Person in the Old Testament
Jochebed
Jochebed: Moses’ mother, named in the family records
Portrait: an AI-generated artistic interpretation, not evidence of how Jochebed looked.
Who Jochebed is
Jochebed is named as Amram's wife and the mother of Aaron and Moses in Exodus 6. Numbers 26 also names Miriam as her daughter and places Jochebed's birth in Egypt within Levi's family. Read alongside those records, Exodus 2 tells the story of Moses' unnamed mother: she hides him for three months, then places him in a coated basket among the reeds at the river's edge. After Pharaoh's daughter finds him, his sister brings his mother to nurse him for wages. When the child grows, she brings him to Pharaoh's daughter. The family records provide the mother's name; the infancy scene supplies her actions.
Cited passages: Exodus 6:20, Numbers 26:59, Exodus 2:1, Exodus 2:2, Exodus 2:3, Exodus 2:4, Exodus 2:5, Exodus 2:6, Exodus 2:7, Exodus 2:8, Exodus 2:9, Exodus 2:10
Historical setting
Exodus calls Jochebed Amram's father's sister, and Numbers calls her a daughter of Levi born in Egypt. Those are the relationships given by the cited records; no additional generation or date is supplied here. Exodus 2 leaves the mother and sister unnamed within that scene. The basket is placed among reeds beside the river, not described as deliberately sent drifting downstream. The account gives three months of hiding, but no age at the later transfer to Pharaoh's daughter and no account of Jochebed's death.
Cited passages: Exodus 6:16, Exodus 6:18, Exodus 6:20, Numbers 26:58, Numbers 26:59, Exodus 2:1, Exodus 2:2, Exodus 2:3, Exodus 2:4, Exodus 2:8, Exodus 2:9, Exodus 2:10
How the story is told
The infancy narrative emphasizes practical acts: hiding the child, preparing a basket, placing it by the river, nursing and finally bringing him to the princess. The sister's intervention brings the mother back into the child's care after discovery. The later genealogies locate this otherwise unnamed mother within the family of Moses, Aaron and Miriam. Connecting the records gives her identity without inventing dialogue or private thoughts for her.
Cited passages: Exodus 2:2, Exodus 2:3, Exodus 2:7, Exodus 2:8, Exodus 2:9, Exodus 2:10, Exodus 6:20, Numbers 26:59
Story moments
- Moses’ mother hides him (Exodus 2:2). The infancy account describes his mother keeping him hidden for three months.
- She nurses the child (Exodus 2:9). Pharaoh’s daughter entrusts the child to his mother to nurse and promises wages.
- The genealogy names Jochebed (Exodus 6:20). The family record identifies Jochebed as Amram’s wife and Aaron and Moses’ mother.
- Miriam is included in the family record (Numbers 26:59). Numbers names Aaron, Moses and their sister Miriam as Jochebed’s children.
Key passages
Exodus 6:20
And Amram took him Jochebed his father’s sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses: and the years of the life of Amram were an hundred and thirty and seven years.
Numbers 26:59
And the name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom her mother bare to Levi in Egypt: and she bare unto Amram Aaron and Moses, and Miriam their sister.
King James Version. 2 indexed passages in total.
For reflection
How does learning the mother's name from the family records affect your reading of the infancy account?
Books Jochebed appears in
Related people
Names and references are adapted from STEPBible TIPNR. A person listed with a verse is named or indexed there; it does not mean they wrote or spoke it.