The Birth of Moses
On the seventh of Adar, 2368, Moses is born; hidden in a basket on the Nile, he is saved by Pharaoh's daughter and raised in the palace of the man who sought his death.
Amram and Yocheved are together again, and a son is born. His mother saw that he was good and hid him for three months. He had been born prematurely, at the end of the sixth month, so the Egyptians who counted the pregnancies came searching three months too late. When hiding became impossible, Yocheved made an ark of papyrus, sealed it with pitch and set it among the reeds at the edge of the Nile, while Miriam stood at a distance to see what would happen. Pharaoh's daughter came down to bathe, saw the basket, heard the crying and understood at once: this is one of the Hebrew children. She defied her own father's decree. Miriam stepped forward and offered to find a nurse, and brought the baby's own mother. Moses spent his first years with Yocheved, knowing who he was, and was then taken into the palace. Grown, he went out to his brothers and saw their burdens—the sentence on which his whole life turns.
How we know
Sources
Tanakh
- Shemot 2:1–11 — the birth, three months of hiding, the basket, Pharaoh’s daughter, the name
- Shemot 7:7 — “Moshe was eighty years old” at the Exodus — the basis of the calculation
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Vayikra Rabbah 1:3 — Batyah, Pharaoh’s daughter, and the names of Moshe
- Sotah 12a — the light that filled the house; the early birth and the Egyptians’ miscalculation
- Megillah 13b — the seventh of Adar — the day of Moshe’s birth and of his death
- Seder Olam Rabbah 5 — the year of the Exodus, from which the year of birth is counted back
- Seder Olam Rabbah 3 — the count of Moshe’s years within the overall chronology
Basis: stated in the Tanakh.