Biblical History involves collecting facts and interesting information about the characters and times recorded in the bible. My blog is not religious its factual history based on the accounts of biblical times, so be advised I will not add any religious overview, and all content can be read directly from the bible at your own convenience.
Moses, known for his relationship with God, his inspired historical book writing (namely the first five Bible books) and the story of his survival from the Genocide authorised by Pharaoh.
His story is well known by many. Recently a question was put before me that I was greatly intrigued by.
Who named Moses? Is the name Egyptian or Hebrew?
To answer these questions I turned to my main source of biblical knowledge, The Bible. The account of Moses being drawn out of the water by Pharaohs daughter is found in the book of Exodus.
Exodus 2:5-10
5. After a while Pharaoh's daughter came down to bathe in the Nile River, and her female attendants were walking by the side of the Nile River. And she caught sight of the ark in the middle of the reeds. Immediately she sent her slave girl that she might get it.
6. When she opened it she got to see the child, and here the boy was weeping. At that she felt compassion for him, although she said: "This is one of the children of the Hebrews."
7. Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter: "Shall I go and specially call for you a nursing woman from the Hebrew women that she may nurse the child for you?"
8. So Pharaoh's daughter said to her: "Go!" At once the maiden went and called the child's mother.
9. Pharaoh's daughter then said to her: "Take this child with you and nurse him for me, and I myself shall give you your wages." Accordingly the woman took the child and nursed him.
10. And the child grew up. Then she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, so that he became a son to her; and she proceeded to call his name Moses and to say: "It is because I have drawn him out of water."
Pharaoh's daughter in fact named Moses, as shown in verse 10. This is fascinating as to the meaning of Moses' name 'Drawn out of water.'
In Hebrew Moses does in fact mean "Drawn out; Saved out of water." But Pharaohs daughter is Egyptian so there is some debate among scholars as to the source of the name Moses.
The bible account shows us that Pharaoh's daughter had Hebrew female attendants, one of them being Moses sister, so she may have known some of the Hebrew language.
A historian name Flavius Josephus argued that Moses was actually a compound of two Egyptian words meaning "water" and "saved".
Its difficult to say in which case is right, as neither Ancient Hebrew or Egyptian are spoken today and the pronunciation is unsure.
As verse 10 also indicates that the nurse had Moses until "the child grew up" we may never know Moses original birth name. Neither will we know in what language the name Moses was given.
We do know that the account of Moses survival and miracles performed is a record that will be read for generations to come!
Hi Suzy – At times I have been very interested in the origins of the various parts of the Bible. I have never delved so deep into in my readings as to explore the origins of the names however. From my very limited knowledge on the subject, I do know that many of these legendary characters often had several different names or versions of a name prior to their stories being actually written. If that is the case, the person who actually wrote the story down the first time probably codified the name “Moses.” for all time. Of course, even if it happened that way, it in no way helps us to determine the origin of the name!
ReplyDeleteHi Brian,
ReplyDeleteYour right in saying that its difficult to determine the origin of Moses name. The original writer of the Book of Exodus was Moses himself while in the wilderness, and he completed the work in 1512 B.C.E. I found this subject interesting because of the meaning of Moses name and that in both Ancient Hebrew and Egyptian they make the connection to "Drawn out of water". Moses may not be the correct pronunciation but meanings can be found for the name in both languages. We learn from this account that Moses was a fabulous Historian who put effort into recording the account of his life story, just as I am doing now by researching and recording my family tree. A very facinating subject to research. I will be looking into more Biblical History and the History of the Bible itself which is always interesting and has many Historical facts.
Hi Suzy - I have recognized your Blog on my Blog with a Liebster Award: http://briansbabblingbooks.blogspot.com/2012/04/liebster-recognition.html
ReplyDeleteHi Suzy- Yeah, it shows that the daughter of Pharoah named him Moses. Whats interesting to me is that, i would want to know how soon or late do the Hebrew's take to name their children? I think maybe they didnt name him yet. I think that his name was Moses through and through given by Pharoah's daughter. I also think that Pharoahs daughter knew the language of the Hebrews and Miriam also knew the language of the egyptians otherwise how could they understand one other lest there was a translator of languages present? Glad you gave me the link to this blog
ReplyDeleteHi Clarke84. Thank you so much for your comments. I agree that Pharoah's daughter named Moses and you are right in saying that both Egyptians and Hebrews would be able to understand each other. After I wrote this post I wondered also about whether the languages had combined to create certain "common" words used between Egyptians and Hebrews. Throughout history languages have combined to make a common toungue so to speak. Of course this is just my theory about the Egyptian and Hebrew language combining, But if we use the English language as an example, we see that it is made up of all sorts, it could be possible. And you have posed another interesting question about the Hebrews (How long did the Hebrews take to name thier children?), I might research that!
DeleteHi again, yeah it would be interesting to find that out, might be hard to come by though. If you do be sure to let me know!
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