The daughter of Pharaoh was of course “the king’s daughter” (Good News Translation). (“King” occurs at 1.8 and Pharaoh at 1.11b.) She is referred to as “princess” by Good News Translation in the following verse. Her age is not indicated, but the context suggests that she was an adult, though possibly not yet married. The use of the definite article the in English may indicate one of two things: (1) this princess was one who was known both to the writer and the readers, and (2) it may imply that the king had only one daughter. We are not sure of either of these two facts; however, there are languages that employ numeral classifiers and do not have the equivalent of the English “the” or “a.” In such languages one may translate in a general way and simply say “Daughter of king came….” She came down to bathe at the river. This shows her intention, but the text does not say explicitly that she actually did bathe before she saw the basket. Neither does it say that she intended to bathe in the river itself, but many translations interpret the Hebrew preposition to mean stepping into the water. The river implies a known river, namely the Nile. (See the comment at 1.22.)

Her maidens were the female “servants” (Good News Translation) of the princess. The maid or “slave woman” (Good News Translation) she sent to get the basket may have been one of these “servants.” The two terms in Hebrew usually mean the same thing and suggest that they were all young mature women. They walked beside the river to make sure that the princess had privacy while she bathed. She saw the basket among the reeds: Good News Translation has “Suddenly she noticed…,” where “Suddenly” translates the common Hebrew conjunction waw according to the context, but most translations omit it. The clause she … sent her maid to fetch it may also be expressed as “The princess said to her maid, ‘Bring that basket to me.’ ”

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .