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[238]
MOSES, therefore, when he was born, and brought up in the foregoing
manner, and came to the age of maturity, made his virtue manifest to the
Egyptians; and showed that he was born for the bringing them down, and
raising the Israelites. And the occasion he laid hold of was this: - The
Ethiopians, who are next neighbors to the Egyptians, made an inroad into
their country, which they seized upon, and carried off the effects of the
Egyptians, who, in their rage, fought against them, and revenged the affronts
they had received from them; but being overcome in battle, some of them
were slain, and the rest ran away in a shameful manner, and by that means
saved themselves; whereupon the Ethiopians followed after them in the pursuit,
and thinking that it would be a mark of cowardice if they did not subdue
all Egypt, they went on to subdue the rest with greater vehemence; and
when they had tasted the sweets of the country, they never left off the
prosecution of the war: and as the nearest parts had not courage enough
at first to fight with them, they proceeded as far as Memphis, and the
sea itself, while not one of the cities was able to oppose them. The Egyptians,
under this sad oppression, betook themselves to their oracles and prophecies;
and when God had given them this counsel, to make use of Moses the Hebrew,
and take his assistance, the king commanded his daughter to produce him,
that he might be the general 1
of their army. Upon which, when she had made him swear he would do him
no harm, she delivered him to the king, and supposed his assistance would
be of great advantage to them. She withal reproached the priest, who, when
they had before admonished the Egyptians to kill him, was not ashamed now
to own their want of his help.
1 This history of Moses, as general of the Egyptians against the Ethiopians, is wholly omitted in our Bibles; but is thus by Irenaeus, from Josephus, and that soon after his own age: — "Josephus says, that when Moses was nourished in the palace, he was appointed general of the army against the Ethiopians, and conquered them, when he married that king's daughter; because, out of her affection for him, she delivered the city up to him." See the Fragments of Irenaeus. ap. edit. Grab. p. 472. Nor perhaps did St. Stephen refer to any thing else when he said of Moses, before he was sent by God to the Israelites, that he was not only learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, but was also mighty in words and in deeds, Acts 7:22.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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