Israel had come to Egypt for famine’s succour
Joseph’s ascension saved them from rigour
Exile was wonderful, the land was fruitful
Their lovely Goshen promised a golden future
All changed when a new king arose
A pharaoh who knew not Joseph’s deeds
Nor cared for his people and their needs
Not indifference, but the hatred that feeds
Anti-Semitism, seeds of Holocaust’s weeds
Israelites were forced by slave labour to build cities
Egypt became one teeming concentration camp
Diaspora soon lost its aura-beatings replaced ditties
Yet Israel is blessed, even in exile
Her numbers multiplied all the while
Then Pharaoh instructed the midwives to kill
The male and preserve the female-to no avail
The midwives feared God and did no ill
In these dark times of toil and persecution
Amram married the blessed Jochebed
Both were related and of the tribe of Levi
Both must have prayed about the coming dread
All of Israel prayed for God’s deliverance
God heard and remembered his promise
That after four hundred years in a strange land
He would lead her out and into a land of promise
Amram and Jochebed bore Miriam and Aaron
Then Moses, who in Pharaoh’s side was a thorn
Though it seemed he chose a wrong time to be born
Male babies were now deemed food for Nile’s crocodiles
By Pharaoh’s order which one could not despise
Jochebed by faith recognizing the future deliverer
Hid him from prying eyes for she was a believer
After three months, she could no longer
For his cries were getting louder and louder
She and Amram, prayed, pondered and wondered
God answered not, it seemed it hardly mattered
She followed her instinct and made a miniature ark
And gave to God’s care that which she could not keep
She placed her baby-laden ark by the river bank
And asked her daughter Miriam to wait and peep
God’s gift to that generation was floating alone
Where crocodile’s bite was worse than pharaoh’s bark
But He that watched over Israel was still on the throne
Egypt’s princess came for a shower, same hour
The bulrush baby was bobbing on the bank
No coincidence, it was God’s manifest prescience
She asked her maidens to bring the little ark
Moses was sobbing, which set her heart throbbing
He was fair, she loved, and decided she would be keeping
Miriam providentially nearby, offered to secure a nurse
A wet nurse was required, Jochebed fit the purse
Tis clear that God can salvage a blessing from a curse
