“And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews’ children.”
When Pharaoh's daughter opens the basket, she sees the child — a baby crying — and she feels compassion for him. She recognizes him as a Hebrew baby, which means she knows exactly whose child this is and what fate her father's law prescribes for him. And she feels compassion anyway. The Hebrew word for compassion here, vatachmol, is related to the word for the womb — it is a visceral, embodied mercy, the kind that bypasses calculation and reaches straight to action. She does not consult her father. She does not weigh the political implications. She sees a crying infant and something in her responds that no royal edict can entirely suppress. Psalm 103:13 says God has compassion as a father has compassion for his children; this princess, daughter of the man who ordered this child's death, models the same instinct. Mercy that costs something is still mercy.
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