A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Joghebed
JOGHEBED,
Wife of Amram, and mother of Miriam, Aaron, and Moses, has stamped her memory indelibly on the heart of Jew and Christian. She was grand-daughter of Levi; her husband was also of the same family or tribe; their exact relationship is not decided, though the probability is that they were cousins-german.
As Amram is only mentioned incidentally, we have no authority for concluding he took any part in the great crisis of Jochebed's life; but as their children were all distinguished for talents and piety, it is reasonable to conclude that this married pair were congenial in mind and heart. Still, though both were pious believers in the promises made by God to their forefathers, it was only the wife who had the opportunity of manifesting by her deeds her superior wisdom and faith.
Nearly three hundred years had gone by since Jacob and his sons went down into Egypt. Their posterity was now a numerous people, but held in the most abject bondage. Pharaoh, a king "who knew not Joseph," endeavouring to extirpate the hated race, had even strict commands to destroy every male child born of a Hebrew mother.
Jochebed had borne two children before this bloody edict was promulgated; Miriam, a daughter of thirteen, and Aaron, a little son of three years old. These were safe; but now God gives her another son, "a goodly child;" and the mother's heart must have nearly fainted with grief and terror, as she looked on her helpless babe, and knew he was doomed by the cruel Pharaoh to be cast forth to the monsters of the Nile. No ray of hope from the help of man was visible. The Hebrew men had been bowed beneath the lash of their oppressors, till their souls had become abject as their toils. Jochebed could have no aid from her husband's superior physical strength and worldly knowledge. The man was overborne; the superior spiritual insight of the woman was now to lead; her mother's soul had been gifted with a strength the power of Pharaoh could not subdue; her moral sense had a sagacity that the reason of man could never have reached.
She fashioned an "ark of bulrushes," and in the frail structure laid down her infant son. Then concealing the basket among the flags on the banks of the Nile, she placed her daughter Miriam to watch what should become of the babe, while she, no doubt, retired to weep and pray. The whole plan was in perfect accordance with the peculiar nature of woman—and women only were the actors in this drama of life and life's holiest hopes. That the preservation of Moses, and his preparation for his great mission as the Deliverer of Israel, and the Lawgiver for all men who worship Jehovah, were effected by the agency of woman, displays her spiritual gifts in such a clear light as must make them strikingly apparent; and that their importance in the progress of mankind, will be frankly acknowledged by all Christian men, seems certain—whenever they will, laying aside their masculine prejudices, carefully study the word of God. These events occurred B.C. 1535. See Exodus, chap. I. and II.