Do Not Let Him Out Of Your Sight – Jochebed’s Story
The Pharaoh of Egypt either didn’t know or didn’t care that Joseph’s wisdom (courtesy of God) saved Egypt and its people from a horrible drought. The Egyptians weren’t the only ones saved from the drought, though. Joseph had welcomed his father, Jacob, the father of the Israelites, along with his eleven brothers and their families into the land so that they wouldn’t starve, either.
Over the years the number of Israelites in Egypt grew to the point that the new Pharaoh was afraid he and his people would be overpowered by them. To ensure this didn’t happen, he made slaves of them and ordered all baby boys under the age of two to be slaughtered.
Exodus 2 explained jochebed and moses
Jochebed’s Story
Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch.
Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants walked along the riverbank.
She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said. Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” “Yes, go,” she answered.
So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son.
The woman who hid her child; saving his life from a murderous ruler, was Jochebed.
What We Can Learn From Jochebed
Jochebed was a courageous woman who exhibited a tremendous amount of faith and motherly love.
Lesson One: Think Before You Act.
Jochebed knew she had to do something. Her baby was no longer a newborn. He was becoming more vocal, as all babies do. The Egyptian taskmasters and guards would hear him! Or even worse, another Israelite might turn them in, in an attempt to find favor with the Egyptians. Jochebed had no choice-her son had to go. So what did she do? She put him in a basket…in a river…and left her young daughter to stand guard over him.
Now Jochebed didn’t just randomly set this baby to lose in the river. She knew exactly where the Princess bathed and she knew the odds of her finding him were strongly in her favor, and she trusted God to spare her child. She was putting her faith in God and in the heart of another woman to have compassion for an innocent baby.
Meaning of exodus 2:2 courage of jochebed
Lesson Two:
The courage to do what’s best for our children isn’t always easy or pleasant.
In giving her son to the princess she was asked to raise him, but this only went to the point of weaning him-most likely between two and three years old.
The ache in Jochebed’s heart had to be tremendous when it came time to turn him back over to Pharaoh’s daughter. It doesn’t take much to imagine her lying in bed at night begging God to let her keep him. That was not to be, though. God had a plan for Moses and being part of the Egyptian royalty was part of that plan.
Motherhood lessons from jochebed
To Sum It All Up
The Bible tells us Jochebed saw what a special child Moses was. Did God give her this special insight or was she like other proud moms? We don’t know, but what we do know is that she understood that everything we have comes from God-including our children-and that she had the faith necessary to give her son back to God.