Jochebed, a Great Mother

God inspired her to carry out this plan, so why was she crying?  With a heavy heart, Jochebed pushed the basket farther out on the river where the current could carry it to an unknown fate. 

She let her son drift away from her in order to save him.   She probably reflected on her own name, which means,  “The Lord is glorious.”   Nothing glorious about today she thought. A mother's life is intermingled with joy and grief. 

She knew that if the soldiers found her baby, they would kill him.  The pharaoh ordered the deaths of all Hebrew baby boys under a year old. 

She hid her infant son for three months, but he grew bigger and started making a lot of noise. She remembered the soldiers ruthlessly killing other babies of her friends and family.   Danger lurked ahead and she needed to act quickly.

Jochebed, a woman of faith and the mother of prophets, put God’s plan into action. She gathered some reeds and made a basket just big enough to hold her precious son. She caulked it to make it watertight. She put the hapless child in the basket and set it afloat in the Nile.

You can only imagine her feelings that day.  She was giving up her son in order to hopefully save him even though he was going to an unknown fate.  

She told, Miriam, the baby’s sister to follow the basket and tell her what happened to it.

The girl followed her brother to where the queen of Egypt bathed in the river while attended by her daughters and female servants.  One heard the child’s cries and alerted the queen.   She bade one of the women to pull the basket over to her. 

She beheld the infant Moses and decided that she would keep him as her own child.  She named him Moses because she took him from the water.

The women asked her who would nurse the baby. Miriam rushed from her hiding place among the bulrushes and said that she knew of a midwife who lost her child.  The queen told her to fetch the woman and she did.  She paid Jochebed wages to care for Moses   No soldier could harm the child because the pharaoh’s wife, Queen of Egypt decreed that he was her own son.

As he grew, Moses became aware of his own identity and led the Israelites out of slavery, one of the greatest leaders of all time.

Jochebed is like most moms everywhere.  She bravely let her infant go so he might be saved. She sacrificed her desires to the greater good of her child.  That is what mothers do.

Wishing a happy mother’s day to all the mothers, grandmothers, and any woman who acts as a mother to a boy or girl.  God bless every one of you.