Jochebed | |
|---|---|
יוֹכֶבֶד | |
 Moses and Jochebed byPedro Américo (1884) | |
| Personal life | |
| Born | |
| Died | Unknown |
| Resting place | Tiberias,Israel |
| Nationality | Israelite Egyptian |
| Spouse | Amram |
| Children | |
| Parent |
|
| Relatives | |
According to theBible,Jochebed (/ˈjɒkɪbɛd/;Biblical Hebrew:יוֹכֶ֫בֶד,romanized: Yōḵeḇeḏ,lit. 'Yahweh is glory',[1]SeptuagintKoine Greek:Ἰωχάβεδ,romanized: Iokhábed) was a daughter ofLevi and the mother ofMiriam,Aaron, andMoses.[2] She was the wife ofAmram and also his aunt.[3] No details are given concerning her life. According to Jewish legend, she is buried in theTomb of the Matriarchs inTiberias. In theNew Testament, she is praised for her faith in God inHebrews 11:23.
The story of Jochebed is thought to be described in theBook of Exodus (2:1–10) – although she is not explicitly named here. (Her name is first mentioned in Exodus 6:20.) She lived inEgypt, where the descendants ofIsrael were being oppressed. ThePharaoh had decreed that all their baby boys were to be thrown into theNile, 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, placing the basket in the flow of the 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 theExodus, leading his people out of the land of Egypt.
According to theBook of Numbers, Jochebed was born toLevi when he lived in Egypt.[5] Amram was the son ofKohath, who was a son of Levi. This would make Jochebed the aunt of Amram, her husband. This kind ofmarriage between relatives was later forbidden by the law of Moses.[6] Jochebed is also called Amram's father's sister in the Masoretic text of Exodus 6:20, but ancient translations differ in this. Some Greek and Latin manuscripts of theSeptuagint state that Jochebed was Amram's father's cousin, and others state that she was Amram's cousin.[7] In theApocryphalTestament of Levi, it is stated that Jochebed was born, as a daughter of Levi, when Levi was 64 years old.
Jochebed is identified by someChazal (Talmudic rabbis) with Shiphrah, one of the midwives described by the book of Exodus as being ordered byPharaoh to kill newborn male children.[8] In making this identification, the rabbis interpret the "houses" with which Exodus describes God as having compensated the midwives,[9] as having been those ofpriesthood and royalty. These "houses" are interpreted by the Chazal as allegorical references to Jochebed's sons, Moses and Aaron.[10]
Exodus Rabbah 1:17 argues that whenfirst Pharaoh of Exodus instructed the midwives to throw all male children into theNile, Amram divorced Jochebed, who was three months pregnant with Moses at the time, but Miriam soon persuaded him to remarry Jochebed. It also argues that the Egyptians estimated the date of Moses' birth by counting nine months from the remarriage, thereby allowing Jochebed to hide him for the three months that were overestimated. TheTargum Pseudo-Jonathan identifies Jochebed as also having been wife of Elitzaphon ben Parnach, and the mother ofEldad and Medad;[11] the text is ambiguous as to when this marriage occurred concerning the marriage(s) to Amram.
Jochebed's name is given various allegorical interpretations in Sotah 11b and Exodus Rabbah 1:17.Leviticus Rabbah identifies her as the person named in1 Chronicles 4:18 asBiblical Hebrew:הַיְהֻדִיָּ֗ה,romanized: haYəhuḏiyyā,lit. 'the female Judean', by arguing that it should be interpreted as her founding the people by disobeying the Pharaoh's order to dispose of the firstborn males.
Some rabbinic literature attempts to resolve the textual discrepancy in which the Torah lists 34 children ofLeah born inMesopotamia, stating that two were dead, and then immediately states that there were 33 in total,[12] by arguing that the figure referred only to the surviving children, and that Jochebed was the 33rd;[13][14] however, since theBook of Numbers describes Jochebed's birth as occurring in Egypt,[5] this necessitated the further rabbinic argument that Jochebed was born exactly on the border of Egypt, in thegateway of the city.[13][14] Biblical scholars have instead simply proposed that the discrepancy in the enumeration of Leah's children is due to the list not originally having includedDinah, who was added by a later editor to introduce consistency with the story of theRape of Dinah.[15]
According to traditional rabbinic biblical chronology, Moses was 80 years old whenthe 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;[16] Rabbinical literature regards this to have been alluded to be the biblical description of the dedication of the Israelite altar, at which 130shekel weight of silver was offered.[14][17]
According toJosephus Flavius, the birth of Moses was an extraordinary event because Jochebed was spared the pain of childbearing due to both her and Amram's piety. TheHaggadah extends this miraculous nature to Moses' conception by marking as 130 the age of Jochebed at conception. Several rabbinic commentaries attest to this, commenting 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.[18]
Textual scholars attribute the genealogy to thebook of generations, a hypothetical document originating from a similarreligiopolitical group and date to thePriestly source.[19] According to some Biblical scholars, the Torah's genealogy for Levi's descendants is anetiological myth reflecting the fact that there were four different groups among theLevites: theGershonites,Kohathites,Merarites, and Aaronids.[20] Aaron – the eponymous ancestor of the Aaronids – couldn't be portrayed as a brother to Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, as the narrative about the birth of Moses, brother of Aaron, which textual scholars attribute to the earlierElohist source, mentions only thatboth his parents were Levites (without identifying their names).[21] Some Biblical scholars suspect that the Elohist account offers bothmatrilinial andpatrilinial descent from Levites to magnify the religious credentials of Moses.[20]
It has been proposed by several biblical scholars thatIchabod andJacob may ultimately be linguistic corruptions ofJochebed.[22]
| Levi | Adinah[a] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gershon | Kehath | Merari | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Libni | Shimei | Izhar | Hebron | Uzziel | Mahli | Mushi | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Jochebed[b] | Amram | Mishael | Elzaphan | Zithri | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Miriam | Aaron | Moses | Zipporah | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gershom | Eliezer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Part ofa series on |
| Musa |
|---|
Revelations |
Miracles |
Related articles |
 Islam portal |
Along with theparting of the Red Sea, theburning bush and theTen Commandments, theQuran relates the story of Moses with some added details and slight differences. His mother, Jochebed (Arabic:يوكابد,romanized: Yūkābid), and her efforts to save the baby Moses are recounted.[23]
Stories of unusual events during the pregnancy ofAmina bint Wahb, mother of the Islamic prophetMuhammad,[24] are compared with the similar experiences of Jochebed when she was carrying Moses.[25] The significance of this comparison is understood to spring from the affinity of Arabic folklore for Hebrew traditions.[25]
The filmThe Ten Commandments calls her "Yoshebel". She was portrayed byMartha Scott.
She appears briefly inThe Prince of Egypt under the name 'Yocheved', voiced by (and resembling) Israeli vocalistOfra 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 2020West End adaptation of the film, Yocheved was portrayed bySwedish actress and singerMercedesz Csampai.
In 2014 filmExodus: Gods and Kings, she was portrayed by British ActressAnna Savva. She was only shown onscreen at the time that Moses was exiled and got to meet his biological mother.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
