Text -- Exodus 2:8 (NET)

2:8 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes, do so.” So the young girl went and got the child’s mother.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Exo 2:8

¹ tn Heb “Go” (so KJV, ASV); NASB “Go ahead”; TEV “Please do.”

² sn The word used to describe the sister (Miriam probably) is עַלְמָה (’alma), the same word used in Isa 7:14, where it is usually translated either “virgin” or “young woman.” The word basically means a young woman who is ripe for marriage. This would indicate that Miriam is a teenager and so about fifteen years older than Moses.

³ tn Heb קָרָא (qara’, “called”).

⁴ sn During this period of Egyptian history the royal palaces were in the northern or Delta area of Egypt, rather than up the Nile as in later periods. The proximity of the royal residences to the Israelites makes this and the plague narratives all the more realistic. Such direct contact would have been unlikely if Moses had had to travel up the Nile to meet with Pharaoh. In the Delta area things were closer. Here all the people would have had access to the tributaries of the Nile near where the royal family came, but the royal family probably had pavilions and hunting lodges in the area. See also N. Osborn, “Where on Earth Are We? Problems of Position and Movement in Space,” BT 31 (1980): 239-42.