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1) Because it is the first word on the pasuk and deserved a zakef. At this distance from the etnachta, this would be a segolta. But a segolta needs a preceding zarka, and this is the first word. And so it becomes a shalshelet.
2) Rav Chaim Kanievsky, in Taama deKra, cites a different sefer, which gives a consistent explanation of shalshelet as extension. ...
19
Talmud Bavli (Sotah 12a):
ותרא אותו כי טוב הוא תניא ר"מ אומר טוב שמו ר' יהודה אומר טוביה שמו רבי נחמיה אומר הגון לנביאות אחרים אומרים נולד כשהוא מהול וחכמים אומרים בשעה שנולד משה נתמלא הבית כולו אור
"And she saw that he was good" (Shemos 2:2): R' Meir says his [Moshe's] name was Tov. R' Yehuda says his name was Tuvia. R' Nechemia says that he was to ...
17
Seder Hadorot tells us that Moshe Rabbeinu was born in the year 2368.
It then tells us that G-d spoke to Moshe at the burning bush on the 15th of Nissan in the year 2447. This would mean that Moshe had just turned 79 a little over a month before, on the 7th of Adar. Moshe then goes to talk to Pharoah when he is 79.
(Incidentally, the Seder HaDorot brings ...
15
The midrash in Sh'mot Rabbah (2:5) offers some explanations:
Why fire? To inspire him with courage so that when he comes to Sinai later he is not afraid of the fire.1
Why a thornbush? R' Yehoshua b. Karchah said: to teach that no place is devoid of God's presence, not even a thornbush.
R' Eliezer said: just as the thornbush is the lowliest of all trees in ...
14
Rashi (to Num. 12:1) says ועתה גרשה - now (around the time it came to Miriam's attention) he had divorced Tzipporah.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe points out (Likkutei Sichos, vol. 18, p. 145, marginal note to footnote 41) that Rashi gets this from the fact that the Torah calls her האשה, "the woman," rather than אשתו, "his wife." He also notes that according to ...
14
R. Avraham Ibn Ezra seems to say that she put him in the river not because that would save him but so that she shouldn't have to witness his death:
ויוכבד עשתה זאת כי אמרה אל אראה במות הילד
R. Yosef Ibn Kaspi argues that it is better to choose the possible death than the certain death, and keeping him at home would have led to certain death while placing ...
13
In general, it seems the prophet would fall into a prophetic state, so it would be clear that it wasn't just a random voice speaking to him. See, for example, Berishis 15 where God appears to Avraham first in "a vision", and then in "a deep sleep... a dread, a great darkness".
However, it seems that sometimes Nevuah sounded just like a person's voice, and ...
12
Maybe you are thinking of Deuteronomy 34:10: "And there hath not arisen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses" (OJPS). However, he was certainly not the last prophet; in fact the previous verse refers to Joshua being a prophet. Similarly, there are tons of prophets after Moses later in the Tanach. The verse in Deuteronomy simply means that Moshe was the ...
12
While there are various other answers to this question, I will highlight a few of them:
One simple answer is that Moshe wanted to see the land, and this is what Rashi (Devarim 3:27) suggests:
וראה בעיניך – בקשתה ממני: ואראה את הארץ הטובה (דברים ג׳:כ״ה), אני מראה לך את כולה, שנאמר: ויראהו י״י את כלא הארץ (דברים ל״ד:א׳).
וראה בעיניך [LIFT UP THINE ...
12
Most commentaries render this as some sort of thorny bush (see Rashi, Ibn Ezra).
In terms of identifying which exact species it may have been, a great resource is Rabbi Kaplan's Living Torah commentary to Exodus 3:2, which states:
S'neh in Hebrew. This is most probably the black raspberry (rubus sanctus), which has berries that turn red and then black (...
11
Although, as @DoubleAA noted, Ibn Ezra, as well as other commentators, identify the relevant verse (Bereshis 6:3) to be referring to the deluge and irrelevant to the human lifespan in general, still other commentators (Abarbanel and Malbim are ones I know of) interpret this verse as placing a cap on the human lifespan. But how do they reconcile this with the ...
11
See the Medrash Raba on Shemos (Exodus) פרשה ג that states that (at least initially, at the burning bush) Hashem sounded just like Moshe's father Amrom when He spoke to him.
אָמַר רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ הַכֹּהֵן בַּר נְחֶמְיָה בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁנִּגְלָה הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא עַל משֶׁה טִירוֹן הָיָה משֶׁה לַנְּבוּאָה, אָמַר הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא "אִם ...
11
You had a number of very good suggestions.
Ibn Ezra to Exodus 2:10 suggests 2 possibilities, namely, that Pharaoh's daughter had learned the Hebrew language, or that she asked someone how to say this phrase (and the name was translated from a similar Egyptian name):
אולי למדה בת פרעה לשונינו או שאלה.
Shadal there (same link) quotes Abarbanel saying that ...
10
According to Shemos Rabba 1:13, Yocheved was three months pregnant with Moshe when Amram divorced her.
רבי חנינא בר רב יצחק אמר: שפרה, שהעמידה ישראל לאלהים, שבשבילם נבראו השמים, שכתוב בהם (איוב כו, יג) ברוחו שמים.
שפרה, פועה, שהופיעה פנים כנגד אביה, שהיה עמרם ראש סנהדרין באותה שעה, כיון שגזר פרעה, ואמר (שמות שם, כב) כל הבן הילוד.
אמר עמרם: ולריק ...
