Who Saved Moses?

Parashat Shemot, Exodus 1:1 - 6:1

By Monique B, UMJC Executive Director

Before Moshe could save the Jewish people, six women saved his skin. In the opening pages of Exodus, when Moshe finally gets to tell his own story, he takes special care to honor the women to whom he owes his very existence.  

First there is a pair of midwives, Shifrah and Puah. Pharaoh commands them to murder Jewish boys as soon as they are born. This runs against their very nature as midwives. These women delight in welcoming life, not extinguishing it. So they engage in creative forms of resistance, quietly delivering Jewish boys to life, covering up the evidence of their birth, and lying to Pharaoh all along: “These Hebrew women are baby delivery machines! We can’t get there fast enough before POOF, another baby shoots out!” Thanks to Shifrah and Puah, Moshe’s life is not threatened on his very first day. Instead, the real threats come three months later.

Then there is Moshe’s mother, the woman who gave him life. Yocheved, a daughter of Levi, gives birth to her third and final child. The boy is beautiful, she tries to hide him. At three months old, his cries grow too loud. So she engages in her own creative form of resistance, just like Shifrah and Puah before her. Pharaoh’s decree, remember, was that all Jewish baby boys should be thrown into the Nile. She puts her little boy in the Nile, but protects him in a waterproof box slathered with pitch. The word for this box is teva, the same word for Noah’s rudderless ark in Genesis.

Next comes Miriam, Moshe’s sister, who watches over him carefully as his waterborne cradle rests in the reeds of the Nile. And along comes the daughter of the very Pharaoh whose evil decree had created this predicament. What does she discover in the waters of the Nile, but a helpless Jewish baby boy! How does she know he’s Jewish? A quick check inside the diaper would make this clear. Moshe begins to cry, and she has compassion on him.   

Miriam springs into action, jumping into the royal entourage with a brilliant and timely suggestion: “Would you like me to find a Jewish wet nurse for this child?” “Go,” says Pharaoh’s daughter. There is urgency to her command, as newborns must eat every two to three hours to survive. Miriam fetches Yocheved, and Pharaoh’s daughter makes a brilliant, life-honoring proposal which begins with a subversive turn of phrase: “heliki et hayeled hazeh” can be translated as “take this child” but, as Rashi observes, it also means in a subtle way “this child belongs to you.” Here, Pharaoh’s daughter honors what is true, that this is the child’s true mother. She commands Yocheved to nurse her own son, she will even pay her wages, and bring the boy to live in the palace when he’s ready to be weaned.  

Imagine a soldier barging into Yocheved’s home in search of male Jewish babies. “Get out of here!” Amram can say. “This is a ward of the palace. My wife is nursing this child for the daughter of Pharaoh. If you touch this child, you will surely be executed.” Imagine Hitler’s daughter doing the same thing – hiding or providing for a helpless Jewish child, adopting it as her own, using her proximity to power to protect the redeemer of Israel, even as her father burns the whole world down.  

It’s precisely because her actions are so extraordinary that Pharaoh’s daughter receives two distinct honors. The first is the honor of naming Moshe, who is forever remembered by the name chosen by his royal redeemer: “Moshe, because I drew him from the water” (Exod 2:10). The second honor she receives is a new name for herself, Batya (or Bithia). You’ll find reference to this in the 4th chapter of 1 Chronicles, where we learn that she later married a man from the tribe of Judah named Mered. It’s an extraordinary honor – because she saves Moshe, Bat-Pharoah becomes Bat-Yah. The daughter of an anti-Semitic despot becomes a daughter of the God of Israel.   

The final woman to save Moshe’s life is his Midianite wife, Zipporah. Moshe first saves her life by scaring away a group of shepherds encroaching on her father’s land. He is rewarded with her hand in marriage. Zipporah returns the favor while they are en route to Egypt. They are sleeping at an inn when God comes to kill Moshe. Why does the same God who just gave Moshe redemptive marching orders and a stick full of magic tricks suddenly want to kill him? Zipporah figures it out – because the man who is to serve as the redeemer of all Israel has not bothered to circumcise his own son! This is the most basic entry-level mitzvah, and Moshe has failed in his duty to perform it. So she takes on the task herself.  

She’s not a skilled mohel who has done this many times, and can manage the procedure painlessly. So there must have been plenty of blood, screaming, and tears – both from the wounded child and the traumatized mother. No wonder she throws the foreskin at Moshe’s feet and expresses her disgust: “You are truly a groom of blood to me. A groom of blood because of this circumcision” (Exod 4:25). Her meaning is clear – I’ll never forgive you for making me hurt my own son to save your hypocritical life. At this point their marriage appears to disintegrate. Zipporah doesn’t go to Egypt with Moshe; she likely returns to her father Yitro.  

It’s curious that Moshe includes this scene depicting the very worst day of his marriage, and doesn’t give himself the last word in their argument. A more vainglorious hero writing his autobiography would invent some excuse for his oversight, or find a way to make his estranged wife seem crazy. But this is what sets the Hebrew Bible apart from other ancient epics like the Iliad or the Egyptian Story of Senehat. The Bible is not afraid of revealing its heroes’ personal shortcomings, neither does it gloss over some very colorful marital spats. 

I find myself very moved by the women of Parashat Shemot, and grateful that Moshe took the time to honor them in the opening pages of his autobiography. There’s a very clear message: I cannot tell you my own story without first telling theirs. I would be nothing without these women. The Jewish people would still be enslaved in Egypt if not for these women. Remember them as I do. 

What all these women have in common is their willingness to engage in subversive action to save and preserve life. Shifrah and Puah spin tall tales to protect their tiniest patients. Yocheved finds a way to put her baby boy in the Nile without actually drowning him. Miriam finds a way to ensure that Moshe can return to his biological family alive and politically protected. Batya finds a way to save a baby marked for slaughter by her own father by hiring the child’s own mother. And Zipporah finds a way to save her husband from death by substituting for him, performing the act he should have performed when his son was given life.  

Later in the book of Exodus, the men confront injustice, and they do it in masculine ways, through conflict, palace intrigue, plagues, and war. But until that day comes, the women must confront injustice the only way they can, by finding loopholes, telling lies, whispering secrets, and saving lives. May their subversive and courageous acts serve as continued inspiration to us today.