Jochebed

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Moses and Jochebed by Pedro Américo, 1884

According to the

Biblical Hebrew: יוֹכֶבֶד, romanized: Yōḵeḇeḏ, lit. 'YHWH is glory') was a daughter of Levi[1] and mother of Miriam, Aaron and Moses. She was the wife of Amram, as well as his aunt.[2] No details are given concerning her life. According to Jewish legend, she is buried in the Tomb of the Matriarchs, in Tiberias. In the New Testament, she is praised for her faith in God.[3]

Birth of Moses

The story of Jochebed is thought to be described in the Book of Exodus (2:1–10) – although she is not explicitly named here. (Her name is first mentioned in Exodus 6:20.) She lived in Egypt, where the descendants of Israel were being oppressed. The Pharaoh had decreed that all their baby boys were to be thrown into the Nile, because he feared that they might become too powerful. When Moses, her youngest child, was born, Jochebed hid him for three months until she could hide him no longer. To save her son's life, she waterproofed a basket and put the child in it. Jochebed placed Moses in a basket and released him in the flow of River Nile. The basket fell in the hands of the Pharaoh's daughter who was bathing in the river. Moved with compassion when she discovered the child, she decided to adopt him. The "sister" of the child (presumed to be Miriam), who had come forward, suggested finding her a Hebrew woman to nurse the child. The Pharaoh's daughter agreed and so Miriam called her mother, who was appointed to take care of him. Thus Jochebed nursed her son until he was old enough and brought him to the Pharaoh's daughter, who adopted him as her son.[4] The story continues with Moses, who grew up to become the leader of the Exodus, leading his people out of the land of Egypt.

Relation to Amram

According to the

Testament of Levi
, it is stated that Jochebed was born, as a daughter of Levi, when Levi was 64 years old.

In Jewish rabbinic literature

Jochebed is identified by some

Shiphrah, one of the midwives described by the book of Exodus as being ordered by Pharaoh to kill the new-born male children.[7] In making this identification, the rabbis interpret the houses, with which the Book of Exodus describes God as having compensated the midwives,[8] as having been those of priesthood and of royalty; these houses are interpreted by the Talmudic rabbis as allegorical references to Jochebed's sons – Moses and Aaron respectively.[9]

The Exodus Rabbah argues that when the Pharaoh instructed midwives to throw male children into the Nile, Amram divorced Jochebed, who was three months pregnant with Moses at the time, but Miriam soon persuaded him to marry Jochebed again;[10] it goes on to argue that the Egyptians estimated the date that Moses would be due to be born by counting nine months from the start of this marriage, hence allowing Jochebed to hide him for the three months that were overestimated.[10] The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan identifies Jochebed as also having been wife of Elitzaphon Ben Parnach, and the mother of Eldad and Medad;[11] the text is ambiguous as to when this marriage occurred in relation to the marriage(s) to Amram.

Jochebed's name is given various allegorical interpretations;

Book of Chronicles as Jehudijah,[14] by arguing that the name should be interpreted as meaning the Jewess, in reference to her founding the Jewish nation by disobeying the Pharaoh's order to dispose of the firstborn males.[15]

Some rabbinic literature attempts to resolve the textual discrepancy in which the Torah lists 34 children of

Rape of Dinah.[19]

According to traditional rabbinic biblical chronology, Moses was 80 years old when the Exodus occurred, the Israelites had been in Egypt for 210 years in total, and thus in combination with the rabbinical claim that Jochebed was born on the border of Egypt, as her parents had entered it, this would require Jochebed to have been 130 years old when she gave birth to Moses;[20] Rabbinical literature regards this to have been alluded to be the biblical description of the dedication of the Israelite altar, at which 130 shekel weight of silver was offered.[18][21]

