The Birth of Moses, and Job

It is almost beyond belief how quickly the Hebrews who had come down into Egypt grew in number and filled Egypt with their many descendants. But when the king died who had treated them kindly because of Joseph’s services, they were held down under the rule of the kings who came after him. Heavy labor at building cities was laid on them; and because their swelling numbers were now feared, in case they should one day win their independence by force of arms, a royal decree compelled them to drown their newborn male children. No one was allowed to escape this cruel order. [a]

At that time Pharaoh’s daughter found a baby in the river and had him brought up as her own son, giving the boy the name Moses. When this Moses had grown to manhood, he saw a Hebrew being beaten by an Egyptian. Grieved at the sight, he rescued his kinsman from harm and killed the Egyptian with a stone. Soon afterward, fearing punishment for what he had done, he fled to the land of Midian. He made his home with Jethro, the priest of that region, and married his daughter Zipporah, who bore him two sons, Gershom and Eliezer.

Job lived in this period. He had gained both the knowledge of God and all righteousness from the law of nature alone. He was extremely rich, and all the more renowned because he was neither corrupted by his wealth while he kept it nor turned aside by it when it was lost. For when, through the devil’s doing, he was stripped of his goods, robbed of his children, and finally covered in his own body with terrible sores, he could not be broken down into sinning in any way out of impatience with his sufferings. In the end he received the reward of God’s approval: he was restored to health, and got back double everything he had lost.