Sotah 12b (יב:) — the Talmud in English

“And Pharaoh’s daughter went down to bathe in the Nile.”

Rabbi Yohanan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai: This teaches that she went down to bathe from the idols of her father,

meaning that she went down to immerse in the river for the sake of conversion.

And likewise it says

and it is likewise evident that the expression “bathing” is used where one cleanses oneself of sins, from what is written:

“When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and so on,”

thus the expression “bathing” is stated when a person repents and cleanses himself of his sin.

“And her maidens walked, and so on.” Rabbi Yohanan said: This walking is not

that Pharaoh’s daughter’s maidens walked,

but an expression of death. And likewise it says

concerning Esau:

“Behold, I am going to die.”

And the Gemara explains what death befell her maidens. It is stated:

“And she saw the basket among the reeds,”

when Pharaoh’s daughter saw the basket containing Moses in the water and wanted to take him out.

When they saw that she was attempting to rescue Moses,

when her maidens saw that she wanted to save Moses,

her maidens said to her,

to Pharaoh’s daughter:

“Our mistress, the practice of the world is that when a flesh-and-blood king issues a decree,

even if

the entire world does not fulfill it,

at the very least

his sons and members of his household fulfill it; yet you are transgressing your father’s decree,”

which ordered the killing of all the male children.

The angel

Gabriel

came and struck them

to the ground,

and they died. This is the meaning of the expression of death stated regarding Pharaoh’s daughter’s maidens: “And her maidens walked”—through this walking they died at the hand of Gabriel.

“And she sent her amah, and took it.”

And

Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Neḥemya

disagreed about what “amah” was that she sent to take the basket.

One said

that she sent her

hand

to take the basket,

and one said

that she sent her

maidservant

to take the basket.

The one who says “her hand”

—the one who interpreted the verse as meaning that she sent her hand—explained this way because

it is written “amah,”

and not “na’aratah,” as her maidens are called at the beginning of the verse [Rashash in Midrash Rabba].

And the one who says “her maidservant”

interpreted it this way, rather than as referring to her hand,

because “her hand” is not written.

And we object: How can

the one who says “her maidservant”

say that she sent her maidservant

when you said that Gabriel came and struck them to the ground,

and they died, so there was no one left to send?

And we answer:

He left one for her,

for Gabriel did not kill all her maidens, but left one for her, because

it is not the way

for

a king’s daughter

a royal daughter

to stand alone;

she would not go by herself. She therefore sent the maidservant who had remained alive to take the basket out of the water.

And we object:

But according to the one who says

that she sent her

hand, why write “her hand”

rather than allowing us to avoid the error of thinking that the verse refers to her maidservant?

And we answer:

This teaches us

that it was written in the form “amah” in order to teach

that it stretched out extensively:

her hand was too short to reach the basket, and the Holy One, blessed be He, performed a miracle for her and extended her hand sixty cubits; therefore the Torah wrote “amah.”

As the Master said: And likewise you find this with Pharaoh’s daughter’s amah,

for the Holy One, blessed be He, extended her hand so that she could reach the basket.

And likewise you find this with the teeth of the wicked, as it is written, “You have broken the teeth of the wicked”; and Reish Lakish said: Do not read it as “you have broken” but as “you have extended,”

and he expounds this regarding Og, king of Bashan: he uprooted a mountain in order to throw it upon Israel, but the Holy One, blessed be He, brought ants that bored through the mountain, causing it to fall around his neck. Og wanted to remove the mountain from himself, but the Holy One, blessed be He, performed a miracle: his teeth grew out in both directions, preventing him from removing it. Moses then came and killed him.

“And she opened it and saw him, the child.” It should have said, “And she saw him.”

It should have been written “vatere,” meaning that she saw the child. Why, then, did the Torah write “vate’ra’ehu”?

Rabbi Yosei, son of Rabbi Ḥanina, said: She saw that the Divine Presence was with him,

and therefore it says “vate’ra’ehu,” indicating that she saw the Divine Presence, alluded to by the letters heh and vav, which rested upon him.

