וילך איש מבית לוי, “A distinguished man from the house of Levi went, etc.” our sages comment that this means that Amram followed the advice of his daughter. (He had divorced his wife so as not to condemn any new born children to death. Thereupon his daughter accused him of being worse than Pharaoh who only murdered the male babies. Thereupon, Amram reconsidered and remarried his wife). Ibn Ezra comments that the Israelites at that time lived in many different cities of Egypt, and that the wife Amram married lived in another city, so that he had to go there to ask her to marry him. Nachmanides writes that the reason why the Torah tells us of the apparently trivial fact that Amram went to get a wife, is only to show us that Amram publicly demonstrated that he was unconcerned about Pharaoh’s decree, and that he married precisely in order to sire children. The word וילך is used by the Torah again and again when it introduces any act performed by someone which demonstrates special initiative by that person. Examples are found in Genesis 30,14 and 35,22 where the Torah describes initiative displayed by Reuven. Similar use of the word וילך occurs in Genesis 22,13, Samuel II 21,12, Kings II 5,5, and Hoseah The Torah did not bother to mention Amram’s name at this point, nor that of Yocheved, as the important thing was only to report whose offspring they were. The Torah was anxious at this stage to reveal the birth of the Israelites’ saviour.

ויקח את בת לוי, “he married Levi’s daughter.” According to our sages this was a second marriage for both, but to the same spouses. According to the plain text we speak about the first marriage of this couple. However, seeing that the Torah has never felt constricted to report events in their historical sequence, we are in order to understand this wedding as having occurred prior to Pharaoh’s decrees. During those years Yocheved bore Moses and Miriam for Amram. Their births were not reported as this was nothing out of the ordinary. Rashi claims that Yocheved had miraculously regained her youth at the time, basing himself on the fact that the Torah did not write that Amram married “Yocheved, a daughter of Levi.” [which would not necessarily have meant that Yocheved was a real daughter, but a descendant, Ed.] Instead, the Torah wrote that he married a daughter of Levi, which means that the woman in question was 130 years old at least when she gave birth to Moses.

ותרא אותו כי טוב הוא, “she realized that he was ‘good.’” Rashi says that although this baby was born several months prematurely, after a pregnancy of 6 months and a day, all his limbs were perfectly formed already at birth. Hence she saw that he was “good.” Some commentators hold that the word טוב here means something similar to Jeremiah 44,17 ונשבע לחם ונהיה טובים, “when we will at our fill of bread we will be טובים, “good.” [in good shape. Ed.]

ולא יכלה עוד הצפינו, “and she could no longer hide him.” According to Rashi, the Egyptians who had been aware of Yocheved’s pregnancy had miscalculated, expecting her to give birth after 9 months. This is based on Sotah which claims that she had been pregnant with him already for 3 months before Amram remarried her. The Egyptians assumed that her pregnancy did not predate her remarriage, so that she could not have been due to give birth to a live baby at the time she did. There is therefore no need to postulate that Moses was born after a mere six months’ pregnancy. Had he been born after a six month pregnancy, under these circumstances, Yocheved should have been able to hide him for 6 months, not merely three, unless we assume that the Egyptians were keeping a close check after Yocheved had been remarried for six months. Under such circumstances, according to the view that Moses was indeed born 3 months premature, this occurred three months after her remarriage.

ותרד בת פרעה לרחוץ על היאור, ”Pharaoh’s daughter descended to the banks of the river to bathe.” Rashi claims that our verse is truncated and that its correct meaning is as if the Torah had written: “ותרד בת פרעה על היאור לרחוץ בו.” [as written it could be understood as “Pharaoh’s daughter descended to bathe above the river.” Ed.] Nachmanides writes that it is possible to understand the verse to mean that there were steps leading down to the banks of the river and that these steps led directly to the river from the palace of the king, the lowest step being covered by the water in the river. When reaching that lowest step, Pharaoh’s daughter saw the basket in which Moses had been placed from a distance and she ordered one of her attendants to bring it to her. Alternately, the words לרחוץ על היאור is another way of writing לרחוץ ביאור, “to bathe in the river.”

