Exodus 6:20

20. And Amram took him Jochebed his father’s sister to wife דודה , here rendered father’s sister, we render daughter of father’s brother, or cousin, in this following the Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate, and Targum Pal . , thus understanding the text to declare that Amram married Jochebed his cousin. This is a much disputed text, furnishing a most important chronological item . Our Authorized Version and most modern commentators make Jochebed to have been Amram’s aunt and Levi’s daughter, so that Moses was thus Levi’s grandson . This view certainly is favoured by Numbers 26:59, “And the name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom her mother bare to Levi in Egypt;” as if Levi had a daughter born to him after the descent into Egypt, in addition to the three sons who went down with him from Canaan . But,

(1,) It is not probable that Moses’ own father and mother violated a law of nature which was in the next generation so expressly incorporated into the Mosaic ordinances, though it is, of course, possible . (2,) If Jochebed were Amram’s aunt, then Levi must have begotten, and Jochebed have borne, children at such an extreme age that the birth of Jochebed, Miriam, and Aaron, as well as of Moses, must all be set down as miraculous, while the record here gives no hint of a miracle . This may be seen thus: Take the shortest period of the sojourn, two hundred and fifteen years, which will make the difficulties least, and as Moses was eighty at the Exode, we have 215-80, or 135 years, as the time from Jacob’s descent into Egypt to the birth of Moses. Levi was about forty-five when the sojourn began, and as Jochebed was (on this supposition) his daughter, there were then one hundred and thirty-five years from Levi’s forty-fifth year to the birth of his grandson, Moses. Now wherever we divide this period of one hundred and thirty-five years we shall make Levi to have become a father, and Jochebed a mother, in extreme age. Thus, if Jochebed were born when Levi was one hundred, then it would have been fifty-five years after the arrival in Egypt, since 100-45=55. In that case Jochebed must have borne Moses at eighty, since 135-55=80; Aaron, therefore, at seventy-seven, and Miriam when past sixty. If we suppose Jochebed to have been herself born ten or twenty years later, we then make Levi one hundred and ten or one hundred and twenty at her birth, and make her so many years younger at the birth of her children, but we do not relieve the difficulties. If we take the long period of sojourn, four hundred and thirty years, it will be seen at once that all the difficulties are vastly increased. But all are completely obviated by considering Jochebed Amram’s cousin, for this inserts another generation into the one hundred and thirty-five years.

(3.) The Hebrew word דודה , here rendered father’s sister, is, as noted above, rendered daughter of the father’s brother by the Septuagint, followed by the Syriac, Vulgate, and Palestine Targum . The corresponding masculine, דוד , uncle, also means son of the uncle in Jeremiah 32:12. It seems certain that if dodh may mean uncle’s son, dodha may mean uncle’s daughter . Accordingly it is here rendered cousin by Lyra, Estius, La Haye, and Adam Clarke .

(4.) The difficulty of the common translation may be relieved thus:

Numbers 26:59 states that her mother, not mentioning who, bore Jochebed to Levi in Egypt . Is it not a likely supposition that Levi in his old age adopted this granddaughter as his daughter? If so, she might have been considered as the sister of his three famous sons, and this fact was deemed worthy of special mention, since she was the mother of the line of the high priests . Thus she might have been considered Amram’s aunt, although really his cousin .

It is the opinion of Kurtz, Keil, Canon Cook, and others, that two Amrams are here referred to, and that several genealogical links are dropped between Amram the son of Kohath and Amram the father of Moses. But, (1,) The impression is certainly very strongly made, in reading Exodus 6:18-20, that the same Amram is referred to throughout. (2,) It is a fact not noted by these scholars that in Leviticus 10:4, Uzziel, Amram’s brother, is called Aaron’s uncle; and though, as seen above, the word rendered uncle has much latitude, yet it would be necessary to suppose a second Uzziel also contemporary with the second Amram . As to the dropping of genealogical links, there is an undoubted example in Matthew i, where the names of three well known kings are omitted in the genealogy of our Lord; and a probable instance, yet more remarkable, in Ezra 7:1, where, if the parallel list in 1 Chronicles vi is correct, six names have been dropped out between Meraioth and Azariah . It is likewise certain that son often means simply descendant, as Christ is called “son of David . ” If the sojourn in Egypt were four hundred and thirty years several generations must have been omitted here, but all the events can be brought within two hundred and fifteen years. See note on Exodus 12:40.