“And behold, a na’ar was crying.”

And we object: At the beginning of the verse it says, “And she saw him, the child”; therefore

it calls him

the Torah called him

a child, and

if so, why at the end of the verse

does it call him

does the Torah call him

a na’ar,

which implies that he was grown and not a child?

And we answer:

The tanna taught: He was a child

Moses was a child

but his voice was like that of a na’ar,

but his voice was like the voice of a na’ar. Therefore, when his voice was mentioned—that he was crying—it says, “And behold, a na’ar was crying,” since the sound of his crying was that of a na’ar.

These are the words of Rabbi Yehuda.

Rabbi Neḥemya said to him: If so,

according to your words,

you have made Moses our teacher physically defective,

for his voice was not like that of a child but like that of a na’ar.

Rather,

what is meant by the statement that he was a na’ar?

It teaches that his mother made him a na’ar’s wedding canopy in the basket,

because

she said: Perhaps

he will die, and I

will not merit

seeing him enter

his wedding canopy;

therefore he is called a na’ar, since he was like a grown youth in the fact that his mother made him a na’ar’s wedding canopy.

“And she took pity on him and said: This is one of the children of the Hebrews.” —

How did she know?

From where did Pharaoh’s daughter know that Moses was Jewish?

Rabbi Yosei, son of Rabbi Ḥanina, said: She saw that he was circumcised,

and from this she understood that he was Jewish.

“This” —

Rabbi Yohanan said: This teaches that she prophesied without knowing it.

What was the prophecy?

“This one will fall,”

for Moses was the last one to be cast into the Nile,

and no other one will fall

into the Nile, because on that very day the decree, “Every son who is born, you shall cast into the Nile,” was nullified.

And this is

what proves

what Rabbi Elazar said: What is the meaning of that which is written, “And when they say to you: Seek out the necromancers and the yideonim, who chirp and mutter”?

When they tell you to go learn the future from necromancers and yideonim, know that they

see,

they perceive some sign, but

they do not know what they see;

and likewise they

mutter, but do not know what they mutter.

And the proof of this is that Pharaoh’s astrologers

saw

in the stars

that the savior of Israel would be struck through water,

that he would be punished through water. Therefore

they arose and decreed: “Every son who is born, you shall cast into the Nile,”

thinking that this was the end of the savior of Israel.

But ultimately they erred, for

once Moses was cast

when Moses was in the basket in the water,

they said,

the astrologers,

“We no longer see,”

for they no longer saw

that sign,

that the savior of Israel would be struck through water. They understood from this that the savior of Israel had already been struck, and this was indeed correct, since while he was in the water he was considered to have been struck through water. At that moment the sign disappeared from the stars. Therefore

they nullified their decree;

they canceled the decree because they thought that he had already been struck through water.

But

in truth,

they did not know

Pharaoh’s astrologers did not know

that

the savior of Israel, namely Moses,

would be struck at the Waters of Meriva,

for Moses was punished by being prevented from entering the Land of Israel because he struck the rock in order to bring water out of it instead of speaking to it [and the sign disappeared only while he was in the Nile, when he was considered to be struck].

And this is what

Rabbi Ḥama, son of Rabbi Ḥanina,

said: What is the meaning of that which is written, “These are the Waters of Meriva, where they contended”? “These”

are the waters

that Pharaoh’s astrologers saw, and they erred

in thinking that he would die in the water when he was cast into the Nile.

And this is what

Moses said:

“Six hundred thousand on foot, and so on,”

and the Gemara teaches that the meaning of the word “regel” is as in “because of,” for

Moses said to Israel: Because of me, all of you were saved.

Since the Egyptians thought that the savior of Israel, who was Moses, had died in the Nile, they canceled the decree, “Every son who is born, you shall cast into the Nile.” It follows that the lives of all the Israelites who were not cast into the Nile were saved in Moses’s merit.

