Bithiah

Bithiah (Hebrew: בִּתְיָה‎ Biṯyāh, literally "daughter of Yah") was an Egyptian princess, and a daughter of Pharaoh according to Hebrew tradition. Although the name of her father is not stated in the Hebrew Bible, she is said by Rabbinic Midrash to be the daughter of one of the Pharaohs of the Exodus, (see Pharaoh of the Exodus). The Bible and Midrash both assert that she was the foster mother of Moses, having drawn him from the Nile and bestowed upon him his name, which in Hebrew meant 'drawn out' (Exodus 2:10).

In Jewish tradition, she was exiled by the Pharaoh for bringing Moses the Levite into the house of Pharaoh and claiming him as her own child. Bithiah left Egypt with Moses during the mass Exodus of the children of Israel. She married Mered the Judahite. Her children were Miriam, Shammai, and Ishbah (the father of Eshtemoa).

In the Bible and Midrash

In the Biblical account, the daughter of Pharaoh who rescued Moses is not named. A daughter of Pharaoh named Bithiah is mentioned in I Chronicles 4:18. The Midrash identifies the two as the same person, and says she received her name, literally "daughter of Yah" (Yah being a form of YHWH, which is often rendered in English as "LORD"), because of her compassion and pity in saving the infant Moses. It relates (Leviticus Rabbah 1:3) how God said He will take her in and call her YHWH's daughter (which is what “Bithiah“ means) because she took in a child not her own, and called him her son (Moses can mean "child" in Egyptian).