Jochebed
Encyclopedia
According to the Torah
, Jochebed (icon; ) was a daughter of Levi
and mother of Aaron
, Miriam and Moses
. She was the wife of Amram
, as well as his aunt. No details are given concerning her life. According to Jewish legend, Jochebed is buried in the Tomb of the Matriarchs
, in Tiberias.
, 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 therefore hid him for three months until she could hide him no longer. To save her son's life, she made a wooded chest of bulrushes, made it watertight with slime and pitch and put the child in it. She then let the chest float in the Nile while Miriam, her daughter, kept watch over it from a distance. It was found by the Pharaoh's daughter, who had come to bathe in the river. Moved with compassion when she discovered the child, she decided to adopt him. Miriam, who had come forward, suggested to find 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. The story continues with Moses, who grew up to become the leader of the Exodus
, leading his people out of the land of Egypt.
Jochebed was born to Levi when he lived in Egypt. Amram was the son of Kohath
, who was a son of Levi. This would make Jochebed the aunt of Amram, her husband. This kind of marriage between relatives
was later forbidden by the law of Moses. 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 the Septuagint state that Jochebed was Amram's father's cousin, and others state that she was Amram's cousin. In the Apocrypha
l Testament of Levi, it is stated that Jochebed was born, as a daughter of Levi, when Levi was 64 years old.
s in the Talmud
with Shiphrah
, one of the midwives described by the book of Exodus as being ordered by Pharaoh
to kill the new-born male children. In making this identification, the rabbis interpret the houses, with which the Book of Exodus describes God as having compensated the midwives, 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.
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; 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. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan
identifies Jochebed as also having been wife of Elitzaphon Ben Parnach, and the mother of Eldad and Medad
; 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; the Leviticus Rabbah
identifies her as the person named in the Book of Chronicles as Jehudijah, 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.
Some rabbinic literature attempts to resolve the textual discrepancy in which the Torah lists 34 children of Leah
born in Mesopotamia
, stating that two were dead, and then immediately states that there were 33 in total, by arguing that the figure referred only to the surviving children, and that Jochebed was the 33rd; however, since the Book of Numbers
describes Jochebed's birth as occurring in Egypt, this necessitated the further rabbinic argument that Jochebed was born exactly on the border of Egypt, in the gateway of the city. Biblical scholars have instead simply proposed that the discrepancy in the enumeration of Leah's children is due to the list not originally having included Dinah, who was added by a later editor to introduce consistency with the story of the Rape of Dinah.
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; rabbinical literature regards this to have been alluded to by the biblical description of the dedication of the Israelite altar, at which 130 shekel
weight of silver was offered.
, a document originating from a similar religiopolitical group and date to the priestly source
. According to biblical scholars, the Torah's genealogy for Levi's descendants, is actually an aetiological myth reflecting the fact that there were four different groups among the Levites – the Gershonite
s, Kohathites, Merarite
s, and Aaronids; 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 earlier Elohist
source, mentions only that both his parents were Levites (without identifying their names). Biblical scholars suspect that the Elohist account offers both matrilinial and patrilinial descent from Levites in order to magnify the religious credentials of Moses.
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
According to the Septuagint however, Jochebed's family tree would be either as follows, or alternatively, with having Jochebed being the daughter of Merari or Gershon:
Stories of unusual events during the pregnancy of Aminah
, mother of the Islamic prophet Muhammad
, are compared with the similar experiences of Jochebed when she was carrying Moses. The significance of this comparison is understood to spring from the affinity of Arabic folklore for Hebrew traditions.
calls her "Yoshebel".
She appears briefly in The Prince of Egypt
under the name 'Yocheved'.
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
, Jochebed (icon; ) was a daughter of Levi
Levi
Levi/Levy was, according to the Book of Genesis, the third son of Jacob and Leah, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Levi ; however Peake's commentary suggests this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite...
and mother of Aaron
Aaron
In the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an, Aaron : Ααρών ), who is often called "'Aaron the Priest"' and once Aaron the Levite , was the older brother of Moses, and a prophet of God. He represented the priestly functions of his tribe, becoming the first High Priest of the Israelites...
, Miriam and Moses
Moses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
. She was the wife of Amram
Amram
In the Book of Exodus, Amram Arabic عمران Imran, is the father of Aaron, Moses, and Miriam and the husband of Jochebed.-In the Bible:In addition to being married to Jochebed, Amram is also described in the Bible as having been related to Jochebed prior to the marriage, although the exact...
, as well as his aunt. No details are given concerning her life. According to Jewish legend, Jochebed is buried in the Tomb of the Matriarchs
Tomb of the Matriarchs
The Tomb of The Matriarchs, , in Tiberias, Israel, is the traditional burial place of several Biblical women:*Zilpah, handmaid of Leah.*Bilhah, handmaid of Rachel.*Jochebed, mother of Moses.*Zipporah, wife of Moses....
, in Tiberias.
