Seder Olama timeline of Jewish history

The Birth of Moses

On the seventh of Adar, 2368, Moses is born; hidden in a basket on the Nile, he is saved by Pharaoh's daughter and raised in the palace of the man who sought his death.

Amram and Yocheved are together again, and a son is born. His mother saw that he was good and hid him for three months. He had been born prematurely, at the end of the sixth month, so the Egyptians who counted the pregnancies came searching three months too late. When hiding became impossible, Yocheved made an ark of papyrus, sealed it with pitch and set it among the reeds at the edge of the Nile, while Miriam stood at a distance to see what would happen. Pharaoh's daughter came down to bathe, saw the basket, heard the crying and understood at once: this is one of the Hebrew children. She defied her own father's decree. Miriam stepped forward and offered to find a nurse, and brought the baby's own mother. Moses spent his first years with Yocheved, knowing who he was, and was then taken into the palace. Grown, he went out to his brothers and saw their burdens — the sentence on which his whole life turns.

📜Sources

Exodus 2:1-11 for the birth, the ark and the rescue. The date of 7 Adar comes from Megillah 13b and Kiddushin 38a, which state that Moses was born and died on that day. The year is derived from the date of the Exodus (Seder Olam Rabbah 5) and Exodus 7:7, where Moses is eighty at the Exodus; the reckoning of Moses' years is in Seder Olam Rabbah 3.

👤People and places

Amram · Jochebed · Moses · Miriam · Egypt (Goshen) · Exodus

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