Introduction

Pharaoh's Daughter is one of many Biblical women who had a profound effect on history and the events of the Bible, but very little is known about her. We know that she found Moses in the river and recognized that he was one of the Hebrew babies sentenced to death by her father. We also know that instead of participating in the genocide commanded, she chose to take this child for her own. It is because of her that Moses didn't grow up in bondage, and likely the only reason he was able to both leave freely and request an audience with the new Pharaoh when he returned. Yet, that is all the Bible really tells us about her. So, let's see what all we can piece together and learn.

Motives, Intentions, and Modern Thought

My first instinct was: that was very kind of her to save Moses. I think most would agree. However, there is a specific instance in history, and a general pattern in our modern society, that actually makes me stop to think.

During the founding of the United States, it was common for Indigenous children to be taken from their families with the intention of assimilating them into European culture.[1] Unlike the one-off with Moses, this practice was large scale and effected many families. The government was obviously not doing this for the welfare of the child, but because they believed their way was better.

We see a similar behavior in our modern society, where people in the United States adopt children from various contries because they can "give them a better life." There have even been cases where the child who was adopted was actually taken from their family and/or the family was uninformed of what exactly was happening in the adoption process.[4] In the case cited below, the parents had no idea their adopted daughter had a loving family, but admit they had preconcieved notions about the country in which she was adopted from. Also, during the investigation, authorities determined it was common for children to be stolen (or procurred through deception) for adoption. This is heavily tied to (but not the same as) the white savior complex, where a (usually) well meaning white person swoops in to save minorities from themselves (think The Blind Side or Freedom Writers).

Someone who is intricately familiar with this practice, history, and the nature of humans would probaly read about the adoption of Moses and see it as "white savior" behavior in the sense that Pharaoh's daughter was not only from the dominant culture, but from the ruling class as well. She would have definitely been able to give Moses a life unlike anyone else in the kingdom of Egypt.

We don't know Pharaoh's daughter's motives. As such, we don't know how she viewed the Israelites nor why she decided to adopt Moses. We can't make assumption her motivations, but we can say that she was against killing babies based on their origin.

Who Was She

The Bible doesn't name the Pharaoh or his daughter, but if we can pinpoint when the Exodus was, we can look at Egyptian records of that time to determine both of these. Many place the Exodus during the time of Ramses; this is what you'll see in Hollywood movies. However, this doesn't actually fit the Biblical timeline and there's no archeological evidence at that time (which is why many will claim it's all fiction). There is a great documentary on this topic if you are curious (it's on YouTube and free to watch).

A more popular date by apologetics is 1446 BC, which would make the Pharaoh during Moses' birth Tutmose I and Pharaoh's daughter Hatshepsut. An insteresting fact about Hatshepsut is that Egyptians tried to erase her from history.[7] Like many other things of history, there is no concerte evidence for why they didn't want her to be remembered, but adopting a child who later liberates your entire labor force seems like it would qualify!

There are actually alot of dates one could come up with, however. Based on various Bible passages, at least 4 different dates could be inferred.[6] This means there are at least 4 different possibilities of who she might be (maybe even more if there are multiple daughters per Pharaoh)!

Questions

About the Passage

1. Can we identify who Pharaoh's daughter was in Egyptian history?
2. What did she tell her father? Friends? Other family members? The public?
   • How did she explain suddenly having a baby?
   • Had she recently had a miscarriage?
   • Was she pregnant and passing Moses off as the twin of another child?
3. Did she have any other children?
4. Was it normal for royals to adopt chilren?
5. What was her relationship with Moses like?
6. At what age did she tell him he was not Egyptian?
7. Was she alive when Moses killed the guard?
8. Was she alive when Moses challenged Pharaoh?
9. What was her relationship with Moses' real mom?
   • Did she visit and proveide updates throughout Moses' childhood?
   • After being taken as a child, when did Moses reunite with his mom?
   • Did Moses reunite with his mom?
10. Did she take Moses to meet his siblings?
11. Did she intend for him to be in line for the throne?
12. Did she do anything to try to change her father's mind about killing the Israelite children?
13. Did she have siblings? How did they react?
14. What did she think of Moses killing the guard?
15. Why was she in the rivver (where she found Moses)?
16. Did she have a husband?
    • How does he feel about Moses?
    • Did he know where she got Moses from?
17. If she didn't have a husband, who did she say was the father?
18. What was Egypts policy on unwed mothers (especially for princesses)?
19. Did Moses have a father figure?
20. What was her relationship with Pharaoh like?
21. What was her relationship with her mother?
22. What did Pharaoh and her mother think about her decision and Moses?
23. Was she ever overwhelmed by Moses' otherness?
24. Was there a "look" to being Egyptian and did Moses have it? Or did it stand out?

