She is tall, refined, her hair, long and black, held in line with a diadem, a snake bracelet wound round her slim upper arm. And she moves slowly, reciting Egyptian poetry, her fingers strumming the reeds as she walks – nature’s harp. She hears a mewling from the banks of the Nile, stops, and parts the reeds. And, lo, there below in a glade, pinned by a cluster of rushes, floats a basket, sealed with bitumen and pitch, water-proof, a perfect little ark. Though too far to reach without getting muddy, she stretches out her arm. In that gesture, another arm extends from her body to take hold of the basket.[1] And as she lifts the wicker lid, light pours out, painting the green reeds emerald, the water sapphire. An infant, a Hebrew baby, perhaps abandoned by his mother.
The soldiers were constantly inspecting their houses, taking the infants they’d find squalling, when the mothers were no longer able to stifle the cries. They’d grab the baby by the heel, carry him out flailing upside down, and leave a cacophony of wailing behind. She had seen the flashing swords, heard their threats: “Then we’ll take all the children.” But, for now, it was only the male newborns that they really wanted.
So sounded Pharoah’s decree: “Throw the infant male progeny of the Hebrew slaves in the Nile. Drown them.” And her father, dismissive of her protests, adjured: “They are like too many rats infesting our land.”
This child will not drown. I can save one soul from his death-toll. This child will be mine.
And, crouching, she took the infant in her arms, and called to her maidservants: “I have found a Hebrew baby. See, he is circumcised.”
Like a wind through the reeds, there was a sudden rush of whispers among the maids, but she only caught a few furtive words: defy… Hebrew-slave child… barren years… Pharaoh’s decree… her own father… the oracle of the magi.
But these were only hieroglyphics, rumors she could choose not to hear or decipher.
Then, from out from the rushes, sprang a young girl, about five or six years old. Barefoot and muddy, she tripped over her words, “Your majesty. Princess, I mean. Your highness….”
“Yes?”
“I know a woman who could nurse the child for you. She just lost her own baby – the soldiers’ inspection yesterday, you know – and she is full and aching with milk.”
“Perfect. Yes, go summon her.”
And we know the girl – Miriam, called to sweeten those briny waters, mayim marim, of their embittered lives, va-yimreru et hayekhem.
And we know the nurse-maid – Yocheved – whom Miriam went to fetch, so that the baby’s first years were at his mother’s breast, and the first words were Hebrew lullabies: Ehiyeh asher ehiyeh, ilulei, ilulei, halilah hazeh, halilah hazeh, ilulei, ilulei, ehiyeh asher ehiyeh. Come what may, come what may….
And when the mother came, Pharaoh’s daughter said: “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will pay your wages.” Every week she would visit, months turned into years. And everyone in the land knew this was her son, and the nursemaid was hired to preserve her figure. (Rumors about whom the father could be, that maybe there never had been a pregnancy, were thoroughly quashed).
Three years later, she came back to take the child.
“I will call him Moses,” she declared, “my son, Meses, Moses. In Hebrew, you say, Moshe. For from the Reeds, I drew him out, mishitihu.”
She embraced the nursemaid, whose name she never knew. And told her the dream: “One day, he will lead you through a Sea of Reeds just as I found him. But there the waters will part for him.”
Edward Long's painting of Batya 1886, City of Bristol Museum
***
Decades passed. Eighty years to be exact. It was time for the Exodus. And God remembered her, and summoned her to the same place by the Nile where she had drawn Moshe from the water.
“You were once Pharoah’s daughter. But now I name you, Bityah, my daughter. Moshe was not your son, yet you called him your son; so, though not my daughter, I will call you my daughter [biti] as it says: “These were the sons of Bityah, daughter of Pharaoh, whom Mered married” (1 Chron. 4:18).[2]
Though Moshe had ten names, God chose to address him solely by the name she had given him: “God called him out of the midst of the [burning] bush, Moshe, Moshe” (Exod 3:4).[3]
And again, at the inauguration of the Mishkan [tabernacle]: “And God called to Moshe, and spoke to him out of the Tent of Meeting…” (Lev 1:1).[4]
What’s in a name? An inkling of prophecy, the Holy Spirit, the Ineffable calling.
Eventually, the beautiful Batyah married Caleb (also called Mered), one of the twelve princes, of the tribe of Judah. And she, princess of Egypt, became the mother of princes and kings in Israel.
[1] Based on Exodus Rabbah 1:23. The biblical verse states: “She sent her maid/arm (amatah) and took it [the basket]” (Exod 2:5).
[2] Leviticus Rabbah 1:3.
[3] M. Kallah Rabbati 3:23.
[4] Leviticus Rabbah 1:3.
