Mother
The figure of the mother is woven into Scripture as a vocation grounded in command, attended by anguish, and honored as the channel through which Yahweh hands forward his promises. The Decalogue places her beside the father as an object of honor; the wisdom books make the curse against her a near-sacrilege; and the prophets reach for the bond of mother and nursing child when they want to picture the depth of God's own covenant tenderness. Around the commandment cluster the lives of particular mothers - Hagar driven into the wilderness, Hannah praying at Shiloh, the daughter of Levi sealing her son in pitch, Naomi returning empty, Lois and Eunice handing on faith, and Mary present at Cana and at the cross.
The Commandment to Honor
The fifth word of the Decalogue couples mother with father in a single charge: "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which Yahweh your God gives you" (Ex 20:12). Deuteronomy reissues the same word with the same promise (De 5:16). Leviticus tightens it from honor into reverence: "You⁺ will fear every man his mother, and his father; and you⁺ will keep my Sabbaths" (Le 19:3). Sexual reverence is folded into the same command: "The nakedness of your father, even the nakedness of your mother, you will not uncover. She is your mother, you will not have any sex with her" (Le 18:7).
Jesus repeats the Mosaic charge against the contemporary practice of using vow-language to evade it: "For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother; and, He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him die the death: but you⁺ say, If a man will say to his father or his mother, That with which you might have been profited by me is Corban, that is to say, Given [to God]; you⁺ no longer allow him to do anything for his father or his mother" (Mark 7:10-12). The same commandment surfaces in Jesus' rehearsal of the law to the rich ruler (Lu 18:20) and in Paul's address to children: "Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with promise), that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth" (Eph 6:2-3).
The Curse on Those Who Curse a Mother
The Sinai legislation pairs honor with a capital sanction. Striking a parent and cursing a parent draw the same penalty: "And he who strikes his father, or his mother, will be surely put to death" (Ex 21:15); "And he who curses his father or his mother, will surely be put to death" (Ex 21:17); "For any man who curses his father or his mother will surely be put to death: he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood will be on him" (Le 20:9).
The wisdom literature reads the same offense forward into character. The proverbs warn the son who despises, mocks, robs, or chases away his mother: "A wise son makes a glad father; But [a] foolish man despises his mother" (Pr 15:20); "He who does violence to his father, and chases away his mother, Is a son who causes shame and brings reproach" (Pr 19:26); "Whoever curses his father or his mother, His lamp will be put out in the middle of the night" (Pr 20:20); "Listen to your father who begot you, And don't despise your mother when she is old" (Pr 23:22); "Whoever robs his father or his mother, and says, It is no transgression, The same is the partner of a destroyer" (Pr 28:24); "There is a generation who curse their father, And do not bless their mother" (Pr 30:11); "The eye that mocks at his father, And despises to obey his mother, The ravens of the valley will pick it out" (Pr 30:17).
Sirach develops the same logic at length. The mother's standing is set by Yahweh himself: "For Yahweh glorified the father over the sons, And he firmly set the mother's judgment over them" (Sir 3:2). To glorify a mother is to lay up treasure (Sir 3:4); the obedient son is promised long days (Sir 3:6). The opposite carries a weight that runs back to the Creator: "A father's blessing lays the foundation for the root, But a mother's curse plucks up the plant" (Sir 3:9); "A man's glory is the glory of his father, But he who curses his mother increases sin" (Sir 3:11); "For he who despises his father acts proudly, And he who curses his mother provokes his Creator" (Sir 3:16). The exhortation is grounded in the body itself: "With all your heart, honor your father. And do not forget the birth pangs of your mother" (Sir 7:27); "Remember that except through them, You would not have been [born]. So what will you give back to them Compared to what they gave to you?" (Sir 7:28). Even the council chamber is no excuse for forgetting them: "Remember your father and your mother When you sit in council among the mighty" (Sir 23:14).
Mothers as Instruments of Providence
Hagar
An early named mother in the line of crisis is Hagar, the Egyptian slave whose son Abraham sent away with Sarah's approval. She bore Abram his first son (Gen 16:15). When Sarah saw Ishmael mocking, she pressed Abraham: "Cast out this slave and her son. For the son of this slave will not be heir with my son, even with Isaac" (Gen 21:10). Abraham was grieved (Gen 21:11), but Yahweh confirmed both lines: "In Isaac will your seed be called" and "of the son of the slave I will make into a nation, because he is your seed" (Gen 21:12-13). Sent into the wilderness with bread and a bottle of water, Hagar reached the limit of her resources and sat at a bowshot's distance from her son: "Don't let me see the child's death. And she sat opposite him, and lifted up her voice, and wept" (Gen 21:16). Yahweh answered the boy's voice through her: "Don't be afraid. For God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in your hand. For I will make him a great nation" (Gen 21:17-18). Then God opened her eyes to a well of water (Gen 21:19). Paul reads her later in covenantal terms: "Now this Hagar is mount Sinai in Arabia and answers to the Jerusalem that now is" (Gal 4:25).
