In the Jewish narrative, Pharaoh's daughter first appears in the Book of Exodus, in Exodus 2:5–10. The passage describes her discovery of the Hebrew child, Moses, in the
rushes of the Nile River and her willful defiance of her father's orders that all male Hebrew children be drowned in the "Yeor" () (Nile), instead taking the child, whom she knows to be a Hebrew, and raising him as her own son. The
Talmud and the
Midrash Vayosha provide some additional backstory to the event, saying that she had visited the Nile that morning not to bathe for the purpose of hygiene but for
ritual purification, treating the river as if it were a
mikveh, as she had grown tired of people's
idolatrous ways, and that she first sought to nurse Moses herself but he would not take her
milk and so, she called for a Hebrew
wet nurse, who so happened to be Moses' biological mother,
Jochebed.), the pain of which only the cold waters of the Nile could relieve, and that these
lesions healed when she found Moses. It also describes an encounter with the archangel
Gabriel, who kills two of her handmaidens for trying to dissuade her from rescuing Moses. After Moses is weaned, Pharaoh's daughter gives him his name,
Moshé () purportedly taken from the word
māšāh (), because she drew him from the water, but some modern scholars disagree with the Biblical etymology of the name, believing it to have been based on the Egyptian root m-s, meaning "son" or "born of," a popular element in Egyptian names (e. g.
Ramesses,
Thutmose) used in conjunction with a namesake deity. According to Jewish tradition, in her later years, Pharaoh's daughter devotes herself to Moses and to Yahweh and leaves Egypt with him for the
Promised Land. Citing a passage in the Books of Chronicles (1 Chronicles 4:17-18), some have maintained that she is the one who is said to have married a member of the
Tribe of Judah,
Mered, and to have had children with him. Additionally, she is referred to there as a Jewess, indicating that she had accepted Yahweh as her own god. == In Islam ==