The Talmud identifies her as Bithiah, mentioned in I Chronicles 4:18 Bithiah married Mered who is identified as Caleb, one of the righteous spies (Sanhedrin 19b). Midrashic sources suggest that Bat Par’oh left Egypt with Moses when he fled to Midian. But maybe Bat Par’oh actually did know Hebrew and consciously chose a name that had both Egyptian and Hebrew resonance. Scholars ask: Did Bat Par’oh actually know Hebrew? Surely she gave the baby an Egyptian name, and the Torah “Hebraized” the source of the name. The Torah, though, gives a Hebrew derivation for the name: “ ki min hamayim meshitihu,” for I drew him out of the water. When she first named him, she called him Moses in Egyptian Mose means son.
She must have made sure he learned Hebrew…and she herself must have learned some Hebrew. She must have kept him in touch with his family members. When she raised Moses, she apparently wanted him to know that he was an Israelite. She saved Moses not only as an act of compassion, and not only as an act of defiance against her father’s cruel policies she saved the Israelite baby boy because of her own identification with the suffering of the Israelites. Although a daughter of Pharaoh, she had humanitarian instincts that transcended her father’s palace. Although an Egyptian, she felt a bond with the oppressed Israelites. While this might have simply been one spontaneous act of mercy, perhaps it reflected something more about Bat Par’oh. (The Torah never tells us her name, only identifying her as Bat Par’oh, Pharaoh’s daughter.)īat Par’oh saved baby Moses even though she knew that Pharaoh had ordered the death of all Israelite baby boys. The answer to these questions leads back to one person: Pharaoh’s daughter.
Later, when Moses assumed leadership of the Israelites, he spoke an eloquent Hebrew. When God told Moses to go to Egypt to lead the Israelites to freedom, He told Moses that his brother Aaron would meet him and help him. How did Moses know they were his brothers? How did he identify himself as an Israelite if he had been raised as an Egyptian?
The Torah informs us that when Moses grew up “he went out to his brothers,” i.e. Moses was nursed by his own mother, but once he was weaned he became the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. Moses was raised by Pharaoh’s daughter who had saved him as a baby floating in a basket in the Nile river.
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