In the 130th year after the Israelites went down to Egypt, Pharaoh had a dream. Sitting on his throne, he saw an old man holding a merchant's balance scale. The old man gathered up all the elders, princes, and great men of Egypt, bound them together, and placed them in one pan of the scale. Then he set a single milch goat in the other pan. The goat outweighed them all.
Pharaoh woke in terror. One of his eunuchs interpreted the vision: "A child will be born among the Hebrews who will destroy all the land of Egypt." The king immediately summoned the Hebrew midwives—Shifrah and Puah—and ordered them to kill every male child born on the birthing stools. But the midwives feared God more than Pharaoh. They let the boys live, telling the king that Hebrew women gave birth like wild animals of the field, too fast for any midwife to arrive in time.
The imagery of the scale dream is striking. In the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, this vision frames the entire Egyptian genocide as a response to prophetic dread—the realization that a single child from an enslaved people could topple the mightiest empire on earth. The goat, small and unassuming, outweighing all the power of Egypt, is a vivid metaphor for the birth of Moses—a baby hidden in a basket who would grow into the man who broke Pharaoh's kingdom.
XLIII. (1) In the 130th year after the Israelites had
gone down to Egypt, Pharaoh dreamt a dream. While he
was sitting on the throne of his kingdom he lifted up his
eyes, and beheld an old man standing before him. In his
hand he held a pair of scales as used by merchants. The
old man then took the scales and, holding them up before
Pharaoh, he laid hold of all the elders of Egypt and its
princes, together with all its great men, and, having bound
them together, placed them in one pan of the scales. After
that he took a milch goat, and, placing it in the other pan,
it outweighed all the others. Pharaoh then awoke, and it
was a dream.
(2) Eising early next morning, he called all his servants,
and told them the dream. They were sorely frightened by
it, and one of the king's eunuchs said, ' This is nothing else
than the foreboding of a great evil about to fall upon
Egypt.' On hearing this the king said to the eunuch,.
' What will it be ?' And the eunuch replied, ' A child will
be born in Israel, who will destroy all the land of Egypt.
If it is pleasing to the king, let the royal command go forth
in all the land of Egypt that every male born among the
Hebrews should be slain, so that this evil be averted from
the land of Egypt.
(3) The king did so, and accordingly sent for the Hebrew
mid wives, one of whom was named Shifrah, and another
Puah, and said to them, ' When the Hebrew women give
birth, and ye see upon the stools that it is a son, ye slay it;
but if a daughter, then let it live.' But the midwives feared
God, and did not act according to the king's word, but let
the males live. The king, therefore, summoned the mid-
wives, and said to them, ' Why have ye done this thing,
and kept the males alive ?' And the midwives answered
Pharaoh, saying, ' The Hebrew women are not like the
Egyptian women, for they are like the free animals of the
field which do not require midwives; before the midwives
come to them the children are born.'
(4) When Pharaoh saw that he could not do anything
with them, he commanded all his people, saying, ' Every
male that is born ye shall cast into the river; but all the
females ye shall keep alive.' When the Israelites heard this
command of Pharaoh to cast their males into the river,
some of the people separated from their wives, while others
remained with them. It came to pass, about the time of
childbirth, that the women went out into the field, and the
Lord, who swore to their ancestors that He would multiply
them, sent them an angel, one of his ministers, who was
appointed over childbirth, to wash it, and rub it with salt;
and the angel bound it in swaddling clothes, and placed in
the child's hand two smooth stones, from the one of which
it sucked milk, and from the other honey. God also caused
its hair to grow down to its knees, so as to be well covered
by it; and the angel rocked it caressingly.
(5) And when God had compassion upon them and
sought to increase them upon the face of the whole land.
He commanded the earth to sw^allow the children up, and
protect them until they grew up, after which time it should
open its mouth and let them go forth so that they should
108 [XLIII. 6
sprout as the grass of the field, and as the young trees of
the forest. Then they would return to their families, and
to the house of their fathers, where they would remain.
(6) Accordingly, it happened that after the earth had
swallowed up, through the mercy of God, the males born of
the house of Jacob, that the Egyptians went out into the
field to plough with teams of oxen and with the plough-
share. They worked (ploughed) upon them as the spoiler
in time of the harvest. But although they ploughed never
so hard they were unable to injure them, and thus they
increased abundantly.
[Another Version. — It came to pass at the time of birth
that they left their children in the field, and the Lord, who
swore to their ancestors that He would cause them to inherit
the land, tamed for them the beasts of the field, and
sustained and reared them, as it is said, ' And the beasts of
the field were at peace with thee.' When the Egyptians
saw that they (the Israelites) left their sons in the field,
and that the wild beasts helped them, and led them in the
forests until they had grown to manhood, they said, ' These
have surely reared them in the caverns and vaults of the
earth,' and each of them brought their ploughshare and
their plough, and ploughed above them, etc.]
