Name: Jochebed
Meaning: Jehovah is Glory
Her Character: Her fierce love for her son, coupled with her faith, enabled her to act heroically in the midst of great oppression.
Her Sorrow: To live in bondage as a slave.
Her Joy: That God preserved the son she surrendered to him.
Key Scriptures: Exodus 2:1-10, 6:20; Hebrews 11:23
Name: Pharaoh’s Daughter
Her Character: She courageously and compassionately saved a child from death.
Her Sorrow: That her adopted son, whom she had taken care of for forty years, had to flee his home in Egypt in order to escape Pharaoh’s wrath.
Her Joy: Being a mother to Moses.
Key Scripture: Exodus 2:1-10
Puah and Shiphrah were Egyptian midwives who lied to Pharaoh. They told him that Hebrew women had babies so fast that they could not get to the births in time. Why did they lie? Pharaoh had ordered them to kill any Hebrew boys they helped deliver. The midwives lied to save innocent lives. The Bible says God was good to the midwives because they feared Him.
Jochebed, who was also the mother or Aaron and Miriam, recognized that Moses was a special child, and she hid him for three months. After she couldn’t hide him anymore, she placed him in a basket in the Nile River. A young Miriam, another powerful Woman of the Bible, watched to see what would happen to him.
Pharaoh’s daughter, some believe her name may have been Hatshepsut, came to the Nile to bathe. She sent her maid to investigate a basket in the reeds, and she saw Moses and had pity upon him. Miriam, who was standing watch, approached Pharaoh’s daughter with an offer to find a Hebrew nurse for the baby. Pharaoh’s daughter adopted Moses, but his mother, Jochebed, was able to nurse and care for him until he was seven.
Women of the Bible practice their faith in big and small ways. Some risks their lives for their faith while others bring God's Word to their communities. Many women wisely turn their difficulties over to God, trusting that he will provide. No matter how they express their faith, God is pleased and responds to them. These women provide us with role models as women whose faith overcame their individual struggles. They turned to God as should we.
Four women (two midwives, a slave, and a princess) and a young girl played roles in the saving of one of the Bible’s great leaders, Moses.
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