Father and mother are words which, in all languages, may figuratively signify the author or producer of a thing.
A city which has great dominions under it, and consequently several other cities, is frequently called a mother,f1 in respect of those cities which are therefore, by analogy, her daughters. Nay, a city may be called a mother, in respect of the inhabitants; as in Isa 49:23; and therefore, in the symbolical language, mother is explained of the patria, or country, or city. See Suetonius in Jul. Cæs. sec. 7, and Artemidorus, L, ii. c. 82, where he says, "that to dream of lying with one’s mother, denotes the obtaining of power in one’s own country -mother being the symbol of one’s country.
The name is too tender, too common, and too interesting to need much explanation; but though it is not necessary, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, to dwell upon it by way of explaining its meaning, yet it may not be amiss to remark the general application of it. As a woman who brings forth a child is by virtue of it immediately called a mother, so the church, which brings forth children to God in Christ is called "the Jerusalem which is above, who is the mother of us all." (Gal. 4: 26.) The name is applied to all that carrythis kind of maternity. The synagogue is called the mother of the Jews. Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, (saith JEHOVAH by the prophet) which I have put away? - - here mother means the synagogue. (See Isa 1:1.) Babylon is called the mother of harlots, Rev. 17. 5. An holy matron is called a mother in Israel, 2 Sam. xx. 19, Judg. v. 7. Our grave is called by Job our mother’s womb, Job i. 21.
The ordinary applications of the word require no illustration; but the following points of Hebrew usage may be noticed. When the father had more than one wife, the son seems to have confined the title of ’mother’ to his real mother, by which he distinguished her from the other wives of his father. Hence the source of Joseph’s peculiar interest in Benjamin is indicated in Gen 43:29, by his being his mother’s son.’ The other brethren were the sons of his father by other wives. Nevertheless, when this precision was not necessary, the step-mother was sometimes styled mother. Thus Jacob (Gen 37:10) speaks of Leah as Joseph’s mother, for his real mother had long been dead. The step-mother was however more properly distinguished from the womb-mother by the name of ’father’s wife.’ The word ’mother’ was also, like father, brother, sister, employed by the Hebrews in a somewhat wider sense than is usual with us. It is used of a grandmother (1Ki 15:10), and even of any female ancestor (Gen 3:20); of a benefactress (Jdg 5:7), and as expressing intimate relationship (Job 17:14). In Hebrew, as in English, a nation is considered as a mother, and individuals as her children (Isa 50:1; Jer 50:12; Eze 19:2; Hos 2:5; Hos 4:5); so our ’mother-country,’ which is quite as good as ’father-land,’ which we seem beginning to copy from the Germans. Large and important cities are also called mothers, i.e. ’mother-cities’ with reference to the dependent towns and villages (2Sa 20:19), or even to the inhabitants, who are called her children (Isa 3:12; Isa 49:23) [WOMAN].
The Hebrew words AM and AB, mother and father, are simple and easy sounds for infant lips, like mamma and papa in English. See ABBA. "Before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and My mother," Isa 8:4 . In addition to the usual meaning of "mother," AM sometimes signifies in the Bible grandmother, 1Ki 15:10, or some remote female ancestor, Gen 3:20 . It is put for a chief city, 2Sa 20:19 ; for a benefactress, Jdg 5:7 ; for a nation, as in the expressive English phrase, "the mother country," Isa 3:12 49:23. The fond affection of a mother is often referred to in Scripture; and God has employed it to illustrate his tender love for his people, Isa 49:15 . Mothers are endowed with an all-powerful control over their offspring; and most men of eminence in the world have acknowledged their great indebtedness to maternal influence. When Bonaparte asked Madame Campan what the French nation most needed, she replied in one word, "Mothers." The Christian church already owes much, and will owe infinitely more, to the love, patience, zeal, and self-devotion of mothers in training their children for Christ.\par
Mother. The superiority of the Hebrew, over all contemporaneous systems of legislation and of morals, is strongly shown in the higher estimation, of the mother in the Jewish family, as contrasted with modern Oriental, as well as ancient Oriental and classical usage. The king’s mother, as appears in the case of Bath-sheba, was treated with special honor. Exo 20:12; Lev 19:3; Deu 5:16; Deu 21:18; Deu 21:21; 1Ki 2:29; Pro 10:1; Pro 15:20; Pro 17:25; Pro 29:15; Pro 31:1; Pro 31:30.
Honored in Israel as she is not in the East generally; one superiority of Judaism over other contemporary systems (1Ki 2:19). King Solomon rose up to meet and bowed himself unto Bathsheba, and set her on his right hand (Lev 19:3). Figuratively, a city is mother of the surrounding villages its daughters (Jos 15:45; 2Sa 20:19). Ezekiel (Eze 21:21) uses "mother of the way" for the parting of the way into two roads which branch from it, as from a common parent; however, Havernick, from a Arabic idiom, translated it as "the highway."
