Exodus 2:6

6 and opened [it] and saw him--the boy--and it was a lad weeping, and she had compassion for him and said, "This [must be] from the boys of the Hebrews."

Exodus 2:6 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 2:6

And when she had opened it
The ark, for it was shut or covered over, though doubtless there were some apertures for respiration:

she saw the child [in it], and, behold, the babe wept;
and which was a circumstance, it is highly probable, greatly affected the king's daughter, and moved her compassion to it; though an Arabic writer says {p}, she heard the crying of the child in the ark, and therefore sent for it:

and she had compassion on him, and said, this is one of the Hebrews'
children;
which she might conclude from its being thus exposed, knowing her father's edict, and partly from the form and beauty of it, Hebrew children not being swarthy and tawny as Egyptian ones: the Jewish writers ^F17 say, she knew it by its being circumcised, the Egyptians not yet using circumcision.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F16 Patricides apud Hottinger. p 401.
F17 T. Bab. Sotah, fol. 12. 2. Aben Ezra in loc.

Exodus 2:6 In-Context

4 And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him.

5 And the daughter of Pharaoh went down to wash at the Nile, [while] her maidservants were walking alongside the Nile, and she saw the basket in the midst of the reeds, and she sent her slave woman [for it] and took it

6 and opened [it] and saw him--the boy--and it was a lad weeping, and she had compassion for him and said, "This [must be] from the boys of the Hebrews."

7 And his sister said to the daughter of Pharaoh, "Shall I go and call for you a woman from the Hebrews [who is] nursing [so that] she will nurse the boy for you?"

8 And the daughter of Pharaoh said to her, "Go." And the girl went, and she called the mother of the boy.

Footnotes

• [a]. Each instance of the implied "she" in verses 5 and 6 is the daughter of Pharaoh