Angels raising the Israelite children in Egypt

In reply to an email from a regular reader (credit after confirming it is OK):

Hi,

I have a question about Shemot. My son told me that his Morah told his 1st grade class that when the Egyptians threw the boys into the Nile, melachim took the babies and raised them in a cave and then returned them to their parents.

Have you heard of this before? I can't seem to find any references to it . . . .

I recalled reading it in The Midrash Says, and I finally tracked it down.


 

Thus, there are slight divergences from the Morah's account. It is not that they were cast in the Nile, but rather that the babies were never cast in the Nile. They were born in the field and left there. And it was not a cave, precisely. They lived out in the open in the field, but they were concealed underground whenever the Egyptians came. And the angels did clean and feed the infants. And the angels did not return them to their parents. When they grew up, they returned of their own accord.

Based on the footnotes at the bottom of the page, this is based on Sotah 11b together with the  commentary of the Maharsha.

R. Awira expounded: As the reward for the righteous women who lived in that generation were the Israelites delivered from Egypt. When they went to draw water, the Holy One, blessed be He, arranged that small fishes should enter their pitchers, which they drew up half full of water and half full of fishes. They then set two pots on the fire, one for hot water and the other for the fish, which they carried to their husbands in the field, and washed, anointed, fed, gave them to drink and had intercourse with them among the sheepfolds, as it is said: When ye lie among the sheepfolds etc.⁴  As the reward for 'When ye lie among the sheepfolds', the Israelites merited the spoliation of the Egyptians, as it is said: As the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her pinions with yellow gold.⁵  After the women had conceived they returned to their homes; and when the time of childbirth arrived, they went and were delivered in the field beneath the apple-tree, as it is said: Under the apple-tree I caused thee to come forth [from thy mother's womb] etc.⁶  The Holy One, blessed be He, sent down someone from the high heavens who washed and straightened the limbs [of the babes] in the same manner that a midwife straightens the limbs of a child; as it is said: And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to cleanse thee.⁷  He also provided for them two cakes, one of oil and one of honey, as it is said: And He made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil etc.⁸  When the Egyptians noticed them, they went to kill them; but a miracle occurred on their behalf so that they were swallowed in the ground, and [the Egyptians] brought oxen and ploughed over them, as it is said: The ploughers ploughed upon my back.⁹  After they had departed, [the Israelite women with their babes] broke through [the earth] and came forth like the herbage of the field, as it is said: I caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field;¹⁰  and when [the babes] had grown up, they came in flocks to their homes, as it is said: And thou didst increase and wax great and didst come with ornaments¹¹  — read not with ornaments [ba'adi 'adayim] but in flocks [be'edre 'adarim]. At the time the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed Himself by the Red Sea, they recognised Him first, as it is said: This is my God and I will praise Him.¹²

Perhaps more analysis of this midrash next week.