The law commanded that honour was to be paid to a mother as well as to a father. In nearly all cases the mothers of the kings of Israel are mentioned as well as the fathers. The wise woman who appealed to Joab as ’a mother in Israel,’ was at once listened to. 2Sa 20:19. A mother has naturally great influence over her children, whether for good or evil, as Jochebed the mother of Moses, and Jezebel the mother of Athaliah. The children of the virtuous woman arise and call her blessed. Pro 31:28. Timothy had a faithful mother and grandmother. 2Ti 1:5. There are also ’mothers’ in the church, who have the Lord’s interests at heart in the welfare of the saints, as Paul called the mother of Rufus his own mother also. Rom 16:13.
MOTHER.—Concerning the relations of Jesus with His mother, and her influence upon His training, we can but infer that the mother of such a son must herself have been an exceptional personality. See art. Mary (Virgin). Professor W. M. Ramsay, in his Education of Christ, shows how thorough was the instruction given to the Jewish youth. With this the mother had much to do. Granted that religious genius is not to be accounted for by environment, there still remains the overwhelming probability that the feminine qualities in the character of Jesus—His graciousness, gentleness, and sympathy—found a congenial setting in the home at Nazareth. Had it been otherwise, some hint of the fact must have been given in the records of His public ministry. It has been contended that such a hint is given in Mar 3:31 ff., an incident which also finds a place in the other Evangelists. Another is Mat 10:35-37 || Mar 10:29, Luk 12:53; Luk 14:26. But it should not be overlooked that these hyperbolical expressions by no means involve the repudiation of the filial tie. They are rather designed to mark the thoroughness with which the religious life should be embraced, the higher love absorbing and transforming the lower. The emphasis with which, in other connexions, Jesus denounces contemporary sins against the filial relationship is a proof that with Him the ideal life did not consist with holding it in contempt (Mar 7:10-13, Mat 15:4-9). The filial relationship is to be superseded only by the greater sacredness of the conjugal (Mat 19:5, Mar 10:7). In His response to the question of the rich young ruler Jesus emphasizes the command to honour father and mother (Mat 19:19 etc.), but (Mat 19:29 etc.) loyalty to the truth as expressed in Himself is made to take precedence of all other ties. The reason for this insistence is obvious, and has been abundantly illustrated in the history of the world’s benefactors.
Concerning our Lord’s dealings with other mothers than His own, few details are given in the Gospels. It is noteworthy that the mother of Zebedee’s children (Mat 20:20) goes unrebuked, as does the action of the mothers who brought their children to Him (Mar 10:13). His sympathy with motherhood may be inferred from these incidents, as also from the healing of the daughter of the Canaanitish woman (Mat 15:22, Mar 7:26). The same is implied in the pathetic phrase (Luk 23:28) uttered on the way to Calvary. In nothing is the uniqueness of Jesus more clearly seen than in this kind of reverence for womanhood, so unexpected in a religious teacher of His time (Joh 4:27). See Woman.
Literature.—F. W. Robertson, Serm. 2nd ser. xviii. xix.; Rendel Harris, Union with God, ch. iv.; Stalker, Imago Christi, ch. ii.; A. Morris Stewart, Infancy and Youth, of Jesus, p. 105.
R. J. Campbell.
(Hebrew, "em"; Aramaic, "imma").
By: Wilhelm Bacher, David Philipson
Although the father was considered the head of the family among the Hebrews of old, and the mother therefore occupied an inferior position legally and ritually, yet in the ethical relation involving the reverence due to her from the children she stood on the same plane as the father; disrespect for her entailed the same punishment as disrespect for the father (comp. Ex. xxi. 15, 17; Lev. xx. 9; Deut. xxvii. 16). In the Decalogue it is commanded to honor the mother as well as the father (Ex. xx. 12; Deut. v. 16); and in Lev. xix. 2 the people are enjoined to fear both parents. In the home life and training the mother is of equal importance with the father (Deut. xxi. 18, 19; I Kings xix. 20; Jer. xvi. 7; Prov. xxx. 17). When a particularly tender relation is pictured by the Biblical writers, a mother's love is often employed to symbolize the thought. Thus Isaac's marriage to Rebekah is said to comfort him for the loss of his mother (Gen. xxiv. 67). When Jeremiah describes the grief into which the calamitous events of his time have cast the people, he employs the figure of a mother weeping for her children: "A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children; she refuseth to be comforted for her children, because they are not" (Jer. xxxi. 14 [R. V. 15]); and when the prophet of the Exile wishes to delineate God as the comforter of His people, he says: "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you" (Isa. lxvi. 13). In the Book of Lamentations the acme of destitution is presented by the picture of young children and sucklings swooning in the streets, and saying to their mothers, "Where is corn and wine?" (Lam. ii. 11, 12); and when the Psalmist describes his utter wo, he laments: "As one mourning for his mother I was bowed down with grief" (Ps. xxxv. 14, Hebr.).
