The midrashim about the story of Moses’s rescue are replete with wondrous acts and miracles, that are meant to graphically illustrate the threat to the infant’s life and the divine intervention that was manifested in his rescue. The reader gains the impression that Moses was not like all men, and that his qualities were already evident while still a child. The miraculous deliverance of the infant Moses symbolizes the future salvation of the people of Israel from Egypt, where miraculous events would occur, as well.
The Torah she-bi-khetav: Lit. "the written Torah." The Bible; the Pentateuch; Tanakh (the Pentateuch, Prophets and Hagiographia)Torah relates that the daughter of Pharaoh found Moses when she went down to bathe in the Nile (Ex. 2:5). In the midrashic expansion, she did not go there to bathe, but to cleanse herself from the idols of her father’s house (that is, to perform the immersion of conversion) (BT Megillah 13a). This exegesis illuminates the spiritual qualities of the daughter of Pharaoh, by merit of which she was chosen to be the one to find and raise Moses.
The Rabbis magnify the test to which the daughter of Pharaoh was put when she saw the ark. In the midrashic account, when her handmaidens saw that she intended to rescue Moses, they attempted to dissuade her, and persuade her to heed her father. They said to her: “Our mistress, it is the way of the world that when a king issues a decree, it is not heeded by the entire world, but his children and the members of his household do observe it, and you wish to transgress your father’s decree?” Immediately, Gabriel appeared and beat them to the ground, and they died (BT Suspected adulteressSotah 12b). These handmaidens represent the internal voice of the daughter of Pharaoh, who might have been undecided as to whether she should disobey her father’s edict. The angel Gabriel removes this obstacle and reinforces her resolve to draw Moses forth from the Nile.
An additional miracle was performed when the ark was drawn forth from the water. Ex. 2:5 attests: “and she sent her slave girl [amatah] to fetch it.” The Rabbis have different understandings of the word amatah, which has two possible meanings: “her slave girl,” or “her hand.” According to one view, she sent her slave girl to draw forth the ark. Although the angel Gabriel had killed her handmaidens (see above), he left her one, because it is not customary for the daughter of a king to stand unattended, and it was this slave girl who was sent to rescue Moses from the Nile (as was fitting for the daughter of royalty). In another hermeneutical approach, that understands amatah as “her hand,” the daughter of Pharaoh herself drew forth Moses from the river. Since it was not meet for the daughter of Pharaoh to trouble herself and go down into the river to try and catch the floating ark, a miracle was performed for her, and her arm stretched out until it could reach the ark (Ex. Rabbah 1:23); one tradition has her arm extending to a length of sixty cubits (Lekach Tov, [Buber ed.] 2:10). This exegesis emphasizes the personal involvement of the daughter of Pharaoh in Moses’s rescue, as she herself attests in Ex. 2:10: “I drew him out of the water.” In the fresco from Dura-Europos (above), the daughter of Pharaoh stands naked in the water and draws Moses from the Nile. This painting supports the hermeneutical approach that "amatah" literally means her hand.
In the Torah’s account of what happened after the ark was drawn forth (Ex. 2:6): “When she opened it, she saw that it [va-tire-hu] was a child […]. She took pity on it.” The Rabbis ask what caused the daughter of Pharaoh to take pity on Moses and keep him alive, contrary to her father’s command. The midrash replies that she saw the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence) with him, and the wording “va-tire-hu” alludes to the name of God (Ex. Rabbah 1:24). Another approach is based on the continuation of the verse, that relates that the child’s weeping motivated the daughter of Pharaoh: “She saw that it was a child, a boy crying. She took pity on it.” The Rabbis maintain that divine intervention was needed for the infant to cry, which they learn from a close reading of v. 6. The beginning of the verse refers to Moses as a “child [yeled],” and then calls him a “boy [na’ar],” from which the Rabbis learn that Moses was a yeled, that is, an infant, but he conducted himself as a na’ar (an older child). Thus, when the daughter of Pharaoh opened the ark, Moses, unlike other babies, did not cry. The angel Gabriel immediately came and hit Moses so that he would cry, thereby arousing the compassion of the daughter of Pharaoh (Ex. Rabbah 1:24). Another tradition claims that the daughter of Pharaoh suffered from leprosy and she went down to bathe in the water to be cured of her disease. When she touched Moses’s ark, she was miraculously cured, leading her to take pity on the child and love him so strongly (Ex. Rabbah 1:23).
The Torah relates that when the daughter of Pharaoh saw Moses, she declared (Ex. 2:6): “This must be a Hebrew child,” to which the midrash adds that Moses was born circumcised (Ex. Rabbah 1:20); when she saw that the infant was circumcised, she realized that he was a Hebrew child (Ex. Rabbah 1:24). Another midrash explains that when the daughter of Pharaoh made this statement, she was unconsciously prophesying: “This” child fell into the Nile, but none other of the children of the Hebrews did so (she prophesied that Moses was the last Hebrew child to be cast into the river). She was correct, because Pharaoh’s astrologers saw in the stars that the one destined to save Israel would be punished through water, and they therefore had Pharaoh issue his decree (Ex. 1:22): “Every boy that is born you shall throw into the Nile,” in order to kill the deliverer. Once Moses had been placed in the water, the astrologers said: “We no longer see that sign,” and they canceled the decree (BT Sotah 12b). Consequently, the daughter of Pharaoh was prophetic, because Pharaoh’s decree was revoked after Moses had been placed in the water. The midrash adds that the astrologers were correct to a certain degree, since Moses would be punished by water when he sinned at the Waters of Meribah (Num. 20:7–13).