Birth of Moses
The story of Jochebed is found in the second book of the Torah (Exodus 2:1–10). She lived in EgyptEgypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, where the descendants of Israel
Jacob
Jacob "heel" or "leg-puller"), also later known as Israel , as described in the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the New Testament and the Qur'an was the third patriarch of the Hebrew people with whom God made a covenant, and ancestor of the tribes of Israel, which were named after his descendants.In the...
were being oppressed. The Pharaoh
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...
had decreed that all their baby boys were to be thrown into the Nile
Nile
The Nile is a major north-flowing river in North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major...
, because he feared that they might become too powerful. When Moses, her youngest child, was born, Jochebed therefore hid him for three months until she could hide him no longer. To save her son's life, she made a wooded chest of bulrushes, made it watertight with slime and pitch and put the child in it. She then let the chest float in the Nile while Miriam, her daughter, kept watch over it from a distance. It was found by the Pharaoh's daughter, who had come to bathe in the river. Moved with compassion when she discovered the child, she decided to adopt him. Miriam, who had come forward, suggested to find 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. The story continues with Moses, who grew up to become the leader of the Exodus
The Exodus
The Exodus is the story of the departure of the Israelites from ancient Egypt described in the Hebrew Bible.Narrowly defined, the term refers only to the departure from Egypt described in the Book of Exodus; more widely, it takes in the subsequent law-givings and wanderings in the wilderness...
, leading his people out of the land of Egypt.
Relation to Amram
According to the Book of NumbersBook of Numbers
The Book of Numbers is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible, and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah/Pentateuch....
Jochebed was born to Levi when he lived in Egypt. Amram was the son of Kohath
Kohath
According to the Torah, Kohath was one of the sons of Levi, and the patriarchal founder of the Kohathites, one of the four main divisions among the Levites in Biblical times; in some apocryphal texts such as the Testament of Levi, and the Book of Jubilees, Levi's wife, Kohath's mother, is named as...
, who was a son of Levi. This would make Jochebed the aunt of Amram, her husband. This kind of marriage between relatives
Incest
Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
was later forbidden by the law of Moses. 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 the Septuagint state that Jochebed was Amram's father's cousin, and others state that she was Amram's cousin. In the Apocrypha
Apocrypha
The term apocrypha is used with various meanings, including "hidden", "esoteric", "spurious", "of questionable authenticity", ancient Chinese "revealed texts and objects" and "Christian texts that are not canonical"....
l 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 rabbiRabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
s in the Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
with Shiphrah
Shiphrah
Shiphrah was one of two midwives who helped prevent the genocide of Hebrew children by the Egyptians, according to Exodus 1:15-21.The name is found in a list of slaves in Egypt during the reign of Sobekhotep III. This list is on Brooklyn 35.1446, a papyrus scroll kept in the Brooklyn Museum. The...
, one of the midwives described by the book of Exodus as being ordered by Pharaoh
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...
to kill the new-born male children. In making this identification, the rabbis interpret the houses, with which the Book of Exodus describes God as having compensated the midwives, 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.
The Exodus Rabbah
Exodus Rabbah
Exodus Rabbah is the midrash to Exodus, containing in the printed editions 52 parashiyyot. It is not uniform in its composition.- Structure :In parashiyyot i.-xiv...
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; 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. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan is a western targum of the Torah from the land of Israel . Its correct title is Targum Yerushalmi , which is how it was known in medieval times...
identifies Jochebed as also having been wife of Elitzaphon Ben Parnach, and the mother of Eldad and Medad
Eldad and Medad
Eldad and Medad are mentioned in the Book of Numbers, and are described as having prophesied among the Israelites, despite the fact that they had remained in the camp, while 70 elders had gone to the tabernacle outside the camp to receive the ability to prophecy from God...
; 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; the Leviticus Rabbah
Leviticus Rabbah
Leviticus Rabbah, Vayikrah Rabbah, or Wayiqra Rabbah is a homiletic midrash to the Biblical book of Leviticus . It is referred to by Nathan ben Jehiel in his Aruk as well as by Rashi in his commentaries on , and elsewhere. According to Leopold Zunz, Hai Gaon and Nissim knew and made use of it...
identifies her as the person named in the Book of Chronicles as Jehudijah, 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.
Some rabbinic literature attempts to resolve the textual discrepancy in which the Torah lists 34 children of Leah
Leah
Leah , as described in the Hebrew Bible, is the first of the two concurrent wives of the Hebrew patriarch Jacob and mother of six of sons whose descendants became the Twelve Tribes of Israel, along with at least one daughter, Dinah. She is the daughter of Laban and the older sister of Rachel, whom...
born in Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
, stating that two were dead, and then immediately states that there were 33 in total, by arguing that the figure referred only to the surviving children, and that Jochebed was the 33rd; however, since the Book of Numbers
Book of Numbers
The Book of Numbers is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible, and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah/Pentateuch....
describes Jochebed's birth as occurring in Egypt, this necessitated the further rabbinic argument that Jochebed was born exactly on the border of Egypt, in the gateway of the city. Biblical scholars have instead simply proposed that the discrepancy in the enumeration of Leah's children is due to the list not originally having included Dinah, who was added by a later editor to introduce consistency with the story of the Rape of Dinah.
