Library 3.0

Pharaoh’s Daughter

One of Moses’ Mothers

She was a princess—the daughter of Egypt’s godlike king, Pharaoh. Some have tried to make a case that she was the infamous Hatshepsut—one of the most remarkable and powerful women in Egypt’s history, but there is not enough evidence to make a positive identification.

Whoever this princess was, it seems that she could have had her own child or adopted almost any child she chose. Instead she rescued a foreign child, a slave child, a despised Hebrew child. Feeling sorry for this tiny baby, she took him out of the bulrushes of the filthy Nile River, where his mother had placed him in his tiny papyrus boat for fear the Egyptians would kill him. The kindhearted princess cradled him in her arms and named him Moses because she “took him out of the water.” What his Hebrew name was before that we don’t know.

Ironically the princess decided she needed help with baby Moses. As God would have it, Moses’ sister, Miriam, was hiding nearby, watching what happened to her baby brother. She hurried forward and offered to find a Hebrew woman to nurse and care for the child, and the princess agreed. Miriam immediately took Moses back to his own mother, Jochebed. Moses then had two mothers, just as some adopted children do today.

Pharaoh’s single daughter was one of the great unsung heroes in God’s loving plan to save us. So we owe her a debt of eternal gratitude for stepping out in compassion and courage to adopt Moses.

To have courage for whatever comes in life—everything lies in that.

—Saint Teresa of Avila