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Bithiah

A biblical Hebrew name meaning daughter of Yahweh.

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Name story

Bithiah is one of the most quietly remarkable names in the Hebrew Bible, and its bearer one of history's most quietly remarkable women. The name appears in 1 Chronicles 4:18, where it is written as Bithiah (also transliterated Bithya or Bitya), meaning "daughter of God" — "bat" (daughter) combined with "Yah" (the divine name). This is an extraordinary designation: a daughter of Pharaoh, an Egyptian princess, bearing a Hebrew name that declares her adopted relationship with the God of Israel.

Rabbinic tradition identifies Bithiah as the princess who drew the infant Moses from the Nile, an act of extraordinary moral courage that defied her own father's decree to kill Hebrew male infants. In reward for this compassion, the Midrash relates that God said to her: "Moses was not your son, yet you called him your son. You are not My daughter, yet I shall call you My daughter."

Her name, in this reading, is not her birth name but her earned name — a divine renaming that seals a covenant of mercy. Pharaoh's daughter is given an identity in the very tradition her family sought to destroy. Bithiah has never been a common name in any era, but it has found renewed interest among parents seeking deeply rooted Biblical names that are not yet overexposed.

It sits alongside names like Zipporah, Miriam, and Jochebed in the Exodus narrative, and like those names, carries the weight of a specific, consequential story. For a child named Bithiah, the name is an inheritance of moral imagination.

Names like Bithiah

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Hebrew · Hebrew 'Eliyyahu' meaning 'my God is Yahweh'; a major Old Testament prophet.
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Benjamin
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Ezra
Hebrew · From Hebrew 'Ezra' meaning 'help' or 'helper,' borne by an Old Testament priest and scribe.
Ava
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Greek · From Greek Sebastos meaning "venerable" or "revered," originally denoting someone from Sebastia.
Jack
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Samuel
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