והנה נער בוכה. “and here there was a crying lad.” Rashi understands the phrase as meaning that the voice of this baby was as strong as that of a lad, i.e. a growing youngster.” According to Nachmanides, Rashi’s explanation has already been discounted, for if it were correct we would have to view Moses as being halachically blemished, something that according to our tradition disqualifies a person from becoming a prophet, or performing priestly duties. Ibn Ezra writes that Moses’ limbs were exceptionally large for a baby of his age, as large as those of a growing lad. This would not be a blemish, but, on the contrary, would be a compliment to Moses and might account for the fact that Pharaoh’s daughter took pity on that child. I believe that the correct interpretation of our phrase is that the manner in which Moses cried was that of an older child, something not as irritating as a baby’s howls, and that this was what prompted Pharaoh’s daughter to have pity on him. According to the Midrash Moses did not display symptoms of being much older, but the angel Gavriel struck him so that he broke out weeping on account of his pain, which in turn attracted the attention of the daughter of Pharaoh and aroused feelings of pity within her. I do not believe that there is any need for such esoteric explanations. Children are described as נער already at birth, compare Judges 13,8 מה נעשה לנער אשר יולד, “what are we supposed to do to the child that is going to be born?” on the other hand, growing lads are referred to by the Torah as ילד, such as when Avraham placed the 17 year old Ishmael on Hagar’s shoulder in Genesis 21,14, so that there is nothing strange in the Torah again applying this adjective in our verse.

ותאמר מילדי העברים זה, “She said: “this is one of the Hebrew boy babies.” According to the plain text she had every reason for this assumption, for why would an Egyptian place her baby in such a place at such a time? Our sages, however, say that she arrived at that conclusion when observing that Moses had been circumcised.

ותקרא שמו משה, “she named him Moses.” Rabbi Joseph Kimchi writes that according to the rules of grammar she should have called him משוי, if she wanted to name him in commemoration of his having been pulled from the water. Similar constructions such as קנוי from the root קנה, “to acquire,” describe something that has been acquired. However, Pharaoh’s daughter was not sufficiently familiar with the finer points of grammar in the (Hebrew?) language and did not know how to distinguish between a verb in the active mode and the same word when used as a past participle. The name she gave Moses was inspired by Divine input as is appropriate seeing that in due course this child would pull the Children of Israel out of their exile, i.e. מושה.

ויגדל משה ויצא אל אחיו, “when Moses grew up he went out to his brethren, etc.” In verse 10 when the wet nurse brought Moses back to his foster mother the daughter of Pharaoh, he is described as ויגדל הילד, the child grew up. Now, in the verse following, the adjective “the child,” has been omitted. He was now an adult and had been told that he was actually Jewish.

מכה איש עברי מאחיו, “striking down a Hebrew man, one of his brethren.” Ibn Ezra queries the need for the additional word מאחיו in our verse, something we knew seeing that the man had been described as being a Hebrew. He therefore concludes that this word means that the individual in question belonged to the family of Moses. [seeing that his family members were all Levites and exempt from the forced labour, this appears tenuous. Ed.]

מי שמך לאיש, “who has appointed you as a dignitary?” He implied that Moses was far too young to have been given any position authorizing him to act on his own. He added the word ושר, in order to say that even assuming that you were old enough and mature enough, no one has appointed you as an authority, שר, over us to unilaterally execute anyone. He added the word שופט, judge, to emphasise that even if you had the legal status of being a judge, you would not have authority over us. (Israelites)

הלהרגני אתה אומר?, “are you going to say something which will kill me?” From this phrase we learn that Moses had killed the Egyptian by cursing him in the name of the ineffable G’d. This does not contradict what the Torah wrote, i.e. ויך את המצרי, “he struck (dead) the Egyptian,” (verse 12) The Bible uses the verb הכה to describe words, such as in Isaiah 11,4 והכה ארץ בשבט פיו, “and he will smite a land with the rod of his mouth.” (the Messiah when he comes.) Although, according to Sanhedrin 105, what Solomon means in Proverbs 17,26 when he says גם ענוש לצדיק לא טוב, is that the righteous should never place themselves in a position of causing or administering punishment, even when the victim would be a confirmed heretic, this situation did not meet the criteria discussed in the Talmud. The victim of Moses was guilty of raping a married woman, and clearly deserving the death penalty, as our sages derive from the words ויפן כה וכה, that Moses saw not only what this Egyptian had done in the field, but what he had done prior to this in the house of the Jew whom he had killed. Nachmanides questions this whole line of exegesis, writing that if Moses had used the holy name of G’d to kill the Egyptian, who had told the quarrelling Jew about this? He reasons that possibly Moses had placed his hand on the Egyptian prior to cursing him, so that the words ויך את המצרי, “he struck the Egyptians,” may be understood literally without contradicting the opinion that his death was caused by G’d honouring Moses’ curse. When the Egyptian suddenly fell dead as his feet, Moses became afraid and covered him with sand, The wicked Jew who had observed all this realized that either G’d had caused the death of the Egyptian, or if he had not observed the actual death, assumed that Moses had killed him with the sword, and that therefore he had buried him to obliterate the fact that the man had been killed violently, seeing he only had seen Moses burying the corpse. If we follow the plain meaning of the text, the words אתה אומר, need not refer to words spoken by mouth at all, but may describe someone’s intention, as in Kohelet where Solomon repeatedly introduces a thought with the words אמרתי אני בלבי, “I used to say in my heart.”

