Jochebed

Joch'ebed (Heb. Yoke'bed, יוֹכֶבֶד , Jehovah is her glory; Sept. Ιωχαβέδ or Ι᾿ωχάβεδ, the wife of Amram, and mother of Miriam, Aaron, and Moses (Nu 26:59). B.C. 1738. In Ex 6:20 she is expressly declared to have been the sister of Amram's father, and consequently the aunt of her husband. As marriage between persons thus related was afterwards forbidden by the law (Le 18:12), various attempts have been made to show that the relationship was more distant than the text in its literal meaning indicates. But the mere mention of the relationship implies that there was something remarkable in the case. The fact seems to be, that where this marriage was contracted there was no law forbidding such alliances, but they must in any case have been unusual, although not forbidden; and this, with the writer's knowledge that they were subsequently interdicted, sufficiently accounts for this one being so pointedly mentioned. The candor of the historian in declaring himself to be sprung from a marriage afterwards forbidden by the law, delivered through himself, deserves especial notice. — Kitto. In Nu 26:59, Jochebed is stated to have been "the daughter of Levi, whom her mother bore to Levi in Egypt," from which it likewise appears that she was literally the sister of Kohath, Levi's son and Amram's father (Ex 6:16,18. On the chronology, see Brown's Ordo Soeclorum, p. 301). The courage and faith of this tender mother in braving Pharaoh's edict by her ingenious secretion and subsequent exposure of the infant Moses (Ex 2:1-10) are alluded to with commendation by the apostle (Heb 11:23), and were signally rewarded by divine providence; to her pious example and precepts the future lawgiver doubtless owed much of that integrity which so eminently characterized him. SEE MOSES.