There is a widespread tendency to question the truth of this story because, so it is said, a similar one was told of Sargon, king of Akkad, about a thousand years earlier, but the precise force of the Sargon legend is far from clear. In addition, if we deny the truth of the story, it is virtually impossible to understand how Moses could ever have reached his influential position. We are not told how long Jochebed nursed her son, but in the society of the time a baby boy was not normally weaned until