Pharaoh's Daughter

Megillah 13a

Rabbi Shimon ben Pazzi, when he would begin expounding Chronicles, would say thus: All your words are one, and we know how to expound them. "And his wife the Jewess bore Jered the father of Gedor, and Heber the father of Soco, and Jekuthiel the father of Zanoah; and these are the sons of Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh, whom Mered took" (1 Chronicles 4:18). Why is she called "the Jewess"? Because she renounced idol worship, as it is written: "And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river" (Exodus 2:5), and Rabbi Yohanan said: that she went down to cleanse herself from the idols of her father's house. "Bore"? But did she only raise him! This teaches you that whoever raises an orphan boy or orphan girl within his house, Scripture reckons it for him as though he had begotten him.

Themes