Gospel News — Jan-Apr 2013

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daughter of Pharaoh, whom Mered married; and she conceived and bore Miriam, Shammai, and Ishbah, the father of Eshtemoa" (1 Chron. 4:17 ESV). Who was Mered? A prince of the tribe of Judah. And, yes, he lived around the time of Moses. So... a daughter of Pharaoh married a Hebrew. A slave. And she was the daughter of Pharaoh. Now we're on to something.

We eagerly look up the meaning of "Bithiah". And we find that Bithiah means `daughter of Yah'- there is an intended tension therefore in the way in which she is called `Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh', especially considering that Pharaoh was thought to be God in Egyptian culture. It cannot be an undersigned coincidence that Bithiah is recorded as having a daughter, whom she called Miriam. It's not very common for the names of daughters to be recorded in the genealogies, so it seems a point is being made. Miriam was of course the name of Moses' sister, who had first introduced Bithiah to Moses' family. Her name in Hebrew is almost the feminine form of her father's name, Mered. Mered had another wife who was from the tribe of Judah: "And his Judahite wife bore Jered ... Heber... and Jekuthiel" (1 Chron. 4:18 ESV).

And then we wonder: Am I the first guy to have come to this discovery? This is where the internet is useful. A bit of research shows that no, others have figured some of this out. Not that getting support from others ultimately matters, for we should be ready to stand with our backs to the world if necessary in believing what we have discovered in the Bible. And "no jewel shines so brightly as the one you find yourself", as Bro.Harry Tennant once put it in talking about Bible study. But all the same, it's some level of human comfort to find we're not completely alone, and in this case, to find that indeed Jewish tradition upholds this connection between Bithiah and the adoptive mother of Moses. And Egyptologists have various theories as to who the Pharaoh of the Exodus was. One of them is that it was Amunhotep II. His coffin decorations appear to show that he had a skin condition- perhaps the boils from the

plagues? One stele that was discovered shows that two of Amunhotep II's sons have been "erased". Perhaps one of them was Moses?

It seems likely that many Egyptians became proselytes, because many of them left Egypt with Israel. So Bithiah became attracted to God's people, and decided to forego all she could have had in order to save just one Hebrew life. If nothing else we learn that to sacrifice all for the sake of the salvation of `just' one person is perhaps what we are called to. The woman who could have been one of the most powerful women in the world sacrificed it all, to marry a Hebrew slave- who already had a wife. And presumably she changed her name. She was Yah's daughter now, and not that of `god' Pharaoh. What motivated her? Surely her experience with raising Moses. From the mouth of a child, who may well have been with his Godly parents for up to five years, she learnt more of Yahweh's ways. And she must have got to know the family of origin and been impressed by Moses' big sister Miriam... for she named her own daughter after her.

But the chain of influence didn't end there. For when Moses was 40, he did the same as what his adoptive mother did. At age 40, Moses came to a crisis. He had a choice between the riches of Egypt, the pleasures of sin for a season, and choosing rather to suffer affliction with God's people and thereby fellowship the reproach of Christ (Heb. 11:24-26). He probably had the chance to become the next Pharaoh, as the son of Pharaoh's daughter; but he consciously refused this, as an expression of faith in the future recompense of the Kingdom. Bithiah's example would have been ever before him.

It is worth trying to visualize the scene when Moses was "full forty years old" (Acts 7:23). It would make a fine movie. The Greek phrase could refer to Moses' birthday, and one is tempted to speculate that it had been arranged that when Moses was 40, he would become Pharaoh. Heb. 11:24 says that he refused and chose- the Greek tense implying a one-off choice- to suffer affliction with God's people. It