Afloat or Adrift?

Baby Moses in a basket adrift on the water [0:06; six minutes into the film]. The Prince of Egypt shows us the dramatic journey, as it literally escapes the jaws of death and the nets of fishermen.

We may remember seeing a similar image before, for Cecil B. deMille also set the little ark afloat in The Ten Commandments (1956). However, a close reading of the Bible will not discover this concept, but another: Yocheved places the basket among bulrushes at the water's edge (Exodus 2:3), where it is eventually discovered (Exodus 2:5).

Was the Nile voyage merely an invention of the film's creative team in an attempt to widen the pupils of the audience? Not necessarily, for there is an ancient text which suggests this possibility. Millions are familiar with this document, which details many of the events in the life of Moses. Interestingly, few of those millions are Jews. Most who know the text well are Moslems, for the book is, in fact, the Koran. Much of what it presents about Moses is in accord with Torah.

The commentaries of several rabbis of old may also suggest to some that Moses was not carefully placed into the river, but thrown. The concept is seen in sources (including the Babylonian Talmud and Midrash Rabbah) in relation to stories about a prediction by Pharaoh's astrologers.

The story goes that they had foretold that a future deliverer of the Israelites had been born, but that his death would be brought about by water. Therefore, Pharaoh commanded the the Israelite's baby boys be thrown into the Nile. (Exodus I, 22),

He was later informed that the action could be halted because the astrologers had determined that this same baby had, in fact, been thrown into the water.

What they didn't see was that he was neither thrown there by Egyptians, nor did he perish. But what of their prediction of his death by water. Many of us may have heard the midrash that Moses died before entering the Promised Land as punishment for his striking a rock for water, when he was merely commanded by God to speak to it.

So there you have it: water brought about his death!