“The child grew and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he was a son to her. She named him Moses and she said: Because I drew him from the water” (Exodus 2:10). “The child grew.” She nursed him for twenty-four months and you say “the child grew”?
Rather, it was that he was growing in a manner that was atypical in the land. “She brought her to Pharaoh’s daughter…” Pharaoh’s daughter was kissing, hugging, and loving him as though he were her son, and would not take him out of the king’s palace. Because he was beautiful, everyone desired to see him, and anyone who saw him would not leave him. Pharaoh would kiss him and hug him, and he would take Pharaoh’s crown and place it on his head, as he was destined to do when he grew older.
Likewise, the Holy One blessed be He said to Ḥiram: “I have drawn fire from your midst….” (Ezekiel 28:18),60Meaning, the fire that will destroy him will originate in his household. and likewise Pharaoh’s daughter was raising the one who was destined to exact retribution from her father. The messianic king, too, who is destined to exact retribution from Edom, resides with them in the same country, as it is stated: “There the calf will graze and there it will lie [and consume its branches]” (Isaiah 27:10).
The magicians of Egypt were sitting there, and said: ‘we are afraid of this one who takes your crown and places it on his head, lest he be the one regarding whom we said that he is destined to wrest your kingdom from you.’ Some of them said to behead him, some said to burn him. Yitro was sitting in their midst and saying to them: ‘This boy has no intelligence. Rather, test him.
Bring before him a bowl with gold and a hot coal. If he extends his hand to the gold, he has intelligence and [you should] execute him; and if he extends his hand to the coal, he has no intelligence and he has no sentence of death.’ Immediately, they brought it before him and he extended his hand to take the gold. Gabriel came and pushed his hand.
He seized the coal and placed his hand with the coal into his mouth, and his tongue was burned. From that he became “slow of speech and slow of tongue” (Exodus 4:10). “She named him Moses” – from here you learn the reward of those who perform of acts of kindness. Although Moses had many names, the name that was set for him throughout the Torah was only the one that Batya daughter of Pharaoh called him. Even the Holy One blessed be He did not call him by any other name.