Jochebed and the Ark of Bulrushes
The mother of Moses receives no name in the Cares-of-Motherhood scripture itself, but the act stands: "And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch; and she put the child in it, and laid it in the flags by the river's brink" (Ex 2:3). The deliverer of Israel reaches the household of Pharaoh because his mother first sealed him against the river.
Hannah
Hannah's history is told as the answer to a vow. "And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to Yahweh, and wept intensely" (1Sa 1:10). Her petition was conditional: "O Yahweh of hosts, if you will indeed look at the affliction of your slave, and remember me, and not forget your slave, but will give to your slave a man-child, then I will give him to Yahweh all the days of his life, and no razor will come upon his head" (1Sa 1:11). When Samuel was given, she returned him: "I prayed for this lad; and Yahweh has given me my petition which I asked of him: therefore I also have granted him to Yahweh; as long as he lives he is granted to Yahweh" (1Sa 1:27-28). Her song, sung at the handing-over, names Yahweh as the one who reverses every fortune: "My heart exults in Yahweh; My horn is exalted in Yahweh... There is none holy like Yahweh; For there is none besides you, Neither is there any rock like our God... The bows of the mighty men are broken; And those who stumbled are girded with strength... Yes, the barren has borne seven; And she who has many sons languishes... Yahweh kills, and makes alive: He brings down to Sheol, and brings up. Yahweh makes poor, and makes rich: He brings low, he also lifts up. He raises up the poor out of the dust, He lifts up the needy from the dunghill, To make them sit with princes, And inherit the throne of glory" (1Sa 2:1-8). The mother's fidelity continued past the weaning: "Moreover his mother made him a little robe, and brought it to him from year to year, when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice" (1Sa 2:19).
Naomi and the Mother-in-Law
Naomi returns from Moab having lost husband and sons, and her daughters-in-law lift up their voice and weep: "And they lifted up their voice, and wept again: and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth stuck to her" (Ru 1:14). The bond Ruth keeps is to a mother-in-law, not by blood, and when Boaz redeems Ruth and the line, the gift returns: "And Naomi took the child, and laid it in her bosom, and was its nurse" (Ru 4:16). The neighbor women call the child Naomi's: "There is a son born to Naomi" (Ru 4:17). The line runs forward to David.
Lois and Eunice
Paul attributes Timothy's faith to a chain of mothers: "having been reminded of the unfeigned faith that is in you; which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois, and your mother Eunice; and, I am persuaded, in you also" (2Ti 1:5).
Mary
The genealogy ends with Mary: "and Jacob begot Joseph; and Joseph begot Jesus, who is called Christ, from Mary" (Mt 1:16). At the wedding in Cana she is named only as "the mother of Jesus": "the mother of Jesus was there" (John 2:1); "the mother of Jesus says to him, They have no wine" (John 2:3); "Jesus says to her, Woman, what have I to do with you? My hour is not yet come" (John 2:4); "His mother says to the servants, Whatever he says to you⁺, do it" (John 2:5). She follows him to Capernaum (John 2:12).
The Mother in Crisis
The TCR's atom for the cares of motherhood gathers a recurring set of scenes. Eve's pain is announced in the garden: "I will greatly multiply your pain and your conception; in pain you will bring forth sons" (Gen 3:16). The two women before Solomon dispute a living child: "her heart yearned over her son, and she said, Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and in no way slay him" (1Ki 3:26). The Shunammite's son cries out, "My head, my head," and dies on her lap: "he sat on her knees until noon, and then died" (2Ki 4:19-20). Rizpah keeps watch over her unburied sons "from the beginning of harvest until water was poured on them from heaven; and she allowed neither the birds of the heavens to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night" (2Sa 21:10). And Rachel's grief becomes the type for Israel itself: "A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her sons; she refuses to be comforted for her sons, because they are not" (Jer 31:15).
Yahweh's Mother-Comfort
Against all of this, the prophets press the bond of mother and child into divine self-description. The first reach is to the unbreakable instinct of a nursing mother: "Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, these may forget, yet [my Speech] will not forget you" (Is 49:15). The second is direct: "As one whom his mother comforts, so [my Speech] will comfort you⁺; and you⁺ will be comforted in Jerusalem" (Is 66:13). The mother is held up not merely as an example of duty owed her but as a creaturely image for how Yahweh himself consoles his people.