According to traditional rabbinic biblical chronology, Moses was 80 years old when the Exodus
The Exodus
The Exodus is the story of the departure of the Israelites from ancient Egypt described in the Hebrew Bible.Narrowly defined, the term refers only to the departure from Egypt described in the Book of Exodus; more widely, it takes in the subsequent law-givings and wanderings in the wilderness...
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; rabbinical literature regards this to have been alluded to by the biblical description of the dedication of the Israelite altar, at which 130 shekel
Shekel
Shekel , is any of several ancient units of weight or of currency. The first usage is from Mesopotamia around 3000 BC. Initially, it may have referred to a weight of barley...
weight of silver was offered.
Textual Criticism
Textual scholars attribute the genealogy to the Book of GenerationsBook of generations
The Book of generations is an hypothesized text that the modern documentary hypothesis claims was used by the redactor of the torah to connect up parts of the priestly source and the JE source. The text is no longer extant, but in the hypothesis, portions of the text survive as part of the torah...
, a document originating from a similar religiopolitical group and date to the priestly source
Priestly source
The Priestly Source is one of the sources of the Torah/Pentateuch in the bible. Primarily a product of the post-Exilic period when Judah was a province of the Persian empire , P was written to show that even when all seemed lost, God remained present with Israel...
. According to biblical scholars, the Torah's genealogy for Levi's descendants, is actually an aetiological myth reflecting the fact that there were four different groups among the Levites – the Gershonite
Gershonite
The Gershonites were one of the four main divisions among the Levites in Biblical times. The Bible claims that the Gershonites were all descended from the eponymous Gershon, a son of Levi, although biblical scholars regard this as a postdictional metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness...
s, Kohathites, Merarite
Merarite
The Merarites were one of the four main divisions among the Levites in Biblical times. The Bible claims that the Merarites were all descended from the eponymous Merari, a son of Levi, although some biblical scholars regard this as a postdictional metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness...
s, and Aaronids; 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 earlier Elohist
Elohist
The Elohist is one of four sources of the Torah described by the Documentary Hypothesis. Its name comes from the term it uses for God: Elohim; it is characterised by, among other things, an abstract view of God, using "Horeb" instead of "Sinai" for the mountain where Moses received the laws of...
source, mentions only that both his parents were Levites (without identifying their names). Biblical scholars suspect that the Elohist account offers both matrilinial and patrilinial descent from Levites in order to magnify the religious credentials of Moses.
It has been proposed by a number of Biblical scholars that Ichabod
Ichabod
Ichabod is named by the Books of Samuel as the brother of Ahitub. Ichabod is also identified by the Books of Samuel as having been the son of Phinehas, and as having been born on the day that the Ark was taken into Philistine captivity. His mother went into labour due to the shock of hearing that...
and Jacob
Jacob
Jacob "heel" or "leg-puller"), also later known as Israel , as described in the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the New Testament and the Qur'an was the third patriarch of the Hebrew people with whom God made a covenant, and ancestor of the tribes of Israel, which were named after his descendants.In the...
may ultimately be linguistic corruptions of Jochebed, and possibly once have referred to the same individual
Family tree
According to the masoretic text, Jochebed's family tree is as follows:According to the Septuagint however, Jochebed's family tree would be either as follows, or alternatively, with having Jochebed being the daughter of Merari or Gershon:
The Islamic view of Jochebed
The Quran relates the story of Moses with some added details and slight differences. Jochebed's efforts to save the baby Moses are recounted, along with the parting of the Red Sea, the burning bush and the Ten Commandments.Stories of unusual events during the pregnancy of Aminah
Aminah bint Wahb
Aminah bint Wahb was the mother of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.-Biography According to Islamic History:The daughter of Wahb ibn 'Abd Manaf ibn Zuhrah ibn Kilab ibn Murrah, Aminah was born in Mecca. She was a member of the Banu Zuhrah clan in the tribe of Quraysh who were descendants of Ibrahim ...
, mother of the Islamic prophet Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
, are compared with the similar experiences of Jochebed when she was carrying Moses. The significance of this comparison is understood to spring from the affinity of Arabic folklore for Hebrew traditions.
In popular culture
The Ten Commandments (1956 film)The Ten Commandments (1956 film)
The Ten Commandments is a 1956 American epic film that dramatized the biblical story of the Exodus, in which the Hebrew-born Moses, an adopted Egyptian prince, becomes the deliverer of the Hebrew slaves. The film, released by Paramount Pictures in VistaVision on October 5, 1956, was directed by...
calls her "Yoshebel".
She appears briefly in The Prince of Egypt
The Prince of Egypt
The Prince of Egypt is a 1998 American animated musical drama film and the first traditionally animated film produced and released by DreamWorks Animation. The film is an adaptation of the Book of Exodus and follows the life of Moses from being a prince of Egypt to his ultimate destiny to lead the...
under the name 'Yocheved'.