אכן נודע הדבר, “indeed the matter has become known.” Ibn Ezra equates the word אכן with the expression אם כן, “if so, etc.” Rash’bam changes the meaning to אכן אם כן, “if indeed it is different from what I thought, and the matter has become common knowledge.

ולכהן מדין שבע בנות, “and the priest of Midian had seven daughters.” Their father was not mentioned by name as his reputation was based on his official status, i.e. that he was the High Priest of the Midianites. In fact, he was identical with the well known Yitro about whom we will hear more. We know that it was he, as the Torah narrates: וישב אל יתר חותנו, he (Moses) dwelled with his father-in-law Yeter, which is short for Yitro. We find similar interchangeable names elsewhere, such as Elijah sometimes being spelled אליה and other times אליהו. After Yitro converted to Judaism he was renamed חובב, as we know from Judges 4,11 מבני חבב חתן משה, “and from amongst the descendants of Chovav, Moses’ father-in-law, etc.” It is customary to give new names to people who convert to Judaism. Chovav was actually a son of Re-uel, as is written in Numbers 10,29 ויאמר משה לחבב בן רעואל, “Moses said to Chovav son of Reu-el.” As to Exodus 2,18 ותבאנה אל רעואל אביהם, “when they came to Re-uel, their father,” which on the face of it seems to contradict what we have said, it is not unusual for the paternal grandfather to be described as “father.” Yaakov himself described Avraham, his grandfather, as “my father,” when he spoke about “the G’d of my father Avraham” in Genesis 31 as well as in Genesis The reason why the daughters of Yitro are reported as returning to the house of Re-uel is that their father was not at home but occupied with his tasks as the High Priest of the country.

ותבאנה ותדלנה, “they came and drew water, etc.” According to Nachmanides these words describe their normal habits, i.e. that on every day the male shepherds would water their flocks first, before the arrival of the daughters of Yitro with their flocks. On that particular day, the daughters of Yitro arrived at the watering troughs ahead of the male shepherds, assuming that they could proceed and water their flocks first, without interfering with the flocks of the male shepherds who were due to arrive at that spot later. They had already filled the troughs with water from the well used. As luck would have it, they had miscalculated, and the male shepherds arrived prematurely, and when they saw what had happened they simply drove off Yitro’s daughters, intending to water their flocks first as was their custom. The violent means used by the male shepherds enraged Moses so that he intervened on behalf of the female shepherds, helping them to water their flocks first as they had intended. He also helped with the actual drawing of the water, as the troughs did not hold enough water to still the thirst of the whole flock in one filling. Upon their return home, their grandfather was surprised to see them return so early. This is why he questioned them, and they answered that a distinguished Egyptian had helped them.

איש מצרי, “a distinguished Egyptian.” Moses had deliberately dressed as an Egyptian, seeing that he was a fugitive and had to mislead his pursuers. There is a comment in a Midrash that Moses, who had allowed others to think of him as an Egyptian, did not merit to be buried in the Holy Land, whereas Joseph who had proclaimed the fact that he was a Hebrew even when it could have hurt him socially and career wise, did merit to be buried in the Holy Land. The other Midrashim, includingShemot Rabbah 1,32, understand this differently, Moses declining to accept the thanks of the shepherdesses by saying that it was actually due to the Egyptian man whom he had killed that they had been helped, as if he were not trying to escape Pharaoh’s police he would not at that time have been near these troughs. [in other words, Moses, far from using his disguise to merit the gratitude of the Yitro’s daughters, attributed their good fortune as due to his victim the Egyptian whom he had slain. It would appear most unwise for Moses to have revealed at this stage why he had come to Midian just then. On the other hand, if the Midrash Shemot Rabbah is correct, it makes the fact that the daughters of Yitro did not immediately invite him to their house much more understandable. They were scared to harbour a fugitive from Egyptian justice. Ed.]

