Exodus 2:7

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?"

Exodus 2:7 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 2:7

Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter
Miriam the sister of Moses, who observing the ark taken up, and the maidens that were walking upon the bank of the river, and other women perhaps, gathering about it to see it; she made one among them, and after hearing their discourse about it, proposed what follows to Pharaoh's daughter: Jarchi says, that Pharaoh's daughter tried several Egyptian women to suckle it, but it would not suck of them: Josephus ^F18 says the same, and it also is in the Talmud ^F19; and that, if true, gave Miriam a fair opportunity to offer to do the following message for her:

shall I go and call for thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may
nurse the child for thee?
for she perceived that she was desirous of having the child brought up as her own.

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FOOTNOTES:

F18 Antiqu. l. 2. c. 9. sect. 5.
F19 T. Bab. Sotah, ut supra. (fol. 12.1)

Exodus 2:7 In-Context

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.

9 And the daughter of Pharaoh said, "Take this boy and nurse him for me, and I myself will give you wages, and the woman took the boy, and she nursed him.