“Baby Moses,” Friend, Aug. 1998, 30–31

Baby Moses

As told by Ann Woodbury Moore*

My servant Moses … is faithful (Num. 12:7).

Ask the person who reads this story to you to also read the questions that follow it. Color the pictures that show the right answers, and make a big X through the pictures that are wrong.

The Israelites lived in Egypt, and they were sad. Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, did not like them. He did not want more of them in his country, so he decided that they shouldn’t have more babies. He said, “All Israelite baby boys must be thrown in the river and drowned.”

Jochebed, an Israelite mother, had a baby boy. She did not want him to die. She hid him for three months, but he was growing bigger and bigger. She couldn’t hide him much longer.

She was wise, and she had faith. She wove a basket and spread tar on it so that no water would get inside it. Then she placed her baby in the basket, carried it to the river, and put it among the reeds. Jochebed told the baby’s older sister, Miriam, “Watch it carefully.”

One day, Pharaoh’s daughter walked along the river. She saw the basket. “Bring it to me,” she told her maid.

When Pharaoh’s daughter saw the baby, she wanted to keep him, even though she knew that he was an Israelite baby boy. She said, “I will care for him as if he was my own child, and I will call him Moses.”

Miriam bravely went to her and said, “I know someone who can help you take care of Moses.”

“Good! Go get her,” Pharaoh’s daughter said.

Miriam ran home as fast as she could to get Jochebed. Moses was safe, and his own mother was to help care for him. When he grew up, Moses became the ruler of the Israelite people and led them away from wicked Pharaoh.

What did Moses’ mother make to hold him?
- A stroller
- A basket woven of bulrushes
- A swing
Where did Moses’ mother put him?
- In reeds along a river
- In a cave
- In a tree house
Who watched over Moses?
- A dog
- An old woman
- His older sister, Miriam
Who found Moses?
- A doctor
- Pharaoh’s daughter
- A shepherd

Paintings by Robert T. Barrett

Illustrated by Taia Morley