Moses and Jesus: the birth of the Savior

Judaism, Wntr, 1993 by Allan Kensky

Other midrashim definitely see God as actively involved in assisting the Israelites in procreating in Egypt. On the verse (Ex. 1:7), "And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly and multiplied and waxed exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled with them," the rabbis commented that six children were born at each Israelite birth (Exodus Rabbah 1,8). Later, when Pharaoh placed taskmasters on the Israelites and forbade marital relations among them, God assisted the Israelite women when they went into the fields to feed their husbands and cohabit with them. When they gave birth in the fields, God sent angels to take care of the children (Exodus Rabbah 1,12). Given this context, it does not appear implausible that the Midrash in the Haggadah saw God as even more actively involved in the Israelite birth process.

The second possible hint of unusual conception is found in the Midrashic explication of the statement in Ex. 2:3 that Moses' mother hid him for three months. The Jerusalem Targum, several of the later Midrashic works, and the commentary of Rashi, explain that Moses was born prematurely, after six months, and that his mother was thus able to hide him until the time that the Egyptians expected her to give birth. However, a tradition found in the Babylonian Talmud (Sotah 12a) gives a different explanation, namely that Yokheved was able to hide Moses for three months because she was already pregnant for three months at the time of her remarriage with Amram. The Egyptians suspected that she would give birth nine months after her remarriage, and so Yokheved was able to avoid the watchful eyes of the Egyptians for three months.

The exact timing of Amram and Yokheved's divorce and remarriage is not spelled out. The common interpretation of the sequence of events is as follows: Amram divorces Yokheved upon hearing Pharaoh's decree. He does not realize that she is already pregnant. Miriam intercedes and Amram remarries Yokheved three months after their separation. Six months later Moses is born.

The relatively late Chronicles of Moses and Sefer ha-Yashar give a three year time span to the divorce and remarriage of Amram and Yokheved. They suggest that Miriam was born at the beginning of the enslavement in Egypt (hence her name Miriam, from mar, or bitter) and that Aaron was born at the time that the decree was made to throw the Israelite male-children into the Nile. (The Torah does not explain how Aaron survived.) At that time, Amram separated from Yokheved. After three years, Miriam predicted the birth of a savior, and Amram remarried Yokheved, who became pregnant and gave birth.

The Chronicles of Moses do not deal with the question of the three months. Sefer Ha-Yashar does, however, and explains that Yokheved gave birth in the seventh month. This idea of the premature birth of Moses, already found in the Jerusalem Targum, is adopted by the Midrash Hagadol and by Rashi. This explanation has become so standard that, in more recent times, Louis Ginzberg, in his Legends of the Jews, writes that "Jokhebed gave birth to the child six months after conception."(11) Only in his notes do we learn that an alternative interpretation for the three month period exists.