The Mother Mentioned in Hebrews 11 (aka the Faith Hall of Fame)

Two weeks ago at church, my 14 month old was getting a little extra rambunctious and I took her out to the lobby to keep from disrupting everyone around us.  At the church we attend, there is a shelf set up with an assortment of pamphlets about various topics and as I paced back and forth with a squirmy baby, I perused them.  One titled, “A Little-Known Mother Who Changed The World” caught my attention.  I picked it up and my child immediately tried to grab it from me and ripped it.  Child, I am trying to see who this mother was and if I can learn anything.  You know, to be a better mother to you.  Anyway, I just stuck the pamphlet into my bag without looking at it in order to get it out of sight of the toddler who had decided it was hers.  I went to sit in the back of the service hoping my little girl would stay relatively still and quiet for the remainder of the service.  She didn’t, but we got through it anyway.

The cover of the pamphlet hadn’t given me any clue who it was about.  There was a picture of a modern looking woman holding a small baby so I wasn’t sure if it was about someone from the bible, a more recent story, or just a general profile of a certain kind of mother.  When we got home from church and I had put my daughter down for a nap, I pulled out the pamphlet and discovered it was about Moses’ mother Jochebed.

Of course, I was already familiar with the story of Jochebed hiding her newborn son Moses and then putting him in a basket and floating him down the river to be protected from Pharoah’s decree to kill all male babies.  But as I was reading the pamphlet with the familiar story, I was struck by something that I had read before, but not fully appreciated.  Jochebed is mentioned again in the New Testament, not by name, but she is referenced in Hebrews 11:23.

“By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.”

Hebrews 11:23

Jochebed was included in Hebrews 11, more commonly called, The Faith Hall of Fame as it lists out various Old Testament people who demonstrated great faith in their lives.  I’m not sure how I never really gave much thought to her inclusion here, but it does seem notable considering that she is only called by name a couple of times in Exodus and most of the other names in Hebrews 11 are much more recognizable ones, including her son Moses.  But before the author of Hebrews gets into the acts of faith committed by Moses, they take time to note the act of faith committed by his mother.

Hebrews 11 is a reminder that Jochebed’s story is more than just a dramatic setup to Moses’s story of faith.  Her own story is one of incredible faith and “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” as Hebrews 11 puts it.  It’s pretty hard to fathom placing a three-month-old in a basket and then placing that basket in a river.  What if it leaks?  What if a crocodile finds it? What if it turns over or the wrong person finds it?  It’s pretty anxiety producing to even imagine doing something like this, but Jochebed put her child’s future in God’s hands.  Only through immense faith could she do something like that and that’s why she can stand with the others listed in Hebrews 11 as part of the famous “Faith Hall of Fame”.

Beyond the famous act of placing Moses in a basket, the writer of the pamphlet points out that she had very limited time with Moses while he was young because he was raised in Pharoah’s house.  But she still must have utilized that time well to instill Godly values into him because of course he later would go on to lead his people out of Egypt to the Promised Land.  Exodus doesn’t say how long she was able to keep Moses when he was young.  It just says that “when the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son.”  It also doesn’t tell us if she was able to continue seeing Moses at all after that.  I would think that no matter what, taking him to live with someone else, someone who didn’t share her values of fearing the Lord and who was a part of oppressing her people would take as much faith as putting him in the river would have.

I know that none of this is tremendously profound insight and anyone with a reference bible can link Jochebed’s story in Exodus to Hebrews 11, but sometimes, familiar stories just strike us differently and we glean something new from them.  In this case, it isn’t new knowledge per se but maybe simply a new appreciation of Jochebed’s role in Moses’ story.  Moses is such a central figure in the Old Testament, but without Jochebed’s courage and faith, there would be no Moses.  I’m glad circumstances led me to be reminded of this that Sunday a couple of weeks ago.

As another Mother’s Day is upon us, Jochebed’s story reminds me of other women whose faith has guided their families- my own mom and my grandmothers.  Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:5, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.”  The faith of Godly women can have a profound impact on their children as evidenced by Jochebed and these women Paul spoke of.  I have been blessed to have a mother and grandmothers like these women of faith and pray that like Timothy, their influence can be seen in me.  I pray to be even a fraction of the woman that my mom is. 

Happy Mother’s Day!