“And Amram took him Jochebed his father's sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses: and the years of the life of Amram were an hundred and thirty and seven years.”
My Notes
What Does Exodus 6:20 Mean?
"And Amram took him Jochebed his father's sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses: and the years of the life of Amram were an hundred and thirty and seven years." A single verse introduces the parents of Israel's two greatest leaders: Aaron (the first high priest) and Moses (the lawgiver and deliverer). Amram and Jochebed are named without fanfare — no divine announcement, no angelic visitation. Just a marriage and two births recorded in a genealogy.
Jochebed is the woman who will hide baby Moses in a basket, defying Pharaoh's genocide decree. She's named here as a statistical entry in a family tree. The most courageous act of motherhood in the Old Testament begins in the anonymity of a genealogical record.
Reflection Questions
- 1.What anonymous, unrecognized work are you doing that might have significance you can't see yet?
- 2.How does Jochebed's story encourage you if you're in a season of invisible faithfulness?
- 3.What does it mean that the parents of Israel's greatest leaders are introduced without fanfare?
- 4.Who in your life is a 'Jochebed' — doing courageous, unseen work that nobody celebrates yet?
Devotional
Amram married Jochebed. She bore Aaron and Moses. That's it. Two sentences for the parents of Israel's greatest leaders. No divine announcement. No special sign. Just a marriage, two births, and a number.
Jochebed will become one of the bravest women in Scripture — the mother who defied Pharaoh's death decree by hiding her son in a waterproof basket on the Nile. But here, she's just a name in a genealogy. Nobody knows yet what she'll do. Nobody knows her son will stand before Pharaoh. She's just a Levite woman having babies during a genocide.
This is how most of history's most important people are introduced: without fanfare. The parents of world-changers are usually invisible to history until their children become visible. Jochebed had no idea she was raising the deliverer of Israel. She was just a mother trying to keep her baby alive.
If you're in the anonymous stage — raising children nobody notices, doing work nobody celebrates, living a life that looks like a line in a genealogy — Jochebed's story says the significance comes later. The most important thing you do might not be recognized as important for decades. But the mother who hid Moses in a basket changed the world. And nobody knew it when she was named in this verse.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
And Aaron took him Elisheba,.... The same name we pronounce Elizabeth; and of this name was the wife of Zacharias, the…
Amram - This can scarcely be the same person who is mentioned in Exo 6:18; but his descendant and representative in the…
His father's sister - דדתו dodatho. The true meaning of this word is uncertain. Parkhurst observes that דוד dod…
I. We have here a genealogy, not an endless one, such as the apostle condemns (Ti1 1:4), for it ends in those two great…