Exodus 2:5

And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river,.... Her name, in Josephus (g), is called Thermuthis, and by Artapanus (h), an Heathen writer, Merrhis, perhaps from Miriam, and

And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it.

Exodus 2:5 And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash [herself] at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river’ s side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it.Ver. 5. And the daughter of Pharaoh.] She was brought hither at this time by a special providence, to do that which she little dreamed of. So when Heidelberg was taken by the Imperialists, the copy of Ursinus’ s Catechism enlarged by Pareus was among many other papers carried away by a plundering soldier; but happily dropped in the streets, and found the next day by a young student, who, knowing his master’ s hand, restored it to his son Philip Pareus, who afterwards published that golden book, to the great glory of God, who had so graciously preserved it. Vita David Parei, per Philippum filium.

(5) The daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself.—This would be quite in accordance with Egyptian ideas. “Women were allowed great liberty in Egypt, and moved about much as they pleased. Cleanliness was especially regarded; and the Nile water was considered healthy and fructifying (Strab. 15 p. 695). The princess would, of course, seek a part of the river which was reserved for females. Probably Jochebed know where she was accustomed to bathe.Her maidens.—As a princess, she was, of course, accompanied by a number of female attendants (na’aroth). Even ordinary Egyptian ladies seem to have been attended at the bath by four or five such persons. One of them was, however, more especially her waiting-woman (âmah), and to her the princess addressed herself.

Verse 5. And the daughter of Pharaoh] Josephus calls her Thermuthis, and says that "the ark was borne along by the current, and that she sent one that could swim after it; that she was struck with the figure and uncommon beauty of the child; that she inquired for a nurse, but he having refused the breasts of several, and his sister proposing to bring a Hebrew nurse, his own mother was procured." But all this is in Josephus's manner, as well as the long circumstantial dream that he gives to Amram concerning the future greatness of Moses, which cannot be considered in any other light than that of a fable, and not even a cunningly devised one. To wash herself at the river] Whether the daughter of Pharaoh went to bathe in the river through motives of pleasure, health, or religion, or whether she bathed at all, the text does not specify. It is merely stated by the sacred writer that she went down to the river to WASH; for the word herself is not in the original. Mr. Harmer, Observat., vol. iii., p. 529, is of opinion that the time referred to above was that in which the Nile begins to rise; and as the dancing girls in Egypt are accustomed now to plunge themselves into the river at its rising, by which act they testify their gratitude for the inestimable blessing of its inundations, so it might have been formerly; and that Pharaoh's daughter was now coming down to the river on a similar account. I see no likelihood in all this. If she washed herself at all, it might have been a religious ablution, and yet extended no farther than to the hands and face; for the word רחץ rachats, to wash, is repeatedly used in the Pentateuch to signify religious ablutions of different kinds. Jonathan in his Targum says that God had smitten all Egypt with ulcers, and that the daughter of Pharaoh came to wash in the river in order to find relief; and that as soon as she touched the ark where Moses was, her ulcers were healed. This is all fable. I believe there was no bathing in the case, but simply what the text states, washing, not of her person, but of her clothes, which was an employment that even kings' daughters did not think beneath them in those primitive times. Homer, Odyss. vi., represents Nausicaa, daughter of Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians, in company with her maidens, employed at the seaside in washing her own clothes and those of her five brothers! While thus employed they find Ulysses just driven ashore after having been shipwrecked, utterly helpless, naked, and destitute of every necessary of life. The whole scene is so perfectly like that before us that they appear to me to be almost parallels. I shall subjoin a few lines.

5. the daughter of Pharaoh] Tradition gave her name as Tharmuth (Jubilees xlvii. 5), Thermouthis (Jos. Ant. ii. 9. 5), or Merris (Euseb. Praep. Ev. ix. 27). Rameses II is stated to have had 59 daughters (Petrie, Hist. iii. 38, 82); but neither of these names appears among the 45 that have been preserved (ibid. p. 37 f.). came down] presumably, from her palace: though where this was, or where indeed the entire incident took place, the narrative does not state. Perhaps Tanis (Zoan), one of the chief royal residences in the NE. of the Delta, near the mouth of the Tanitic branch of the Nile, is intended. to bathe] Women of any position do not at present bathe in the Nile (Lane, Mod. Egyptians, ii. 36): whether the case was different formerly, we do not know. The painting, from a tomb in Thebes (Wilk.-Birch, ii. 353), referred to by Dillmann, and in the Speaker’s Comm., represents (Griffith) not a lady in her bath, but a lady seated in her clothing on a mat, and being anointed and adorned for a party by her attendants (cf. Erman, p. 187). The Nile was regarded as sacred, and as a giver of life and fertility; but whether this led to the practice of bathing in it, is more than we know. The Heb. at or by the Nile, however, does not necessarily mean that Pharaoh’s daughter bathed publicly in the river; there might have been private bath-houses beside the river, into one of which she went. her maidens] The court-ladies in attendance on her. walked along] were walking. her handmaid] her female slave,—which is what the Heb. ’âmâh regularly denotes (Exodus 20:10; Exodus 20:17, &c.).

The traditions which give a name to the daughter of Pharaoh are merely conjectural.

5. The daughter of Pharaoh came — The intellectual and moral condition of women in Egypt was far higher than in Asia or in Greece. Polygamy was rare, and the harem seclusion unknown.