Jochebed

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According to the Hebrew Bible, Jochebed or Yochéved (יוֹכֶבֶד / יוֹכָבֶד "The LORD is glory", Standard Hebrew Yoḫéved / Yoḫáved, Tiberian Hebrew Yôḵéḇeḏ / Yôḵāḇeḏ) was the wife of Amram. Amram is also her sister, Kohath's son, that is, her nephew. Jochebed is the mother of Aaron, Moses, and Miriam (Exodus 6:20).

The Testament of Levi tells us that Jochebed was born to Levi and Melcha in Egypt when Levi was 64 years old.

She is buried in the Tomb of the Matriarchs in Tiberias.

1 In Jewish rabbinic literature
2 Family tree
3 See also
4 References

Jochebed is identified by some rabbis in the Talmud with Shiphrah, one of the midwives ordered by Pharaoh to kill the new-born male children (Exodus 1:15-16). Her name is given various interpretations (Babylonian Talmud Sotah 11b; Midrash Exodus Rabbah i. 17).

The "houses" with which God recompensed the midwives (Exodus 1:21) were those of priesthood and royalty, realized, in the case of Jochebed, in the persons of her two sons Aaron and Moses (Exodus Rabbah xlviii. 5).

One rabbis identifies her as being the same person as Jehudijah (I Chronicles 4:18), this name, interpreted as "the Jewess," being given to her because, by disobeying Pharaoh's order, she founded the Jewish nation (Midrash Leviticus Rabbah i. 3).

According to traditional rabbinic biblical chronology, Moses was eighty years old when the Israelites went out from Egypt, and the Israelites were in Egypt 210 years; Jochebed therefore was 130 years old when she bore Moses. An allusion to this is found in the weight (130 shekels) of the silver chargers offered by the princes for the dedication of the altar (Midrash Exodus Rabbah i. 23; Midrash Numbers Rabbah xiii. 19).

A midrash attempts to explain why Jochebed could hide Moses no longer than three months. When Pharaoh had given the order to throw the male children into the river, Amram repudiated Jochebed, who had been pregnant three months. But, urged by Miriam, he immediately remarried her, and the Egyptians calculated the time for Moses' birth from that day (Midrash Exodus Rabbah i. 17).

The second wedding was as splendid as the first; Jochebed sat in her nuptial chamber, and Miriam and Aaron danced before her (ib. i. 23). The story of Jochebed was used by Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi to divert his audience when they became sleepy. There was once a woman in Egypt, he told them, who gave birth to 600,000 children at once; on being asked who that woman was, he said she was Jochebed, whose son Moses was worth 600,000 Israelites (Midrash Canticles Rabbah iv. 2).