Many commentators who discussed Moses’ name have asked the following question: Why is he called Moshe, which means "the who is pulling/drawing," rather than Mashui, which would mean "he who was pulled (out of the water)"? Wasn’t Moses the one “who was pulled out” (passive), not the one “who is pulling” (active)?
Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Parchon (an early grammarian from the 12th century) raises this question, asserting that Moses should have been called Mashui, with the one who performed the act of saving (i.e., Pharaoh’s daughter) being referred to as Moshe. However, Ibn Parchon does not explain why it was that Moses was ultimately named Moshe and not Mashui.
In line with what we’ve seen so far, Rabbi Moshe Alshich suggests that in naming him Moshe, the Pharaoh’s daughter meant to express how Moses possessed a magnetic charm that compelled her to leave the palace and specifically bathe in the river (see Ibn Ezra there), as though he pulled her towards the river. Similarly, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Ehrenreich (1863-1944) suggests that the name Moshe relates to Moses’ power to draw the people of Israel to follow him, akin to a "magnetic personality," or because he pulled the Israelites out of the impurities of Egypt by bringing them closer to Hashem. Fascinatingly, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Kasher (1895-1983) in Torah Shleimah cites an unpublished Medieval manuscript that suggests that Hashem orchestrated her naming him Moshe because that name is the word Hashem spelled backwards.
Peirush HaTur offers a more prosaic explanation in the name Rabbi Yosef Kimchi: Pharaoh's daughter simply was not fluent enough in Hebrew grammar to differentiate between poel (Moshe) and pual (Mashui), which is why she gave him a grammatically-inappropriate name. But Rabbi Kimchi adds that there was also an element of Divine providence in this unusual naming convention, because the name Moshe also hints at Moses' future role at “pulling out” the Jewish People from their exile in Egypt.
Other early commentators see the name Moshe as alluding to his future role in leading the Jews. More specifically, Peirush HaRokeach suggests that Moses was named Moshe because he was destined to pull the Jewish People out of the water at the Splitting of the Sea. Similarly, the Tosafists claim that he was called Moshe because the Pharaoh's daughter prophesied about his role in drawing water from the rock for the Israelites in the wilderness. Midrash HaGadol posits that Moshe signifies the idea that Moses pulled himself out of the waters, as it was his future merits that caused Pharaoh's daughter to save him.
Going in a slightly different direction, Chizkuni implies that by giving him the name Moshe, Pharaoh's daughter prayed for Moses to grow up to be the one who liberates the Jewish people from their bondage, akin to how she rescued him from the water. A similar idea is advanced by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, who explains that she called him Moshe, instead of Mashui, for a pedagogical purpose: she wanted to raise the child to be ever-cognizant of the fact that his own life depended on the salvatory actions of the one who extracted him from the water, so that he too will act in a salvatory way to save others who are oppressed. She wanted him to have the courage to save others in their times of needs and extract them from their dreadful situations, just like she saved him as a baby. The constant awareness that his life depended on someone saving him from water was meant to motivate him to do the same by saving others from their distressing situations.
Ultimately, the name Moshe encompasses various interpretations, reflecting his destiny to lead, save and liberate the Jewish People from adversity.
*For more about the Pharaoh’s daughter naming Moshe, and various theories about what Moshe’s original Egyptian name might have been (Tomer, Mosh, Monius), check out my book Lashon HaKodesh: History, Holiness, & Hebrew, published by Mosaica Press. My book is available online through Amazon and Feldheim and at local Jewish bookstores.
*To read more about how the rare Hebrew verb moshe differs from the verbs moshech and shoev, check out the full version of this article: https://ohr.edu/this_week/whats_in_a_word/
