John Calvin Commentary Exodus 2:10

"And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh`s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses, and said, Because I drew him out of the water." — Exodus 2:10 (ASV)

And the child grew. Here, however, their grief was renewed when his parents were again obliged to give up Moses, and he was torn, as it were, from their innermost being. For on this condition he was transferred to the Egyptian nation: not only that he should be estranged from his own people, but also that he should, in his own person, increase the number of their enemies.

Indeed, it is hardly believable that he could have been long tolerated in the tyrant’s court and among the most cruel enemies of Israel, unless he professed to share their hatred. We know how full courts are of corrupting influences; it is also well known how great the pride of the Egyptians was, while experience teaches us how prone even the best natures are to yield to the temptations of pleasure. Therefore, we must wonder all the more that, when Moses was engulfed in these whirlpools, he still retained his uprightness and integrity.

Certainly, the hope of their redemption might seem here again to suffer an eclipse, with all circumstances opposing it; but in this way, the providence of God, the more indirectly it seems to proceed, shines forth all the more wonderfully in the end, since it never truly wanders from its direct object or fails of its effect when its proper time has come.

Nevertheless, God, as with an outstretched hand, drew His servant back to Himself and to the body of His Church by embedding in his name the recollection of his origin. For the king’s daughter did not give him this name without the Spirit of God’s prior influence, so that Moses might know that he was drawn out of the river when he was about to perish. As often, then, as he heard his name, he necessarily had to remember from which people he originated; and the power of this stimulus must have been all the greater because the fact was known to everyone.

The king’s daughter, indeed, could by no means have intended this, and would have preferred for the memory of his origin to be lost. But God, who put words in the mouth of Balaam’s ass, also influenced this woman’s tongue to give loud and public testimony to the very thing she would have preferred to hide. And although she desired to keep Moses with herself, she became his directress and guide in returning to his own nation.

But if anyone is surprised that she did not fear her father’s anger in thus publicly recording the violation of his command, it can be readily answered that no offense was given to the tyrant. He would have willingly allowed any number of slaves to be born to him, provided that the name of Israel was abolished. For why did he spare the lives of the female infants, except so that Egyptian slaves might be born from them? And, regarding Moses in this light, he did not consider that his daughter’s act had violated his command; indeed, he rather rejoiced that the Israelite nation was thus diminished and the Egyptian nation numerically increased.

Only one question remains: namely, how it occurred to Pharaoh’s daughter to give Moses a Hebrew name,²⁸ when it is certain from Psalm 81:5 that there was a great difference between the two languages: he went out through the land of Egypt, where I heard a language that I understood not? We also know that Joseph used an interpreter with his brothers when he pretended to be an Egyptian (Genesis 42:23).

We can probably conjecture that she asked Moses’ mother for the word that expressed this meaning. Alternatively, we might prefer to suppose that he had an Egyptian name, which was interpreted by his Hebrew one, and I am most inclined to think this was the case. When Moses later fled, he again took the name his mother gave him.

²⁸ Calvin seems altogether to ignore the opinion of Philo, Clemens Alex., etc., that Moses was an Egyptian name, from Mo, or Moys, water, and Is, or Ises, or Hyse, , and Is, or Ises, or Hyse, preserved..