Bithiah

The Pharaoh's daughter ( he, בַּת־פַּרְעֹה, lit=daughter of Pharaoh) in the story of the finding of Moses in the biblical Book of Exodus is an important, albeit minor, figure in Abrahamic religions. Though some variations of her story exist, the general consensus among Jews, Christians, and Muslims is that she is the adoptive mother of the prophet Moses. Muslims identify her with Asiya, the Great Royal Wife of the pharaoh. In either version, she saved Moses from certain death from both the Nile river and from the Pharaoh. As she ensured the well-being of Moses throughout his early life, she played an essential role in lifting the Hebrew slaves out of bondage in Egypt, their journey to the Promised Land, and the establishment of the Ten Commandments.

Her name

The Book of Exodus (Exodus 2:5) does not give a name to Pharaoh's daughter, or to her father; she is referred to in Hebrew as simply the Bat-Paroh ( he, בת־פרעה), a Hebrew phrase that literally translates to "daughter of Pharaoh." The Book of Jubilees (Jubilees 47:5) and Josephus both name her as Thermouthis ( el, Θερμουθις), also transliterated as Tharmuth and Thermutis, the Greek name of Renenutet, the Egyptian snake deity.Josephus
Antiquities of the Jews 9,5
/ref> Meanwhile, Leviticus Rabbah (Leviticus Rabbah 1:3) and the Books of Chronicles (1 Chronicles 4:18) refer to her as Bit-Yah ( he, בתיה, lit=daughter of Yahweh), also transliterated as Batyah and Bithiah, and it is written that she is given the name for her adoption of Moses, that because she had made Moses her son, Yahweh would make her his daughter. Also in the Books of Chronicles (1 Chronicles 4:18), she is called ''ha-yehudiyyah'' (), which some English translations of the Bible treat as a given name, Jehudijah (), notably the King James Version, but the word is actually an appelative, there to indicate that Pharaoh's daughter was no longer a pagan. In Christianity, she is also named as Merris and Merrhoe.

In Judaism

In the Jewish narrative, Pharaoh's daughter first appears in the Book of Exodus, in Exodus 2:5-10. The passage describes her discovery of the Hebrew child, Moses, in the rushes of the Nile River and her willful defiance of her father's orders that all male Hebrew children be drowned in the "Yeor" ( he, יְאוֹר) (Nile), instead taking the child, whom she knows to be a Hebrew, and raising him as her own son. The Talmud and the Midrash Vayosha provide some additional backstory to the event, saying that she had visited the Nile that morning not to bathe for the purpose of hygiene but for ritual purification, treating the river as if it were a mikveh, as she had grown tired of people's idolatrous ways, and that she first sought to nurse Moses herself but he would not take her milk and so, she called for a Hebrew wet nurse, who so happened to be Moses' biological mother, Jochebed. Rabbinic literature tells a significantly different take on the events that day, portraying Pharaoh's daughter as having suffered from a skin disease (possibly leprosy), the pain of which only the cold waters of the Nile could relieve, and that these lesions healed when she found Moses. It also describes an encounter with the archangel Gabriel, who kills two of her handmaidens for trying to dissuade her from rescuing Moses. After Moses is weaned, Pharaoh's daughter gives him his name, ''Moshé'' ( he, מֹשֶה) purportedly taken from the word ''māšāh'' (), because she drew him from the water, but some modern scholars disagree with the Biblical etymology of the name, believing it to have been based on the Egyptian root m-s, meaning "son" or "born of," a popular element in Egyptian names (e. g. Ramesses. Thutmose) used in conjunction with a namesake deity. In her later years, Pharaoh's daughter devotes herself to Moses, and to Yahweh; she celebrates the first Passover Seder

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases