Exodus 2:6

6 and openeth, and seeth him -- the lad, and lo, a child weeping! and she hath pity on him, and saith, `This is [one] of the Hebrews' children.'

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.

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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 stationeth herself afar off, to know what is done to him.

5 And a daughter of Pharaoh cometh down to bathe at the River, and her damsels are walking by the side of the River, and she seeth the ark in the midst of the weeds, and sendeth her handmaid, and she taketh it,

6 and openeth, and seeth him -- the lad, and lo, a child weeping! and she hath pity on him, and saith, `This is [one] of the Hebrews' children.'

7 And his sister saith unto the daughter of Pharaoh, `Do I go? when I have called for thee a suckling woman of the Hebrews, then she doth suckle the lad for thee;'

8 and the daughter of Pharaoh saith to her, `Go;' and the virgin goeth, and calleth the mother of the lad,