the Week of Proper 26 / Ordinary 31
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Bible Dictionaries
Bithiah
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
or ("daughter i.e. worshipper of Jehovah".) Pharaoh's daughter and wife of Mered, a descendant of Judah. Her name shows she was a convert from Egyptian idolatry to Jehovah's worship; and Mered's other wife is distinguished from her, as" Jehudijah" the Jewess. This princess evidently, like Ruth, renounced home, country, and a royal court to take an Israelite husband and to have Israel's God for her God. The marriage probably took place in the wilderness shortly after the Exodus.
Perhaps the disaster of Egypt at the Red Sea led some Egyptians to become proselytes. In Lepsius' Kings' Book, Amenophis II, (in his view) father of the Pharaoh drowned at the Red Sea, has among his children one with the hieroglyphic Amun P or B T H, i.e. beloved of Amun (god of Thebes). On conversion the -jah added to her name would mark her new religion. (See EGYPT, where is stated Canon Cook's view that Thothmes II, much earlier; was the Pharaoh drowned; Amenophis III had a wife not Egyptian in creed, and not of royal birth, named Tel, and her parents Juaa and Tuaa, names not unlike Bithia.)
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Fausset, Andrew R. Entry for 'Bithiah'. Fausset's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fbd/b/bithiah.html. 1949.
