Women of the Bible Lesson 18 Jochebed: A Story of Faith

Today we will be studying Jochebed, the mother of Moses.  Jochebed is not named in the Exodus 2 account of Moses’ birth, however, she is named in both Exodus 6:20 and Numbers 26:59. 

Exodus 6:20, “Amram married his father’s sister Jochebed, who bore him Aaron and Moses. Amram lived 137 years.” (NIV)  

Numbers 26:59, “the name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed, a descendant of Levi, who was born to the Levites in Egypt. To Amram she bore Aaron, Moses and their sister Miriam.” (NIV)  

Jochebed is notable as the first person in the Bible to have a name with the divine element yah, a shortened form of YHWH.i  In Hebrew her name Jokebed means “Yahweh is glorious.” 

Jochebed, like every other Hebrew of her day, had been crying out to God for a deliverer.  We know from reading Exodus that Pharaoh was trying to prevent the multiplication of the Hebrews by ordering the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to kill every male child born to the Hebrews.  The midwives feared God and disobeyed the order.  When Pharaoh saw that this was not working, He gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.” (Exodus 1:22 NIV) 

Jochebed was a woman of faith.  Her faith was not what we think of a “saving faith”, it was “sustaining faith”.  Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines sustain as: to give support or relief to.  Every born-again believer must walk in this same sustaining faith in order to fulfill God’s call as we traverse this life.  

As we walk together through Exodus 2:1-10 we will stop at each marker that points us to the sustaining faith Jochebed demonstrated. 

Exodus 2 

Verses 1-2, Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 

Marker Number 1: Jochebed defied the order of Pharaoh and hid Moses for three months.   

Hebrews 11:23 tells us, 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. (NIV) 

Romans 10:17, So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (KJV) 

From these two scriptures we can deduce that Amram and Jochebed must have had some word/leading by God about this child, because we know that faith comes by hearing the Word of God.  As we have discussed in previous lessons, faith is built on our knowledge of God’s Word, spoken and written! 

Jochebed would have known that by defying the King’s order she was putting not just the life of this precious baby, but the lives of her entire family in danger, however, as we read in the Hebrews passage, she did it by faith!   

Verses 3-4a, But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.  

Marker Number 2: Jochebed built a basket out of papyrus, tar, and pitch and placed Moses in it and put him in the Nile River.   

I find it ironic that Jochebed did end up putting her baby boy in the Nile River, however, rather than tossing him in to die without hope, she in faith, cradled him safely in a basket and set him among the reeds, giving God opportunity to fulfill his plan through this special child.  She did not know what the outcome would be, but she knew her God was able.  This leads us to the next marker.   

Verse 4b, His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.  

Marker Number 3: Jochebed posted Miriam to stand and keep watch to see what would happen to the baby.   

Jochebed knew that Miriam could not protect Moses, but she wanted to have someone watching out for him as he floated on the river.  As a mom, I can assure you that Jochebed did not just walk away and leave Moses’ to his own fate. As she returned home, she was praying like she had probably never prayed before, beseeching God to keep her baby safe! However, she had to be relying on her faith to be able to walk away at all.  Jochebed had to open her hands and let Moses go.   

“That kind of courage comes only in the life of one who has developed a genuine trust in God. Jochebed’s confidence in the Lord was evident in her actions.”ii 

The closest comparison I can give is when my husband and I gave our daughter to our son-in-law as his wife and then immediately moved to another state leaving her there without us.  It was a hard day when we got into our car and left, however, the sustaining faith we have in God kept us on course.  

Verses 5-9, Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said. 

Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” 

“Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 

Marker Number 4: Miriam approached Pharaoh’s daughter and asked if she could find someone to care for the baby for her.  Jochebed had trained her daughter well. Miriam stepped out in faith! 

I’m not a scholar of Egyptian culture, however, I do know that in ancient cultures the Pharaoh’s family was off limits to the common people.  Miriam was not just a common person; she was a despised Hebrew slave as well.  However, we see here that she stepped out in faith.  It was this act of faith the allowed Jochebed to care for her infant son for the first three –four years of his life.   

“Jochebed’s faith was rewarded by being reunited to her own child. In fact, the goodness and mercy of God were so great that the mother was even paid for nursing her own son! God’s providence was seeing to it that Jochebed was being paid from royal funds to look after her own child.”iii 

During these years Jochebed must have instilled as much knowledge and spiritual understanding as she could into this special child.  She probably taught him all she knew about her God and about his faithfulness to his people.  Jochebed’s training must have been enough to lay a foundation for God to build upon in Moses’ life because we see in Hebrews 11 that he chose to suffer with the Hebrews rather than to enjoy the pleasures Egypt and royalty had to offer.   

Hebrews 11:24-25, By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; (KJV) 

Verse 10, When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.” 

Marker Number 5, Jochebed took Moses back to the palace and gave him to Pharaoh’s daughter to be raised as her son.   

Wow!  Imagine, giving your child away, miraculously receiving him back, then having to give him away again.  Talk about a roller coaster of emotions!   

Just as she had done in the beginning, Jochebed entrusted her beloved boy into the hands of Almighty God, and we know that when he was 80 years old, God used him to liberate his relatives from their slavery in Egypt.  God was faithful to keep his promises to his chosen people and was able to use Moses to do it because of the faith of his mother, Jochebed.   

In closing, I ask us to think about the following questions and to answer them honestly, both to ourselves and to God.   

Has God asked us to do something that we have not done because we are afraid of what others might think? Or are we afraid of the outcome and the unknown? 

Is there an area that we are holding tightly to that we need to release into God’s more than capable hands?   

Are we willing to stand back and watch as God works behind the scenes to bring about our good and his glory? Or are we determined to “do it” ourselves? 

Are we willing to step out as the Lord leads to talk to the lost around us? 

Are we willing to give up the pleasures of life/sin to live and walk in holiness? 

Is there anyone or anything we need to give back to God so that he can use it/them for his glory? 

Friends, let us remember the example of faith we see in the life of Jochebed and daily walk in total surrender and submission to our Savior.  Only then will we see God move in and through our lives to impact our world as Jochebed’s faith and obedience impacted hers.   

Works Cited:

i https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/jochebed-bible 

ii https://www.crosswalk.com/family/parenting/characteristics-we-can-learn-from-moses-courageous-mother.html 

iii https://biblehelpsinc.org/publication/lessons-from-the-life-of-jochebed/