Today’s Saturday Spotlight is
JOCHEBED: Innovative Home-Schooler Mom
Exodus 1; 2:1-11; 6:20; Numb 26:59; Micah 6:4; Heb 11:23
You may not recognize the name, but you know her—the mother of Moses.
Jochebed and her husband, Amram, were of the Tribe of Judah, both born in Egypt during the three-hundred years Jacob’s family sojourned there. The Hebrews (as they were called) had multiplied greatly and the current Pharoah, fearful of their increasing numbers, had issued a decree that all Hebrew baby boys were to be cast into the Nile River at their birth. Amram and Jochebed already had two children—Miriam, probably about ten, and Aaron, a three-year-old—when Jochebed discovered she was pregnant. According to God’s plan, the baby she bore was a boy!
What could they do? The Bible describes the baby as “beautiful” (the word also means “special” or “exceptional”). They weren’t about to toss this baby into the river!
Jochebed devised a plan. She wove an ark (a small box) and waterproofed it. After rehearsing a role-play with 13-year-old Miriam, she set her baby in his little boat at the very place she knew the Pharaoh’s daughter came to bathe.
Then she trusted God for the outcome. In the Providence of God, the Egyptian princess found the baby in the basket and adopted him as her own, naming him “Moses”, because she “drew him out of the water”.
On cue, Miriam suggested Jochebed to nurse the baby until he was old enough to enter the “Egyptian Royal Training Academy”, to which the princess agreed.
We’re not told how long the child Moses was left with his Hebrew family. But in the intervening years, Jochebed and Amram poured into this boy. . .and into Miriam and Aaron. . .the history of God’s chosen people, the promises God had given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, including the promise that God would someday send a deliverer to lead them out of Egypt, back to the Promised Land.
And all three children believed God would do what He had said. Under Jochebed’s tutoring–according to God’s plan—Miriam is the first woman named as a “prophetess” for her part in the Exodus; Aaron (and his sons after him) were ordained as High Priests, and Moses is still considered the greatest leader of God’s people in Old Testament history.
Jochebed, a woman of excellence, who taught her family to trust in God!
-Granny Jo
(She’s my favorite mom in the Bible)
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