Bithiah

Biblical Record

Bithiah appears in 1 Chronicles 4:17–18. This passage is a genealogy of the tribe of Judah, and it mentions "Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh, which Mered took" as a wife. Mered was a son of Ezra, who is a different person from Ezra, the scribe of the period of the return from exile. Because "Pharaoh" was the title of the kings of ancient Egypt, the text in effect presents Bithiah as a woman of the Egyptian royal house.

This single genealogical reference is all that Scripture records about Bithiah. Nothing is said of her life, her deeds, or the circumstances of her marriage to Mered. Because the clauses in the Hebrew text of these two verses are awkwardly ordered, translations differ in how they assign the children—which were born to Bithiah and which to Mered's other wife (whose name the Korean Revised Version, New Edition, renders as Jehudijah). The Miriam named in this genealogy is a different person from Miriam, the sister of Moses.

Significance Within Scripture

The name Bithiah is commonly interpreted to mean "daughter of the LORD." The name has attracted attention because a daughter of the Egyptian king bore a name referring to the God of Israel.

The genealogies of Chronicles include a number of people from outside Israel. First Chronicles 2:34–35, for example, records that Sheshan gave his daughter to his Egyptian servant Jarha. For this reason, Bithiah is sometimes mentioned alongside Rahab and Ruth as an example of a Gentile woman who entered the community of Israel. The name Bithiah does not appear in the New Testament.

Interpretation and Issues

Rabbinic tradition (including the Talmud) is reported to identify Bithiah with the daughter of Pharaoh who drew the infant Moses out of the Nile and raised him, as recounted in Exodus 2:5–10. According to this tradition, God called her "daughter of God" because she took Moses as her son; the tradition also identifies her husband Mered with Caleb. Exodus, however, does not give the name of the princess who rescued Moses, and 1 Chronicles does not connect Bithiah with Moses. Identifying the two as the same person is therefore a later interpretation rather than something the biblical text itself states. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus is reported to have given the name of the princess who rescued Moses as Thermuthis, so even ancient Jewish sources differ on her name.

Scholars are also divided over whether "Pharaoh" in this passage refers to an actual Egyptian king or is simply an expression indicating Egyptian origin. When Bithiah lived is likewise difficult to determine from the text alone.

In the Korean Church

Because Bithiah appears only once, within a genealogy, she is seldom the subject of sermons or Sunday school lessons. Readers usually encounter her when they come to the genealogies of 1 Chronicles in the course of reading through the Bible, and she is sometimes introduced, together with Jewish tradition, when the story of Pharaoh's daughter and Moses is discussed.