Duration of Decree to Throw Baby Boys into Nile

The Aish Rabbi Replies

You are right that the Torah is not at all clear on the duration of Pharaoh’s decree. We know it occurred around the time of Moses’s birth – eighty years before the Exodus – but the Torah makes no further mention of it neither earlier nor later. It sounds as if it was a relatively short-term episode, beginning shortly before Moses’s birth (his brother Aaron, three years his elder, did not seem to have been affected) and ending shortly after. Nevertheless, in that short period, the Egyptian authorities did considerable damage. The Midrash records a debate if altogether 10,000 or 600,000 babies were murdered (Shir HaShirim Rabbah 2:15). (There is a further opinion in the Midrash that God miraculously rescued the babies from the Nile, even supporting them, unknown to their families. See Bereishis Rabbah 97:3, Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer Ch. 42.)

According to the Sages, the Egyptians had two distinct reasons for their decree. The first reason was to lessen the exploding Jewish population (Exodus 1:9-10). At first, Pharaoh demanded that the Jewish midwives themselves abort the baby boys. When they refused, he made a nationwide decree to throw all baby boys into the Nile (v. 22). The second reason for Pharaoh’s decree is not stated in the Torah but is noted by the Sages. Egypt was a culture steeped in astrology and all manners of occultism. Pharaoh’s decree was based upon the advice of his astrologers – who predicted that the Jewish people’s redeemer was soon to be born (as he indeed was). They further intuited that he would have a vulnerability to water (and in fact Moses would eventually be punished on account of water – when he produced a well in the desert by hitting a rock rather than speaking to it – see Numbers 20:7-13). Putting these two facts together, Pharaoh’s advisers recommended throwing all the Jewish babies into the water – reasoning that this may enable them to slay the future redeemer at his birth.

This firstly explains the peculiar action Moses’s mother Yocheved took – attempting to hide her baby by placing him in a basket in the water. Why hide him in such a strange and vulnerable way? Because she knew that her baby was special and may indeed become Israel’s future redeemer. And if she would place him in the water herself – safely, in a floating basket – perhaps Pharaoh’s astrologers would be fooled into claiming that they now see Israel’s redeemer has already been cast into the water. And perhaps once they see this, Pharaoh would even annul his decree.

This in fact, according to the Talmud (Sotah 12b), is precisely what did occur. After Yocheved’s action, the Egyptian stargazers were able to read that the future redeemer had indeed descended into the water. They thought Israel’s savior was no more – although in fact he had merely descended into the water and come right back up – to be raised right under Pharaoh’s nose! Yet the Egyptian mystics felt their decree had accomplished its purpose and was no longer needed. This indeed is why we never again hear about Pharaoh’s vicious decree after the story of Moses’s birth.

The above Talmudic discussion, although intriguing, seems to ignore a basic issue. As we noted earlier, one of the reasons for Pharaoh’s decree – in fact the reason explicitly stated in the Torah – was to lessen the Jewish population. Although the Sages teach us of a further reason – to root out Israel’s future leader, which they thought they had accomplished – what happened to their first reason? Why because they thought they had killed Moses were the Egyptians no longer concerned about Israel’s dramatic surge in population?

The Talmudic commentator Maharsha suggests a magnificent answer. Once the Egyptians thought they had gotten the leader, they reasoned that Israel’s huge population was no longer a concern. Who cares that there are a million Jews, or two million Jews? You can have a million people banging their fist on their palm saying: “Aw, shucks! We oughta do something about the slavery!” But if there is no leader among them, no one to take control, direct the nation, and actually do something, it will make no difference. Pharaoh rightly judged that once the Jews are leaderless, he will have no difficulty subjugating them and keeping them down. For he realized – quite correctly – that the number of Jews was never really the issue. Millions of Jews just mean millions of slaves. Only if they have a leader do they pose a threat. Thus, once he wrongly thought he had gotten their leader, he annulled his decree altogether. Moses was gone, so he thought. And if so, he had nothing more to fear.