🔢WEB · Numbers 26:59
What does Numbers 26:59 mean?
"The name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, who was born to Levi in Egypt. She bore to Amram Aaron and Moses, and Miriam their sister."
— Numbers 26:59 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
According to the lot shall their inheritance be divided between the more and the fewer.”
These are those who were counted of the Levites after their families: of Gershon, the family of the Gershonites; of Kohath, the family of the Kohathites; of Merari, the family of the Merarites.
These are the families of Levi: the family of the Libnites, the family of the Hebronites, the family of the Mahlites, the family of the Mushites, the family of the Korahites. Kohath became the father of Amram.
The name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, who was born to Levi in Egypt. She bore to Amram Aaron and Moses, and Miriam their sister.
To Aaron were born Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.
Nadab and Abihu died when they offered strange fire before Yahweh.
Those who were counted of them were twenty-three thousand, every male from a month old and upward; for they were not counted among the children of Israel, because there was no inheritance given them among the children of Israel.
Explanation
Numbers 26:59 is a brief genealogical note tucked into the second census of Israel, taken near the end of the wilderness wanderings on the plains of Moab. In plain language, the verse tells us the name of the mother of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. Her name was Jochebed, and she was a daughter of Levi himself, born to him while the family still lived in Egypt. She married Amram, a fellow Levite, and became the mother of three of the most significant figures in Israel's early history: Aaron, the first high priest; Moses, the great deliverer and lawgiver; and Miriam, the prophetess who led the women in song after the crossing of the Red Sea.
The book of Numbers records two censuses of the Israelite tribes, one near the beginning of the wilderness journey (Numbers 1) and one near its end (Numbers 26), after the generation that left Egypt had died off due to unbelief. This second census was taken to organize the new generation for entering the Promised Land and for dividing the inheritance of the land among the tribes. Moses, traditionally credited as the author or compiler of Numbers, includes this genealogical detail about his own family within the larger tribal listing of Levi's descendants, since the Levites were counted separately from the other tribes for their priestic duties rather than for land inheritance.
Theologically, this verse quietly underscores God's providence in raising up a deliverer for Israel through an ordinary family faithfully embedded within the covenant people. Jochebed is elsewhere remembered (Exodus 2
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