When Amram separated from his wife after Pharaoh's decree to drown all Hebrew boys, it was his young daughter Miriam who brought them back together. The Spirit of God came upon the girl and she prophesied: "A son shall be born to my parents who will rescue Israel from the hands of the Egyptians." Amram returned to Jochebed, and six months later she gave birth. The entire house filled with a light as brilliant as the sun and moon combined.
But Egyptian women devised a cruel trick to find hidden children. They brought their own babies into Hebrew homes—when the infants babbled, any hidden child would babble back, revealing its location. After three months, Jochebed placed Moses in a basket of bulrushes. God sent a scorching drought so severe that Pharaoh's daughter went down to the river to bathe, where she discovered the crying infant and adopted him.
Moses had seven names. His mother called him Yequtiel—"I placed my hope in God." His sister called him Yered—"I went down to the river after him." His grandfather Kehath named him Abigedor—"for his sake God closed the breach," and the Egyptians stopped drowning Hebrew children. At three years old, sitting in Pharaoh's lap, Moses reached up and placed the royal crown on his own head. Balaam the enchanter urged the king to kill him, but the angel Gabriel, disguised as a courtier, suggested a test: place glowing coals and precious stones before the child. Gabriel guided Moses' hand to the coal, which burned his lips and tongue, making him heavy of speech—but saving his life.
At eighteen, Moses killed an Egyptian who had assaulted a Hebrew man's wife. He fled, and the angel Michael carried him beyond Egypt's borders. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, Moses then joined the army of Qinqanos, King of Cush, and after nine years of siege, the people crowned Moses king. He devised an ingenious strategy: he had each soldier raise a young stork, starve it for two days, then release the birds against the serpents guarding the city walls. The storks devoured the snakes, the army poured through, and Moses reigned over Cush for forty years.