This post is the third of Faithlogue’s 2023 Summer Series: “The Women of the Exodus.” Click here to receive each week’s post in your inbox!
In last week’s post, we beheld a beautiful and bright glimpse of God’s faithfulness to the Israelites in Egypt through the courage of the midwives. These women paid attention to God and cooperated with Him to protect the Israelites’ newborn sons. In return, God blessed the midwives with households of their own.
In contrast, we also learned about Pharaoh’s increasing fears and stubbornness. His murderous actions revealed a heart set against God to protect his pride and power.
Despite Pharaoh’s plot to enslave the Israelites, subject them to hard labor, and murder their firstborn sons, God’s people continued to grow in number. In response, Pharaoh increased his resistance to God by commanding “all his people” to throw newborn Israelite boys into the Nile (Exodus 1:22).
With that mandate, Pharaoh reached past the midwives and the birthing process to broaden his murderous plans. His actions stemmed from a grievous misunderstanding of basic biology and the sovereignty of the God of the Israelites.
I cannot fathom the desperation and grief experienced by the Hebrew mothers in this season!
Today we will learn about one mother’s response to her grief, recorded in Exodus 2:1-4. She is the mother of Moses. Exodus 2 omits her name, but the genealogies in Exodus 6:20 and Numbers 26:59 tell us she is Jochebed, meaning “The Lord is her glory.”
Jochebed was an enslaved Israelite from the tribe of Levi. According to Exodus 6:20, she was married to Amram, her nephew. We also learn from Numbers 26:59 that Jochebed and Amran had two older children, Miriam and Aaron. (We will learn more about Miriam next week.)
The meaning of Jochebed’s name—“the Lord is her glory”—is significant and prophetic. During their long journey home, God will set apart the Levite tribe as priests, and when they arrive in the promised land, the Levites’ inheritance will rest in the priesthood rather than the land. Therefore, the Lord is the distinct glory of both Jochebed and her descendants.
However, at this point in the Exodus story, Jochebed is unnamed and unaware of God’s future plans for her children. According to the NIV translation, Jochebed only knew that her newborn son was a “fine child” (Exodus 2:2). The term used for “fine” in this passage is tob, a general term meaning good, fine, glad, and beautiful.[1] The same term is used to describe the goodness of God.
Jochebed received no formal message regarding her infant son, yet she perceived that he was fit to thrive in God’s goodness. To me, this reflects the special love that a mother often holds for her child. The source of such love is God, who created Eve as an ezer, a term meaning rescuer to the point of death. Therefore, Jochebed acted with the love of an ezer when she rescued her child by hiding him for three months. [2]
Can you imagine keeping a newborn hidden for three months? In this stage of life, a human’s primary mode of communication is crying. I wonder how Jochebed managed to quiet her child from discovery, especially given the hard labor requirements placed on her as an enslaved Israelite. I imagine the baby’s siblings, Miriam and Aaron, played a vital role in his protection while Jochebed toiled.
At the three-month mark, Jochebed and Amram realized they could no longer hide their son. They would need to place him in God’s hands. So, Jochebed crafted a tiny ark of papyrus coated with pitch and placed her infant in the reeds along the Nile.
Think about that for a moment. Jochebed technically complied with Pharoah’s order to cast her son into the Nile, but she defied him by choosing the timing and the method.
According to Hebrews 11:23, “By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.” The power behind Jochebed’s defiant actions as ezer to her son was her faith in the Lord, the source of her glory.
We know this terrifying moment when Jochebed sets her son in the Nile is only the beginning of Jochebed’s relationship with her son, but she does not. She simply perceives that God has a plan in mind for her “fine child” and does what she can do.
Therefore, I would like to leave us here today, standing beside Jochebed as she launches the son she fought to protect into the unknown. Here, may we consider the moments when we must also step out in faith and launch a tiny ark of our own into God’s good hands.
© 2023 Lori Myers Berry
Additional Resources
Jochebed’s story touches my heart. As I consider her faithful actions, I also admire her resolve to trust God with her son. Her resolve reminds me of my many ezer friends who daily build and launch tiny arks of faith simply because they perceive God’s tob, or goodness, amid difficult circumstances.
When stories touch my heart, music often helps me praise the Lord for what He is teaching me. This week, several songs on the album FAITHFUL: Go and Speak helped me process Jochebed’s story. This music is a product of the Faithful Project, a collaboration of Christian women writers and performers (such as Amy Grant and Ellie Holcomb). Here is a link to their website: https://www.faithfulproject.com/album. Enjoy!
[1] James Strong, The New Strong’s Dictionary of Hebrew and Greek Words (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1996), s.v. “2896.”
[2] Strong, s.v. “5828.”