IOCHABED (Heb. Jāhhebhedh). — A woman of the tribe of Levi; born in Egypt, she was the wife of Amram, her nephew. She is the mother of Moses (Ex. 6:20; Num. 26:58 ff.). Through her resourcefulness, she saved the life of this son of hers and succeeded in becoming his nurse when, compelled to expose him on the Nile in a papyrus cradle, he was taken by Pharaoh’s daughter (Ex. 2:1–10).
I. is the only theophoric name, before the Revelation at Sinai (Ex. 3:13 ff.; 6:2 ff.), in which the element Jā appears, an abbreviation of Jahweh; but this element could easily have been substituted for 'El or rather for 'El.
BIBL.: M. Noh, Die israelitischen Personennamen... Leipzig 1928, p. 111; A. Bea, De Pentateuchos, 2nd ed., Rome 1933, p. 52 ff.; J. Lagrange, L'authenticité mosaïque de la Genèse et la théorie des documents, in Revue biblique, 47 (1938), p. 174 ff.; A. Vaccari, La S. Bibbia, I, Florence 1943, pp. 184 ff., 193. Francesco Spadafora