According to

Josephus Flavius the birth of Moses was an extraordinary event because Jochebed was spared the pain of child-bearing due to both her and Amram's piety. The Haggadah extends this miraculous nature to Moses' conception by marking as 130 the age of Jochebed at conception. Several rabbinic commentaries attest to this and comment that maidenhood was restored to Jochebed at the time of her marriage to Amram. The restoration of maidenhood also included the resumption of her fertility.[22]

Textual criticism

Textual scholars attribute the genealogy to the

patrilinial descent from Levites in order to magnify the religious credentials of Moses.[24]

It has been proposed by a number of Biblical scholars that Ichabod and Jacob may ultimately be linguistic corruptions of Jochebed, and possibly once have referred to the same individual.[26]

Family tree

According to the masoretic text, Jochebed's family tree is as follows:

Levi
Kohath
Merari
Jochebed
Hebron
Uzziel
MiriamAaronMoses

According to the Septuagint however, Jochebed would be a cousin of Amram or Kohath:

Jacob
Levi
Kohath
Merari
uncertain
kinship
Jochebed
Hebron
Uzziel
MiriamAaronMoses

Islamic view

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Along with the

Arabic: يوكابد, romanized: Yūkābid), and her efforts to save the baby Moses are recounted.[27]

Stories of unusual events during the pregnancy of

Aminah, mother of the Islamic prophet Muhammad,[28] are compared with the similar experiences of Jochebed when she was carrying Moses.[29] The significance of this comparison is understood to spring from the affinity of Arabic folklore for Hebrew traditions.[29]

In popular culture

The film The Ten Commandments calls her "Yoshebel". She was portrayed by Martha Scott.

She appears briefly in The Prince of Egypt under the name 'Yocheved', voiced by (and resembling) Israeli vocalist Ofra Haza. In the film, she sings a lullaby to baby Moses as she sets the basket carrying him adrift in the river, also pleading the river to deliver Moses "somewhere he can live free". Ofra sang the lullaby in 18 languages for the film's dubbing (including her native Hebrew). In the 2020 West End adaptation of the film, Yocheved was portrayed by Swedish actress and singer Mercedesz Csampai.

In 2014 film Exodus: Gods and Kings, she was portrayed by British Actress Anna Savva. She was only shown onscreen at the time that Moses was exiled and got to meet his biological mother.

Notes

References

  1. ^ a b c Numbers 26:59
  2. ^ Exodus 6:20
  3. ^ Hebrews 11:23
  4. ^ Exodus 2:1–10
  5. ^ Leviticus 18:12
  6. ISBN 9780195289756
    .
  7. ^ Exodus 1:15–16
  8. ^ Exodus 1:21
  9. ^ Exodus Rabbah 48:5
  10. ^ a b Exodus Rabbah 1:17
  11. ^ Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Numbers 11:26
  12. ^ Babylonian Talmud Sotah 11b
  13. ^ Midrash Exodus Rabbah i. 17
  14. ^ 1 Chronicles 4:18
  15. ^ Leviticus Rabbah 1:3
  16. ^ Genesis 46:15
  17. ^ a b Genesis Rabbah 94:8
  18. ^ a b c Exodus Rabbah 1:23
  19. ^ Richard Elliott Friedman, Who wrote the Bible?
  20. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia
  21. ^ Numbers Rabbah 13:19
  22. ISBN 978-1-62032-876-7
    .
  23. ^ Richard Elliott Friedman, Who Wrote The Bible?
  24. ^
    Peake's commentary on the Bible
  25. ^ Exodus 2:1–2
  26. Encyclopedia Biblica
  27. ^ Roraback, Amanda (2004). Islam in a Nutshell. Enisen Publishing. p. 27.
  28. ^ Lassner, Jacob (2010). Islam in the Middle Ages: the origins and shaping of classical Islamic Civilization. ABC-CLIO. p. 21.
  29. ^ a b Lassner, Jacob (2010). Islam in the Middle Ages: the origins and shaping of classical Islamic Civilization. ABC-CLIO. p. 31.
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