Exodus 2:7

7 Then his sister was before her: "Do you want me to go and get a nursing mother from the Hebrews so she can nurse the baby 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.

---

FOOTNOTES:

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

Exodus 2:7 In-Context

5 Pharaoh's daughter came down to the Nile to bathe; her maidens strolled on the bank. She saw the basket-boat floating in the reeds and sent her maid to get it.

6 She opened it and saw the child - a baby crying! Her heart went out to him. She said, "This must be one of the Hebrew babies."

7 Then his sister was before her: "Do you want me to go and get a nursing mother from the Hebrews so she can nurse the baby for you?"

8 Pharaoh's daughter said, "Yes. Go." The girl went and called the child's mother.

9 Pharaoh's daughter told her, "Take this baby and nurse him for me. I'll pay you." The woman took the child and nursed him.