She had a lovely face, a slender figure, graceful manners, and command over the magic of the lotus. The charm of a woman in love shone through her completely.
—"The Beloved with the Charm of Water," Tomb of Neferhotep
Over the 464 years from the Eighteenth Dynasty to the Nineteenth Dynasty, Egypt gradually became the world's first great empire.
When the Israelites first migrated to Egypt, there were only seventy of them. Several centuries later, Israel's descendants had flourished and multiplied until they outnumbered Egypt's population, which filled the Pharaoh with unease.
He feared that one day, the Israelites would join Egypt's enemies in attacking the people of Egypt, then rule this land. So the Pharaoh made the Israelites do the harshest and most exhausting labor, so they would have no energy left to reproduce.
Later, the Pharaoh ordered the midwives to drown all Hebrew baby boys. At that time, a desperate mother gave birth to a son. She could not bear to drown the child, so she took a basket of bulrushes, coated it with pitch and bitumen, placed the baby inside, then pushed the basket into the reeds and let the child drift down the Nile River.
Except during the days of flooding, the Nile River was usually very calm and well suited to boats.
Besides flooding, the river also had animals such as hippos and crocodiles. The little boy's sister could not bear the thought of her brother drifting through such a dangerous river, so she followed him all the way, wanting to see what fate awaited him.
This fortunate boy avoided crocodiles' enormous jaws, battles with hippos, and collisions with large ships along the way, eventually arriving at the place where an Egyptian princess bathed.
She ordered her maidservants to open the basket and discovered a