וישק את הצאן. “he watered the flock.” The reason why they did not say: “he watered our flock,” was that they had witnessed that due to Moses’ intervention the waters came forth on their own until there was enough to also water the flocks of the male shepherds.

ויאמר....למה עזבתם את האיש, “He said: ’why did you abandon the man?” According to Ibn Ezra the Torah searched for a brief method of describing what happened. It omitted reporting that the daughters complied with Reu-el’s instructions, as it is clear from what follows that they had done so.

ויהי בימים הרבים ההם, “it happened during these many years, etc.” Our sages explain that the reason these years are described as “many,” is the fact that all these years were filled with pain for the Israelites. They therefore appeared as lasting far longer than if they had been years filled with happy events. Nachmanides writes that it is not customary to refer to years as ימים ההם, “those years,” or יום ההוא, “that day,” unless one wants to pinpoint a certain time during which an event not yet discussed took place. When the event in question is already history, the Torah customarily introduces such a narrative with the words ויהי אחרי וגו', “it was after a certain event, etc.” Accordingly, we would have expected the Torah, at this juncture, to write: ויהי אחרי הימים הרבים ההם וימת מלך מצרים, “it happened after those many years that the King of Egypt died, etc.” By writing בימים ההם, “during those years,” the Torah alluded to the nature of these years, i.e. that they represented a most painful period to the Israelites, and that when the king died, they used the opportunity to cry out to G’d on account of their sorry condition, and that G’d immediately responded to their outcry. The period described was not really so long in astronomical terms. We can therefore explain, in conjunction with the description of Moses’ growing up in the palace Pharaoh, until he went out and for the first time met his brethren, as a result of which he smote an Egyptian, that he was possibly 12 years of age but certainly not over twenty, so that he spent 60 years or more in exile, seeing that the Torah describes him as being 80 years of age when he first approached Pharaoh. (Exodus 7,7) We may assume that he came to Midian only toward the end of those 60 years. We know that when G’d first appeared to him he had only fathered Gershom, as when the angel tried to kill him for failing to have circumcised his son Eliezer, the latter could only just have been born. Seeing that according to the narrative, the reader may form the impression that Moses’ slaying the Egyptian, finding refuge in Midian, marrying Tzipporah, and encountering the burning bush, and his subsequent return to Egypt, that all these events occurred with practically no interval between them. The Torah therefore mentions that many years had passed between different events reported here as if they occurred successively within a short time capsule. The “long” period of which the Torah speaks here referred to time already elapsed. From the time the King of Egypt died, matters moved at a much faster pace.

וימת מלך מצרים, “the King of Egypt died.” According to our sages the King did not actually die, but was smitten with a form of leprosy. Jewish children were slaughtered as their blood was supposedly capable of alleviating his condition. According to the plain meaning of the text, normally, when a king who ruled harshly dies, the survivors hope that the new king would treat his subjects more kindly. In this instance, the Israelites found out that the new king was even worse than the old one so that they turned to G’d in prayer, begging for Divine intervention on their behalf. Some commentators say that what happened is that contrary to accepted norms, when the king dies the prisoners are given an amnesty, in this case the Egyptian prisoners did indeed get a pardon, but no Jewish slaves were allowed to return to their homes. This finally triggered the Jewish people turning to G’d in prayer.

וירא אלוקים...וידע אלוקים, “G’d saw and took notice of the condition of the Israelites.” Rashi explains these various verbs as meaning that G’d responded to their prayers by paying heed with His heart and by not ignoring their plight. Anyone who does not recognize the person who walks in front of him is considered as not seeing him, even if he knows that person well. If he recognizes him but does not love him, he is also considered as behaving as if he did not know him at all, did not “see” him. The Torah therefore describes G’d’s reaction as one of seeing the plight of His people, i.e. “loving” them, as in וידע אדם את חוה אשתו, “Adam had intimate relations with his wife.” G’d’s love manifested itself in His taking note of the Israelites’ plight. Ibn Ezra explains the words וירא אלוקים as G’d taking note of the violence committed against the Israelites in public, and the expression וידע אלוקים as referring to the violence committed against His people under cover of darkness. Nachmanides writes that the various statements of G’d’s reaction which appear in our verse mean that although the time intended for the enslavement of the Jewish people had expired, the people had not yet become worthy of being redeemed. However, G’d decided to intercede at this time already in light of their complaints, i.e. in response to their נאקתם, their moaning. He remembered His covenant, i.e. as promised in Ezekiel who describes G’d remembering the people and redeeming them in spite of their not being worthy of this.