Commentaire sur L’Exode 2:10

משיתיהו The Targum renders this by שחלתיה which in the Aramaic language means drawing out. The word occurs in the Talmud, (Berakhot 8a) “as one draws out (משחל) a hair from milk”, and in the Hebrew language משיתיהו might be taken to mean “I have removed him”, just as, (Joshua 1:8) “it shall not depart (ימוש)”; (Numbers 14:44) “they did not depart (משו)”. Thus indeed did Menachem b. Seruk classify it (i. e. he put משיתיהו under the same root as מש and משו in the verses quoted; according to him a biliteral root מש, our ע"ו root מוש). I, however, say, that it should not be classified together with מש and וימוש but that it is to be derived from משה, and that it means taking out, similar to (II Samuel 22:17) “He draws me out (ימשני) from many waters”. For if it were of the same class as מש, it would not be correct to say משיתיהו (in the Kal), but הֲמישׁוֹתִיהוּ a Hiphil form, (since this root in the Kal means “to depart” or “go away” and not “to make a thing go away”), just as from קם one says הֲקִימוֹתִי and from שב — הֲשִׁיבוֹתִי and from הֲבִיאוֹתִי — בא; or one must say מַשְתִּיהוּ (which is also a form from מוש used in a causative sense), just as, (Zechariah 3:9) “And I will remove (וּמַשְׁתִּי) the iniquity of that land”. But מָשִׁיתִי can only be derived from a word whose verbal form has a ה as a root letter at the end of the word, as e. g., משה and בנה and עשה and צוה and פנה. When it wishes to say in regard to these verbs, “I have done so-and-so” (a Kal), a י takes the place of the ה, as in בָּנִיתִי and עָשִׂיתִי and צִוִּיתִי.

משיתיהו. As if to say: משכתיהו, “I pulled him forth.” We know that the word used here is also used elsewhere in connection with pulling something out of the water, as in Psalms 18,17 ימשני ממים רבים, “He drew me out of the mighty waters.” The construction follows the same pattern as with the root קנה the intransitive form of which parallel to ours would be קניתיהו, “I have acquired him, whereas the transitive mode, הפעיל would be יקנני, yakneyni in the future tense, “he will acquire me.”

ותקרא שמו משה, someone who will save others by pulling them out of their calamity.

"And she called his name, etc. and she said, etc." Here we find a difference from the way Yitzchak and Yaakov and the tribes were named. For all of them, the meaning came before the name itself. For Yitzchak, (Breisheet 21:6), [Sarah said] "anyone who hears will laugh (Yitzchak) etc." and that is when she named him Yitzchak. For Yaakov, (Breisheet 25:26), 'his hand was holding the heel (Ekev) [of Esav] and he called him Yaakov.' With the tribes, [Leah said], 'For Hashem saw ... and she called him Reuven." (Breisheet 29:32), "For Hashem heard ... and she called him Shimon." (Breisheet 29:33) and so on in this manner.

ותקרא שמו משה, “she named him Moses.” Rabbi Joseph Kimchi writes that according to the rules of grammar she should have called him משוי, if she wanted to name him in commemoration of his having been pulled from the water. Similar constructions such as קנוי from the root קנה, “to acquire,” describe something that has been acquired. However, Pharaoh’s daughter was not sufficiently familiar with the finer points of grammar in the (Hebrew?) language and did not know how to distinguish between a verb in the active mode and the same word when used as a past participle. The name she gave Moses was inspired by Divine input as is appropriate seeing that in due course this child would pull the Children of Israel out of their exile, i.e. מושה.

As one who extracts a hair from milk. כמשחל בניתא מחלבא is Aramaic for “taking a hair out of the milk.”

V. 10. משה verwandt mit: מצה, etwas mit Anstrengung aus dem Wasser ziehen ziehen, aussaugen; משח ist auch ein künstliches Trennen von allem andern Flüssigen. Sie hat ihn nicht משוי, einen aus dem Wasser Gezogenen, genannt, sondern משה, einen aus dem Wasser Rettenden. Vielleicht ist damit die ganze Richtung der Erziehung angedeutet, die die Fürstin ihrem Pflegesohne gab und der tiefe Eindruck, der von früh an dessen Charakter prägte. Mit seinem Namen sagte sie ihm: er soll sein Leben lang nicht vergessen, dass er ins Wasser geworfen war und ich ihn herausgezogen habe. Deshalb soll er sein Leben lang ein weiches Herz für die Leiden anderer haben und stets bereit sein, ein Helfer aus der Not, ein מֹשֶה, zu sein. Der hebräische Name hielt ferner stets in ihm das Bewusstsein seiner Herkunft wach. Die Prinzess hat sich gewiss bei der Mutter erkundigt, wie man den Gedanken hebräisch ausdrücke, sonst hätte sie ihn ägyptisch genannt. In diesem allen spricht sich die edle menschliche Gesinnung der Retterin Mosches aus.

ותקרא שמו משה, “she named him: ‘Moses.’” If you were to ask how she, the Egyptian gave him a Hebrew name? We have to answer that in fact she gave him an Egyptian name which was the equivalent of the word משה in Hebrew. The Torah contented itself with giving us his Hebrew name. An alternate interpretation: Pharaoh’s daughter had learned Hebrew after the Hebrews had come to Egypt and had made up a large percentage of the population. [Since Moses was born 130 years after Yaakov had come to Egypt, she had never known an Egypt without Hebrews. Ed.] Pharaoh had even given Joseph a Hebrew name as we know from Genesis 41,45.

ותאמר כי מן המים משיתהו, the reason why I called him thus is so that he in turn would rescue others from their problems, just as I have pulled him out of the water (in which he would have drowned.) She considered the find as decreed by a higher power (compare Daniel, 4,14) Moses was saved only so that in his life he would become the instrument of saving others.

She called his name Moshe. Basyah, the daughter of Pharaoh, merited that the name she chose for him became his permanent name, in commemoration of the miracle of his being drawn from the water and saved from death.

Perhaps all the matriarchs possessed a measure of the Holy Spirit which enabled them to appreciate the deeper meaning of these names. Batya did not possess Holy Spirit so that her naming Moses did not reflect special insights on her part as to the deeper significance of that name. The Torah alludes to this by reversing the sequence in which it reports Moses being named. It is very interesting to read what the Zohar section 3, page 276 in the Tikkunim 69 writes about the allusions contained in the name. G'd inspired Batya to name Moses as she did; she herself was totally unaware of the additional implications of the name Moses. All she was aware of was that inasmuch as she had drawn him from the water that event should be reflected in his name.

ותקרא שמו משה, “she named him: Moses.” According to our sages this proves that she converted (by immersing herself in the Nile) to Judaism and learned the Hebrew tongue.) She commemorated the miracles of his& having been saved from the waters of the Nile by expressing this in her choice of name. An alternate explanation: the daughter of Pharaoh did not know any Hebrew, but the plain meaning of the text is that his mother Yocheved called him Moses. When the daughter of Pharaoh wanted to know the meaning of this name, she explained to her that in Hebrew the word משה derived from המשכה, means drawing something, pulling it. When hearing this, the daughter of Pharaoh agreed wholeheartedly with the name given to this infant, for in her own words: “I have pulled him out of the water.” She added that in the future she hoped that what she had done for that infant he would do for others when he would grow up, that is, that he would pull the Jewish people out of Egypt. (Midrash hagadol)

It is also possible that Batya was very careful not to publicise the name Moses and what had inspired it seeing she had flouted both her father's and her people's wishes that the Jewish boy babies be killed. She did call the child Moses. The words: "for I have drawn him from the water," were revealed only by the Torah, not by her.