There is very little to say about Jochebed apart from the fact that she was pregnant at the worst time in history. Her people were slaves in Egypt, and Pharaoh feared an uprising of the Hebrew people whose numbers had grown so rapidly.
So he told the midwives to kill every male baby they delivered. Throw them into the Nile, he said.
Into this mess, Jochebed delivers a son. She somehow manages to keep him quiet and hidden for three months. But, she was putting off the inevitable. Someone would find out eventually, and she knew it.
In one of the most amazing maternal acts of trust in God’s Providence, Jochebed placed her son in a basket and told her daughter to take the baby to the Nile. This river, which was supposed to take his life, would actually save it.
You know the baby as Moses. But he hadn’t yet received this name. The name was given to him by Pharaoh’s daughter, and it means I drew him out of the water.
Pharaoh’s daughter decides to keep him, and she sends for Jochebed to nurse the baby. I wonder how Jochebed felt as she held her own son, now that the worst was over, now that he had been spared a terrible death and adopted into the royal line. What was it like, later that same day, when she felt her body calling her to feeding time, and she could lift the baby to her breast as she had done for three months, this time without fear that they were living on borrowed time.
She had delivered a son, in the middle of one of the worst periods of infanticide. And God had spared him.
Moses, the one who was drawn from the waters, the one who would lead the Hebrew people through even greater waters and into freedom. Moses, the one who would give them the Law, the one who would lead them through the wilderness. The one who would intercede for them before God.
This was no ordinary boy child.
If Moses prefigures Our Lord, who is the fulfillment of the Law, then Jochebed prefigures Our Lady – in many ways. It may have seemed like she, too, was pregnant at the worst possible time. It may have felt like her people were more slave than free. It may have seemed that only divine intervention could keep them alive as they passed through the desert (ironically from the Holy Land into Egypt rather than the other way around). But God had not blinked. This male child would deliver a fallen world, lead them through the desert, and show them the Promised Land His Father had prepared for them from the foundation of the world.
It takes a great writer to weave foreshadowing into the story line, but only God can write history this perfectly, carefully leaving clues for humanity, meticulously weaving a tapestry of Salvation History that would culminate in the New Adam and the New Eve. . . and ultimately in redemption and salvation.
So he told the midwives to kill every male baby they delivered. Throw them into the Nile, he said.
Into this mess, Jochebed delivers a son. She somehow manages to keep him quiet and hidden for three months. But, she was putting off the inevitable. Someone would find out eventually, and she knew it.
In one of the most amazing maternal acts of trust in God’s Providence, Jochebed placed her son in a basket and told her daughter to take the baby to the Nile. This river, which was supposed to take his life, would actually save it.
You know the baby as Moses. But he hadn’t yet received this name. The name was given to him by Pharaoh’s daughter, and it means I drew him out of the water.
Pharaoh’s daughter decides to keep him, and she sends for Jochebed to nurse the baby. I wonder how Jochebed felt as she held her own son, now that the worst was over, now that he had been spared a terrible death and adopted into the royal line. What was it like, later that same day, when she felt her body calling her to feeding time, and she could lift the baby to her breast as she had done for three months, this time without fear that they were living on borrowed time.
She had delivered a son, in the middle of one of the worst periods of infanticide. And God had spared him.
Moses, the one who was drawn from the waters, the one who would lead the Hebrew people through even greater waters and into freedom. Moses, the one who would give them the Law, the one who would lead them through the wilderness. The one who would intercede for them before God.
This was no ordinary boy child.
If Moses prefigures Our Lord, who is the fulfillment of the Law, then Jochebed prefigures Our Lady – in many ways. It may have seemed like she, too, was pregnant at the worst possible time. It may have felt like her people were more slave than free. It may have seemed that only divine intervention could keep them alive as they passed through the desert (ironically from the Holy Land into Egypt rather than the other way around). But God had not blinked. This male child would deliver a fallen world, lead them through the desert, and show them the Promised Land His Father had prepared for them from the foundation of the world.
It takes a great writer to weave foreshadowing into the story line, but only God can write history this perfectly, carefully leaving clues for humanity, meticulously weaving a tapestry of Salvation History that would culminate in the New Adam and the New Eve. . . and ultimately in redemption and salvation.
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