameses II was dead. Like a flame that burned but did not consume the thought came to him: "Now is your chance! The king and his officers will not know about you. Go back to Egypt and lead your kinsmen out to freedom. This is God's call and God will help you."
So back to Egypt he went. First, he undertook to rally his own people, promising the help of their God, Jehovah. It was a dangerous undertaking that he proposed. The kings of Egypt were accustomed to make short work of those who resisted their authority. Moreover, these Hebrews had been slaves for years, and their spirits might have been cowed and broken. Yet they believed in Moses and his assurances and accepted him as their leader.
Soon thereafter Moses and his brother Aaron went boldly to the palace of the Pharaoh and declared to him that Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews, had commanded that the Hebrews be allowed to hold a religious festival in the desert to offer sacrifices unto him as their God. The plan no doubt was that the people should escape once they were outside the boundaries of Egypt; Moses evidently considered any method justifiable in the effort to outwit the oppressor. But the Pharaoh answered, "Who is Jehovah that I should hearken to his voice to let Israel go?" The request was sharply refused. It is surprising that Moses himself was not arrested and imprisoned on the spot. Perhaps he still had friends in the Egyptian court. Or perhaps the Egyptians had a certain reverence for him as a messenger from a god, even though they did not grant his demands.
=Bricks without straw.=--At first it seemed that Moses had failed. For instead of the longed-for freedom, the toiling Hebrews found that a still heavier burden of work was laid upon them. In the manufacture of sun-dried brick it is necessary to mix straw with the clay in the molds, the fibers giving a tougher quality to the product. Previously the straw for this purpose had been furnished by the Egyptians. But now the order was, "Go yourselves, get straw where you can find it." So they had to go and hunt through the