10
I got this from askmoses.com, since I am not a Jew and don't know Hebrew and am not familiar with all the sources noted there, please tell me if I have made a mistake and if my answer here is not appropriate.
The Midrash relates an interesting tradition: Moses was an
exceedingly handsome baby; whoever saw him could not take their eyes
off him. Pharaoh ...
10
The Gur Arye explains that Y'hoshua's falling into the spies' plot would reflect poorly on Moshe, whose protege he was. This reasoning doesn't apply to Kalev.
The Avodas Yisrael explains (not in answer to this question) that Y'hoshua did not want the honor of leading the people, and wanted Moshe to retain that position. (See Rashi to B'haalos'cha 11:28.) ...
10
Yalkut Shimoni Shemos 168 does indeed record the story of Moshe being appointed the King of Kush (Kush = modern Ethiopia) and leading them in war, and that he married the Kushite princess. However, the Yalkut Shimoni says explicitly that Moshe did not cohabit with her because she was a descendant of Cham, and Moshe remembered the vow that Avraham had ...
10
The Midrash Raba 1:28 says it was justifiable:
One time, an Egyptian taskmaster went to a Israelite kapo and looked at his wife, who was beautiful without blemish. He got up at cockcrow and removed him from his house and (the Egyptian) returned and bedded his wife, who thought he was her husband…. Once the taskmaster knew that [the husband] knew ...
10
Rashi in his commentary to Devarim 10:1 writes that there were indeed two; the one made by Moshe was the one that the Bnei Yisrael carried with them when they went into battle.
At that time: At the end of forty days [which was the first of Elul], God was reconciled with me and said to me, “Hew for yourself [two tablets],” and afterwards, “make for ...
9
The Zohar (Bamidbar 138a and 187b) points out that this repetition is further unique in that the two "Moshe"s are not separated by a pesik (vertical line), unlike other repeated names in Tanach ["Avraham | Avraham" (Gen. 22:11), "Yaakov | Yaakov" (ibid. 46:2), "Shmuel | Shmuel" (I Sam. 3:10)].
This, says the Zohar, was because Moshe was perfect from birth (...
9
Rashi (Breshit 22:11) Calling the name twice is a sign of love.
9
The Ibn Ezra discusses this in Gen 6:3
אבן עזרא בראשית ו:ג
והיו ימיו י"א שזה קצב כל האדם. ואם מצאנו יותר כן, מצאנו מעט, רק על הרוב ידבר. ואין זה אמת, כי הנה שם חיה שש מאות, וכל הדורות אחריו חיו שנים רבות. ובימי פלג חסרו השנים. ומימות דוד עד היום שבעים או שמונים שנה. והאמת מה שאמר המתרגם ארמית שנתן קץ לאדם, כטעם עוד ארבעים יום (יונה ג, ד). ואם ישובו ימלטו, ...
9
The forefathers are the great grandparents of every single Jew, however Moshe is not the great grandfather of every single Jew.
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The earliest source I can find is Shemot Rabba 1:26 :
היתה בת פרעה מנשקת ומחבקת ומחבבת אותו כאלו הוא בנה ולא היתה מוציאתו מפלטרין של מלך, ולפי שהיה יפה הכל מתאוים לראותו מי שהיה רואהו לא היה מעביר עצמו מעליו, והיה פרעה מנשקו ומחבקו והוא נוטל כתרו של פרעה ומשימו על ראשו כמו שעתיד לעשות לו כשהיה גדול ... והיו שם יושבין חרטומי מצרים ואמרו מתייראין אנו מזה ...
9
Alshich explains that Yisro was worried: Perhaps Moshe would not be interested in a Midyanite woman and would rather marry a Jewess. He therefore emphasized that he brought "her two sons" with him (and not "his two sons"), since a man comes to like his wife because of the children she bears him, and this would persuade Moshe to remarry Tziporah. (See also ...
9
The Maskil Ledavid says that Moshe prayed for Yehoshua (and changed his name) earlier, because he saw that in the future Yehoshua would need G-d's help. This is even slightly implied in the Gemara (Sotah 34B), where it says, "Yehoshua, Moshe already requested G-d's mercy for him". Already slightly implies that Moshe had done it before.
This would explain ...
9
From here:
The Holy One tested Moshe by means of the flock, as our sages have explained: when Moshe was tending Yitro's flock out in the desert, a lamb ran off, and Moshe followed it, until it found shelter under a rock. There it found water and stopped to drink. When Moshe approached the lamb, he said: "I did not know that you ran away because you were ...
9
R. Menachem Mendel Kasher, in Torah Shelaima (vol. 19 pg. 363) quotes several answers:
Ein Yaakov (Peirush): this is to tell us that despite not being involved in any of the Bilaam story, Moshe was still told this story in all of its details exactly how it was written in the Chumash, and it has a similar status as Sefer Devarim, in that Moshe wasn't told ...
9
Because the Egyptians were looking for any excuse to say that the plagues were not of divine origin. If they were not of divine origin then the Egyptians wouldn't feel the need to let the Jews go.
If they saw any reason, no matter how slight, to say that they were not from G-d, they would jump on that opportunity.
Moshe did not want to give them that ...
9
"The tribe of Ephraim miscalculated the time of the deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt, and left the country thirty years before the appointed time. They were met by a hostile host of Philistines, who offered them battle, in which the Ephraimites lost 300,000 men (according to Pesi?., 180,000; according to Pir?e R. El., 200,000). Their bones ...
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