Rabbi Ḥanina bar Pappa said: That day

when Moses was in the Nile

was the twenty-first of Nisan. The ministering angels said before the Holy One, blessed be He: Sovereign of the Universe, the one who is destined to sing the song at the Sea on this day

for the splitting of the Sea of Reeds took place on the seventh day after they left Egypt, which was the twenty-first of Nisan

will be struck on this day.

Rabbi Aḥa bar Ḥanina said: That day, the sixth

of Sivan, was. The ministering angels said before the Holy One, blessed be He: Sovereign of the Universe, the one who is destined to receive the Torah from Mount Sinai on this day

for the Torah was given on the sixth of Sivan

will be struck on this day.

And we object: Yoḥeved gave birth to Moses and hid him for three months. Then, when she saw that she could no longer conceal him, she placed him in a basket. The Gemara discusses when those three months occurred.

Granted, according to the one who says

that Moses was in the Nile

on the sixth of Sivan, one can find three lunar months,

there are three months,

as the Master said: Moses died on the seventh of Adar and was born on the seventh of Adar. And

it follows that

from the seventh of Adar

when Moses was born

until the sixth of Sivan,

when she placed him in the Nile, there were

three lunar months: the greater part of the first

Moses was in the Nile on the twenty-first of Nisan. But according to the one who says that he was in the Nile on the twenty-first of Nisan,

how can one find

three months between his birth and the time he was in the Nile? According to the calculation, less than a month and a half passed between the seventh of Adar and the twenty-first of Nisan.

And we answer:

That year was a leap year.

There were therefore two months of Adar, and the calculation is:

the greater part of the first

from the seventh of Adar until the end of the month, which is considered a full month;

and the greater part of the last

from the beginning of Nisan until the twenty-first of Nisan, which is likewise considered a full month;

and the middle one was complete

the second month of Adar was complete. Thus there were three months.

“And his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter: Shall I go and call for you a nursing woman from the Hebrews?”

And we infer that Miriam asked Pharaoh’s daughter to bring specifically a nursing woman from the Hebrews.

And what is different

about Hebrew women

that she specifically requested a Hebrew woman rather than an Egyptian woman?

This teaches that they brought Moses to all the Egyptian women, but he did not

agree

to nurse,

because

the Holy One, blessed be He, said: Shall a mouth that is destined to speak with the Divine Presence nurse from something impure?

And this is what is written: “Whom shall He teach knowledge,” and so on, “and whom shall He make understand the message?

That is, whom will the Holy One, blessed be He, teach Torah?

Those who are weaned from milk and removed from the breasts,

those who have been weaned and separated from impure milk, who did not nurse from impure breasts. From this we learn that the Divine Presence does not speak with one who nursed from an impure woman. Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, did not want Moses to nurse from the Egyptian women, since He was destined to speak with him.

“And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her: Go, and so on,”

and the maiden went and called the child’s mother —

Rabbi Elazar said: This teaches that she went

Miriam

with the haste of a maiden,

like a young woman in the fullness of her strength.

Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani said: “The maiden”—because she concealed her words,

for Miriam concealed from Pharaoh’s daughter that she was Moses’s sister and that she was bringing his mother to nurse him.

“And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her: Take this child.” -

Rabbi Ḥama, son of Rabbi Ḥanina, said: She prophesied,

Pharaoh’s daughter prophesied,

but did not know what she was prophesying,

for she said

“helikhi,”

which means

“this one is yours,”

and in truth he was her son.

“And I will give you your wages.” —

Rabbi Ḥama, son of Rabbi Ḥanina, said: Is it not enough for the righteous that what they lost is returned to them,

for here Pharaoh’s daughter returned Moses to his mother Yoḥeved,

but they are also given their wages,

for she paid her for nursing him.

“And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took,” and so on. —

The Gemara infers that the verse emphasized

“the sister of Aaron,” and not “the sister of Moses.” Rav Amram said in the name of Rav—and some say that Rav Naḥman said in the name of Rav: This teaches that she prophesied when she was the sister of Aaron,

that is, when Moses had not yet been born and only Aaron had been born, for Aaron was older than Moses.