Birth of Moses

Era: Exodus
Date: Exodus ○ Traditional
Reference: The Book of Jasher 68:1-20

The Birth of Moses is the providential preservation of the deliverer during Pharaoh's decree to kill all Hebrew male infants - a child of promise hidden by his mother, discovered by Pharaoh's daughter, and raised in the very palace of the oppressor. Jasher 68 provides the most dramatic account, describing how Egyptian women acted as spies and how Moses was discovered in the Nile. Jubilees 47 situates the birth within its jubilee chronology and emphasizes the divine orchestration. The infant Moses placing Pharaoh's crown on his own head (Jasher 70) foreshadows his future confrontation with Egyptian power. This event represents a critical juncture in the sacred chronology that the Books of Enoch, Jubilees, and Jasher collectively preserve. Within the jubilee framework that Jubilees meticulously tracks, it occupies a precise position in the divine timetable - not an accident of history but a predetermined turning point inscribed on the heavenly tablets before creation. The expanded narratives in Jasher and the theological interpretations in Jubilees together provide a multidimensional understanding of this moment that illuminates both its immediate consequences and its role in the larger pattern of divine action spanning from creation to final judgment.

0:00

Did You Know?

Jasher describes the infant Moses placing Pharaoh's crown on his own head - foreshadowing the Exodus.

Egyptian women acted as spies to identify Hebrew male infants for killing.

Moses is raised in Pharaoh's palace - trained by the very power he will later confront.

Jubilees situates the birth within its jubilee framework as a divinely timed event.

Jasher provides Moses' entire biography from birth through death in extraordinary detail.

Key Passage

Birth of Moses

The Book of Jasher 68:1-20

And it was at that time the spirit of God was upon Miriam the daughter of Amram the sister of Aaron, and she went forth ...

A¹nd it was at that time the spirit of God was upon Miriam the daughter of Amram the sister of Aaron, and she went forth and prophesied about the house, saying, Behold a son will be born unto us from my father and mother this time, and he will save Israel from the hands of Egypt.

² And when Amram heard the words of his daughter, he went and took his wife back to the house, after he had driven her away at the time when Pharaoh ordered every male child of the house of Jacob to be thrown into the water. ³ So Amram took Jochebed his wife, three years after he had driven her away, and he came to her and she conceived. ⁴ And at the end of seven months from her conception she brought forth a son, and the whole house was filled with great light as of the light of the sun and moon at the time of their shining. ⁵ And when the woman saw the child that it was good and pleasing to the sight, she hid it for three months in an inner room. ⁶ In those days the Egyptians conspired to destroy all the Hebrews there. ⁷ And the Egyptian women went to Goshen where the children of Israel were, and they carried their young ones upon their shoulders, their babes who could not yet speak. ⁸ And in those days, when the women of the children of Israel brought forth, each woman had hidden her son from before the Egyptians, that the Egyptians might not know of their bringing forth, and might not destroy them from the land. ⁹ And the Egyptian women came to Goshen and their children who could not speak were upon their shoulders, and when an Egyptian woman came into the house of a Hebrew woman her babe began to cry. ¹⁰ And when it cried the child that was in the inner room answered it, so the Egyptian women went and told it at the house of Pharaoh. ¹¹ And Pharaoh sent his officers to take the children and slay them; thus did the Egyptians to the Hebrew women all the days. ¹² And it was at that time, about three months from Jochebed's concealment of her son, that the thing was known in Pharaoh's house. ¹³ And the woman hastened to take away her son before the officers came, and she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein, and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. ¹⁴ And his sister Miriam stood afar off to know what would be done to him, and what would become of her words. ¹⁵ And God sent forth at that time a terrible heat in the land of Egypt, which burned up the flesh of man like the sun in his circuit, and it greatly oppressed the Egyptians. ¹⁶ And all the Egyptians went down to bathe in the river, on account of the consuming heat which burned up their flesh. ¹⁷ And Bathia, the daughter of Pharaoh, went also to bathe in the river, owing to the consuming heat, and her maidens walked at the river side, and all the women of Egypt as well. ¹⁸ And Bathia lifted up her eyes to the river, and she saw the ark upon the water, and sent her maid to fetch it. ¹⁹ And she opened it and saw the child, and behold the babe wept, and she had compassion on him, and she said, This is one of the Hebrew children. ²⁰ And all the women of Egypt walking on the river side desired to give him suck, but he would not suck, for this thing was from the Lord, in order to restore him to his mother's breast.

Read full chapter: The Book of Jasher 68 →

Did You Know?

Jasher describes the infant Moses placing Pharaoh's crown on his own head - foreshadowing the Exodus.

Egyptian women acted as spies to identify Hebrew male infants for killing.

Moses is raised in Pharaoh's palace - trained by the very power he will later confront.

Jubilees situates the birth within its jubilee framework as a divinely timed event.

Jasher provides Moses' entire biography from birth through death in extraordinary detail.

Birth of Moses

Did You Know?

Key Passage

Birth of Moses

Did You Know?

Related

Characters