Moses (given name)

Moses
Moses
PronunciationMoses
GenderMale
Language(s)Hebrew
Origin
Word/nameEgyptian
MeaningSave from the water
Other names
Variant form(s)Moïse, Moishe, Moshe, Moss, Mousa, Moussa, Movses, Moyses, Mozes, Musa
Nickname(s)Moishe, Moysh, Maish, Moeez, Mo, Moyshee, Musie
Look up Moses, Moishe, Moshe, משה, Μωϋσῆς, or Մովսես in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Moses (Greek: Μωϋσῆς),[NB 1] Moishe (Yiddish: משה),[NB 2] Moshe (Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה),[NB 3] Musa (Arabic:موسی),[NB 4] or Movses (Armenian: Մովսես) [NB 5] is a male given name, after the biblical figure Moses.

An Egyptian root msy ('child of') has been considered as a possible etymology, arguably an abbreviation of a theophoric name, as for example in Egyptian names like Thutmose ('child of Thoth') and Ramesses ('child of Ra'),[1] with the god's name omitted. However, biblical scholar Kenneth Kitchen argued that this – or any Egyptian origin for the name – was unlikely, as the sounds in the Hebrew m-š-h do not correspond to the pronunciation of Egyptian msy in the relevant time period.[2] Linguist Abraham Yahuda, based on the spelling given in the Tanakh, argues that it combines "water" or "seed" and "pond, expanse of water," thus yielding the sense of "child of the Nile" (mw-š).[3]

The Hebrew etymology in the Biblical story may reflect an attempt to cancel out traces of Moses' Egyptian origins.[4] The Egyptian character of his name was recognized as such by ancient Jewish writers like Philo and Josephus.[4] Philo linked Moses's name (Ancient Greek: Μωϋσῆς, romanized: Mōysēs, lit. 'Mōusḗs') to the Egyptian (Coptic) word for 'water' (möu, μῶυ), in reference to his finding in the Nile and the biblical folk etymology.[NB 6] Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews, claims that the second element, -esês, meant 'those who are saved'. The problem of how an Egyptian princess, known to Josephus as Thermutis (identified as Tharmuth)[5] and to 1 Chronicles 4:18 as Bithiah,[6] could have known Hebrew puzzled medieval Jewish commentators like Abraham ibn Ezra and Hezekiah ben Manoah. Hezekiah suggested she either converted or took a tip from Jochebed.[7][8]

According to the Torah, the name "Moses" comes from the Hebrew verb, meaning "to pull out/draw out" [of water], and the infant Moses was given this name by Pharaoh's daughter after she rescued him from the Nile (Exodus 2:10)[9] Since the rise of Egyptology and decipherment of hieroglyphs, it was postulated that the name of Moses, with a similar pronunciation as the Hebrew Moshe, is the Egyptian word for Son, with Pharaoh names such as Thutmose and Ramesses roughly translating to "son of Thoth" and "son of Ra," respectively.[10]

There are various ways of pronouncing the Hebrew name of Moses, for example in Ashkenazi western European it would be pronounced Mausheh, in Eastern Europe Moysheh, in northern Islamic countries Moussa, and in Yemen Mesha. The nicknames are accordingly (usually with emphasis on the first syllable) Moishe, Moysh, Maish, Moeez, Mo, Moyshee, Musie (pronounced Mooziyeh).

Jews named with the Hebrew name of Moses, commonly held a similar name in the language of the countries where they were born or lived. In Europe they were named Maurici, Maurice, Morris, Mauricio. In Arabic speaking countries, along with Musa or Moussa - the Arabic name for Moses, they were also named Mustafa.[11]


Cite error: There are <ref group=NB> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=NB}} template (see the help page).

  1. ^ Hays, Christopher B. 2014. Hidden Riches: A Sourcebook for the Comparative Study of the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near East. Presbyterian Publishing. p. 116.
  2. ^ Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (2003), pp. 296–97: "His name is widely held to be Egyptian, and its form is too often misinterpreted by biblical scholars. It is frequently equated with the Egyptian word 'ms' (Mose) meaning 'child', and stated to be an abbreviation of a name compounded with that of a deity whose name has been omitted. And indeed we have many Egyptians called Amen-mose, Ptah-mose, Ra-mose, Hor-mose, and so on. But this explanation is wrong. We also have very many Egyptians who were actually called just 'Mose', without omission of any particular deity. Most famous because of his family's long lawsuit in the middle-class scribe Mose (of the temple of Ptah at Memphis), under Ramesses II; but he had many homonyms. So, the omission-of-deity explanation is to be dismissed as wrong ... There is worse. The name of Moses is most likely not Egyptian in the first place! The sibilants do not match as they should, and this cannot be explained away. Overwhelmingly, Egyptian 's' appears as 's' (samekh) in Hebrew and West Semitic, while Hebrew and West Semitic 's' (samekh) appears as 'tj' in Egyptian. Conversely, Egyptian 'sh' = Hebrew 'sh', and vice versa. It is better to admit that the child was named (Exod 2:10b) by his own mother, in a form originally vocalized 'Mashu', 'one drawn out' (which became 'Moshe', 'he who draws out', i.e., his people from slavery, when he led them forth). In fourteenth/thirteenth-century Egypt, 'Mose' was actually pronounced 'Masu', and so it is perfectly possible that a young Hebrew Mashu was nicknamed Masu by his Egyptian companions; but this is a verbal pun, not a borrowing either way."
  3. ^ Ulmer, Rivka. 2009. Egyptian Cultural Icons in Midrash. de Gruyter. p. 269.
  4. ^ a b Greifenhagen, Franz V. 2003. Egypt on the Pentateuch's Ideological Map: Constructing Biblical Israel's Identity. Bloomsbury. pp. 60ff [62] n.65. [63].
  5. ^ Maciá, Lorena Miralles. 2014. "Judaizing a Gentile Biblical Character through Fictive Biographical Reports: The Case of Bityah, Pharaoh's Daughter, Moses' Mother, according to Rabbinic Interpretations". pp. 145–175 in C. Cordoni and G. Langer (eds.), Narratology, Hermeneutics, and Midrash: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Narratives from Late Antiquity through to Modern Times. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
  6. ^ Scolnic, Benjamin Edidin. 2005. If the Egyptians Drowned in the Red Sea where are Pharaoh's Chariots?: Exploring the Historical Dimension of the Bible. University Press of America. p. 82.
  7. ^ Salkin, Jeffrey K. (2008). Righteous Gentiles in the Hebrew Bible: Ancient Role Models for Sacred Relationships. Jewish Lights. pp. 47ff [54].
  8. ^ Harris, Maurice D. 2012. Moses: A Stranger Among Us. Wipf and Stock. pp. 22–24.
  9. ^ Exodus 2:10
  10. ^ Hanks & Hodges, Oxford Dictionary of Names, page 377
  11. ^ Maurici Gotlieb, Ezra Mendelson chapter 1, Zalman Shazar Center Publishing (Hebrew National Library card)