If I Could Talk to Her

This is likely influenced by Disney's Aladdin and the portrayal of Princess Jasmine—in conjunction with the overall fairytale image of innocence that goes with being a princess—but I think of Pharaoh's daughter as a revolutionary rule breaker. Someone who went against authority (the law said kill the male Hebrew children) for the sake of justice and changed society (because of her decision the Israelites were eventually freed). So I believe my conversation with her would center around why she made the decision she did and how it impacted her life. Was there fear of retaliation or Moses not being accepted; or was she actually very arrogant and confident that no one would question a daughter of Pharaoh? Was her intent to save Moses but dissociate him from his Hebrew origins or did she actively encourage him to meet his family and learn about his origins?

As mentioned in the section on motives, intentions, and thoughts above, there are a myriad of reasons that could have motivated Pharaoh's daughter and not all of them are necessarily good. It's easy to see people as hero when their actions bring about postive change, but it's possible that she didn't intend for any of this to happen. She may have been an unwilling participant in God's master plan. Though I want to be a willing participant in God's plan, a conversation with someone who was not could still teach us alot about God finding a way to make things happen in impossible situations.

Phototheology

Phototheology is a way of learning the Bible taught by Ivor Myers.[8] I am employing this technique in my weekly Woman of God study journal. The following three pormpts are the ones I drew from the card deck while studying Pharaoh's daughter.

Study the text against the backdrop of the life of Christ.

I can think of two ways this story mirrors the life of Christ.

First, we are all condemned to death like Moses (and the other Hebrew males). However, our Father made sure we could be redeemed. When we accept Messiah, we become the adopted children of the Father, the same way Moses became the adopted child of Pharaoh's daughter. Since God is a master at working symbolism and multiple meanings in passages, there is also a reference to baptism: Moses was plucked out of the water to be adopted; he went into the water as a Hebrew man condemned to death but came out a prince as the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

Second, Messiah's life was about compassion and helping our neighbor. This is exactly what Pharaoh's daughter does when she takes Moses in as her son.

Connect the text with an object lesson from nauture.

One summer, two cows on my family's farm had calves. The second cow was pretty old and died in childbirth. We thought we would have to buy milk and nurse the calf to keep him alive, but the first calf took him in as her own. This is actually a common phenonmenon in nature, even extending accross species. Even nature has compassion for children and the instinct to protect babies.

Meditate on the emotion behind the story.

When I responded to this prompt in my journal, I took into consideration that there are 3 women involved in this story—all of which probably had alot of emotions throughout this ordeal. However, since this post focuses on Pharaoh's daughter, I'm only going to talk about those.

The following is a list of emotions I believe Pharaoh's daughter might have experienced between the time of finding Moses through his decision to reject Egypt:

• Pity
• Compassion
• Love
• Empathy
• Empowerment
• Fear or Anxiety
• Disappointment
• Rejection

Something I did not consider when journaling, was that this question could be asking about the emotions one gets when reading the text. The primary emotion I felt after reading the passages referencing Pharaoh's daughter was curiosity—curiosity over why she made the decision she did and how she made it work. The following emotion was humbleness. Pharaoh's daughter is much like the good samaritan in a sense; both show kindness when it is unexpected of them. It reminds me that acts of kindness, breaks in life, and the like, won't always come from people who follow God.

Journal Pages

Images from my journal study on Pharaoh's Daughter.

References & Footnotes

1. "Federal Government Separates Native Children from Families in Efforts at Forced Assimilation". Equal Justice Initiative; visited February 2025
2. Christie Renick. "The Nation’s First Family Separation Policy". The Imprint. October 9, 2018; visited February 2025
3. "US Indian Boarding School History". The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition
4. Jessica Davis. "The ‘orphan’ I adopted from Uganda already had a family". CNN. October 13, 2017; visited February 2025
5. Iron Sharpens Iron Media. "The Exodus Decoded / Biblical Documentary / Timeline. YouTube. April 2006; visited February 2025
6. "The Biblical Dates of the Exodus". Biblical Historical Context; visited February 2025
7. "Hatshepsut". Britannica; visited February 2025
8. Pastor Ivor Myers' Phototheology Game Deck