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.