The Quran

Preface

أَنِ اقذِفيهِ فِي التّابوتِ فَاقذِفيهِ فِي اليَمِّ فَليُلقِهِ اليَمُّ بِالسّاحِلِ يَأخُذهُ عَدُوٌّ لي وَعَدُوٌّ لَهُ ۚ وَأَلقَيتُ عَلَيكَ مَحَبَّةً مِنّي وَلِتُصنَعَ عَلىٰ عَيني

Yusuf Ali

“###?Throw (the child) into the chest, and throw (the chest) into the river: the river will cast him up on the bank, and he will be taken up by one who is an enemy to Me and an enemy to him?:¹ But I cast (the garment of) love over thee from Me:² and (this) in order that thou mayest be reared under Mine eye.³

Pharaoh was an enemy to God, because he was puffed up and he blasphemed, claiming to be God himself. He was an enemy to the child Moses, because he hated the Israelites and wanted to have their male children killed; also because Moses stood for God’s revelation to come.
God made the child comely and lovable, and he attracted the love of the people who, on general grounds, would have killed him.
See n. 2558 above. By making the child Moses so attractive as to be adopted into Pharaoh’s household, not only was Moses brought up in the best way possible from an earthly point of view, but God’s special Providence looked after him in bringing his mother to him, as stated in the next verse, and thus nourishing him on his mother’s milk and keeping in touch, in his inner growth, with the feelings and sentiments of his people, the Israelites.