Endnote 4 – Moses’ Egyptian Name

To be sure, some scholars have looked to a number of languages other than Hebrew or Egyptian for a derivation of the name, but none of these seem plausible enough for consideration here. An Egyptian name would certainly fit the context of the narrative far better than one drawn from places so far afield as Kassite Babylonia, the Hurrian-speaking land of Mitanni, or the long-lost civilization of Sumer. Propp (Exodus, p. 152) summarizes, then rejects, several proposed etymologies—Sumerian, Kassite, Hurrian—with the remark, “If Moses’ name is not Hebrew, what else could it be but Egyptian?”