My 5 year old son asked me the following. The daughter of Paroh named Moshe because he was drawn from the water. Now, she was a gentile at the time and presumably could not speak Hebrew. How did she come up with this name?

I told him the orach chaim that every mother has ruach hakodesh (Divine intervention )when namimg a child.

The amswer would be that Moshe was given an Egyptian name by Bas Pharaoh The Torah just translated it into Hebrew.

Also, Chazal says she went to the river to be Migayer at that time (actually they said she went to "wash" i.e. away the idols from her father's home. i take it to mean real Gairus (if not, why did she need T'veila))

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Originally posted by Rabbi Y. Kacev:
The amswer would be that Moshe was given an Egyptian name by Bas Pharaoh The Torah just translated it into Hebrew.

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I also remember reading that "Mose" in Egyptian meant "son". Moshe's original name (title?) was Thutmose - son of Thoth - which was really more of a title than a name, and he was brought up to become the next Pharaoh; so he was titled Tuthmose III and being prepared to become Amenhotep III. But then (shortly before his departure from Egypt, around age 40) he denounced Thuth (or Thoth), and so "Thut" was removed from his name, and he took the name Moshe, as its meaning in Hebrew meant so much to him.

Moshe's name

1. Mo means water in egyptian and sheh mean taken out. (Josephus)
2, Mosheh means son in Egypt. (non-jewish scholars)
3. Monius was his egyptian name; moshe was his jewish name (Ibn Ezra)
4. His mother named him moshe as he was taken out of the water. Malbim
5. The sentence is not an entymology
It means since I took him out of the water, I have the right to name him (torah temimah)

Anybody have anymore suggestions?

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torah temimah

!!!! from where did you get this phrase?

there is a sefer called "torah temimah"? Is it available in english translation? or a hebrew-english version would be even better?

The sefer torah temimah by R. Baruch Epstein (1880s) collects the various relevant gemaras and puts them on the same page as the relevant sentences in the torah with a commentary. There is a book called in English called "The essentials of the torah temimah." It is edited and somethings like his source for women learning talmud dissapear. I have only seen one copy in New Rochelle. R. Baruch Epstein father was the author of the Aruch HaShulchan, which was (and still should be)the definite halachic book for Litaim jews.
The Malbim (contemporary) edited the Sifrei and Safra, Mishanaic commentaries on the torah in six volumes with the text. He also has a commentary on sections where there are no legal ramifications. It has been translated into English but I have only seen one copy and that was in Minneapolis.

Aryeh Shore

How incredibly cool. I want that book!