Jochebed was the mother of Moses, who placed him in a basket on the Nile.
According to Exodus, Jochebed hid her baby son for three months after Pharaoh ordered Hebrew boys to be thrown into the Nile. When she could no longer conceal him, she placed him in a waterproofed basket among the reeds along the riverbank. Pharaoh’s daughter found the child and adopted him, while Moses’s sister Miriam helped arrange for Jochebed to nurse him.
The birth narrative names Moses’s mother only indirectly; Jochebed’s name appears later in Exodus 6:20 and Numbers 26:59. She was married to Amram and was also the mother of Aaron and Miriam. The biblical account therefore connects her with three of Israel’s most important figures.
Jochebed is sometimes confused with Pharaoh’s daughter, who rescued and adopted Moses, or with Miriam, who watched over the basket. Zipporah was Moses’s later wife, not his mother. The Hebrew word translated “basket” can also mean a small ark or boat.