Yocheved: The Woman Who Bore the Five Greatest Prophets of Israel

🖨 Print

Moshe Rabbeinu had two mothers, according to mesorah. One was Yocheved, who gave birth to him, and the other was Batya, who found him in the Nile River and raised him. An interesting note, however, is that if we read the simple text of the Chumash¹ ², we hardly hear of Yocheved, at least by name. In fact, Yocheved is only mentioned by name twice in the Chumash , and both of these are familial listings. Yet we know that no ordinary woman gives birth to the savior of Israel, so who was this ‘silent partner’ in Moshe’s upbringing?

Yocheved, we learn, was “among those who came to Egypt and among those who left”³. She was conceived on the way of Yaakov and his family down to Egypt, and was born at the Gates of Egypt⁴, and for this, she is one of the seventy souls counted with Yaakov’s family. Interestingly, she is the only woman who is counted among the seventy souls, finishing off the count⁵. Naturally, there were other women in Yaakov’s family who descended to Egypt, so why was Yocheved the one who made the cut, and why is her name not mentioned for it?

This ‘background’ nature of Yocheved, while on the surface a bit puzzling, is actually a very telling insight into her character. It will be this hidden aspect to her that allows Yocheved to achieve immeasurable heights – through her children.

The truth is that every child whom Yocheved bore was extraordinary, all five of them. Five? We all know of Miriam, Aaron, and Moshe, but there were two more. When Amram, in despair, divorced Yocheved⁶, Yocheved remarried to a man named Elizaphan and bore two sons, Eldad and Medad⁷. The prophets Eldad and Medad were exceedingly humble, and for this Hashem not only chose them to join the seventy elders of Israel, but made them the greatest of the elders⁸. What’s more, they are the only two elders of the seventy who are named⁹. This information offers a new perspective on the Mishnah¹⁰, “Are they (referring to the beit din in question) as great as Moshe and Aaron or Eldad and Medad?” Yocheved did not just bear the three most significant figures in Israel, she bore the five most influential figures.

In a broader sense, though, Yocheved ‘birthed’ far more than five babies. The famous Gemara tells us that the “Hebrew midwives” referred to in the Chumash¹¹ were Yocheved and her daughter Miriam. Countless Jewish babies were saved thanks to the selfless efforts of Yocheved, who faced certain death if Paroh would have discovered her disobeying his decree¹². And yet, Yocheved displayed true yirat shamayim¹³.

Yocheved’s impressive fear of and dedication to Hashem yielded abundant rewards. Firstly, Sefer Shemot writes of baby Moshe that “The woman took the child and nursed him”¹⁴, and the midrash explains that “the woman” in question is his birth mother, Yocheved. The midrash tells us that as a reward for Yocheved sustaining so many Jewish babies, Hashem returned her son to her¹⁵.

Every step of the way, no matter how good or bad things were, Yocheved saw Hashem’s hand guide everything. She went against Paroh, not fearing the consequences, she gave up her son Moshe, trusting that Hashem would protect him, and she saw the heights her children reached, in no small part thanks to her example. She bore the five greatest prophets in Israel, all of whom led the nation together.

This theme re-emerges (albeit unsuccessfully this time) when Moshe is informed of his impending death, and pleads with Hashem to waive this decree and allow him entry into Eretz Yisrael. Among Moshe’s incessant protests, he says “Shall my mother Yocheved, to whom my life brought so much grief, suffer sorrow after my death also?”¹⁶ This argument is significant for a number of reasons. Moshe does not try to use his immeasurable merit to make his case. He doesn’t argue that he has done so much for Am Yisrael that he deserves to go into Israel. He argues that his mother will have to anguish over her son’s death, and while no mother deserves this, least of all does Yocheved, who risked her life to save the sons of all the other mothers in Am Yisrael!

In reality, Yocheved knew that her son Moshe’s life would be fraught but ultimately good. The Gemara tells us that her delivery of Moshe was painless, as she was one of the few tzadikot who were unaffected by the decree on Chava¹⁷ that women will suffer pain in childbirth. Furthermore, we read that when Moshe was born, Yocheved “saw that he was good”¹⁸, and Rashi elucidates that this means that the house was filled with light¹⁹. The Mizrachi adds that this light was a sign to Yocheved that Hashem would protect her son, and this insurance, as it were, gave her the strength to lay him in the Nile²⁰.

The Zohar²¹ writes that in Olam Haba, Yocheved is surrounded by thousands of women, and each day they sing praises of Hashem, and sing the Song of the Sea. Yocheved herself recites “And Miriam the Prophet…took her timbrel in her hand…”²². Her reward is to proclaim the successes of her children, reliving the highest spiritual moments shared by the entire nation, many of whom owed their lives to her selfless efforts.

Yocheved never needed her name publicized, she felt her role was to build the foundations for her children to stand as giants upon, and in return, all of her children’s names are recorded in the ever-living, ever-lasting Torah.