The Praise of the Good Woman.
It is, however, in the Book of Proverbs that the high place which the mother occupied in the Hebrew's estimation is specially indicated. Her teachings are constantly enjoined as being of equal weight with those of the father. The first verse after the introduction to the book reads: "Hear, O my son, the instruction of thy father; and neglect not the teaching of thy mother" (Prov. i. 8, Hebr.; comp. ib. vi. 20; x. 1; xv. 20; xix. 26; xx. 20; xxiii. 22, 25; xxx. 17). Especial attention may be directed to Prov. xxxi. 1, where the wise words attributed to King Lemuel are said to have been taught him by his mother. The queen mother was a personage of great importance in ancient Israel, as appears from the fact that in the history of the Kings the mother's name receives particular mention in the set phrase "and the name of his mother was . . ." (I Kings xi. 26; xiv. 21, 31; xv. 2, 10; xxii. 42; II Kings viii. 26; xiv. 2; xv. 2, 33; xviii. 2; xxi. 1, 19; xxii. 1; xxiii. 31, 36; xxiv. 8, 18; comp. also I Kings i. 11; ii. 13, 20, 22).
The word "em" has other meanings in the Bible; e.g., "ancestress" (comp. Gen. iii. 20); a "people" (Isa. l. 1; Ezek. xix. 2, 10), the designation of one of the tribes whereof a mixed population was composed; thus Ezekiel (xvi. 3) calls the "mother" of Jerusalem a Hittite.
—In Apocryphal and Rabbinical Literature:
Ben Sira declares that "he that provoketh his mother is cursed of the Lord" (Sirach [Ecclus.] iii. 16); and reference need only be made to the heroic mother of the seven sons whose martyrdom is described in IV Macc. xv. to indicate the temper of Jewish motherhood in trying days.
Judah ha-Nasi's Injunction to His Sons.
The estimation in which the mother was held in Talmudic times among the Jews is clear from the dying injunction of Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi to his sons:"Be careful of the honor due your mother; let the lamp be lit in its place, the table be set in its place, the couch be spread in its place" (Ket. 103a); and it was the same rabbi who interpreted so ingenuously the two commands, "Honor thy father and thy mother" (Ex. xx. 12), and "Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father" (Lev. xix. 2 [A. V. 3]). In the one command the father is mentioned first; in the other, the mother. Said Rabbi Judah: "God knows that a child honors the mother more than the father because she soothes it with gentle words; therefore in the command to honor the parents the father is mentioned first. God knows likewise that the child fears the father more than the mother because he teaches it the Law; therefore in the injunction to fear the parents the mother is mentioned first" (Ḳid. 30b, 31a; comp., however, Bacher, "Ag. Tan." i. 113, note 1, where it is claimed that Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus should be credited with this explanation, according to Mek., Yitro, 8).
Among the beautiful examples of filial devotion may be mentioned the treatment of his mother by Rabbi Ṭarfon (Yer. Peah 15c; Yer. Ḳid. 61b; Ḳid. 31b). Note also the high praise accorded by the Rabbis to the heathen Dama ben Netina of Ashkelon for his respectful attitude toward his mother under most trying circumstances (Yer. Peah l.c.; Yer. Ḳid. l.c.; Pesiḳ. R. 23, toward end). In the home life of the Jewish people, notably in the rearing and education of young children, the mother's place and influence have been always supreme (see Abrahams, "Jewish Life in the Middle Ages," pp. 133, 344, 347).
MOTHER.—See Family, 3.
A title used to designate the superioress of a large community or congregation of religious women. It is used principally to designate the superior general of an entire congregation, the provincial superior, if the congregation be divided into provinces, and sometimes to designate the local superior of an independent community. In some communities, as in the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, it is the title of a professed religious.
1. Her Position in the Old Testament
A false impression has been created by her present position in the East, especially under Mohammedan rule. Her place as depicted in the Scriptures is a totally different one. Women there move on the same social plane with men. They often occupy leading public positions Exo 15:20; Jdg 4:4; 2Ki 22:14. The love of offspring was deeply imbedded in the heart of Hebrew women, and thus motherhood was highly respected. Among the patriarchs women, and especially mothers, occupy a prominent place. In Rebekah’s marriage, her mother seems to have had equal voice with her father and Laban, her brother Gen 24:28, Gen 24:50, Gen 24:53, Gen 24:55. Jacob “obeyed his father and his mother” Gen 28:7, and his mother evidently was his chief counselor. The Law places the child under obligation of honoring father and mother alike Exo 20:12. The child that strikes father or mother or curses either of them is punished by death Exo 21:15, Exo 21:17. The same fate overtakes the habitually disobedient Deu 21:18-21.
In one place in the Law, the mother is even placed before the father as the object of filial reverence Lev 19:3. The Psalmist depicts deepest grief as that of one who mourneth for his mother Psa 35:14. In the entire Book of Proverbs the duty of reverence, love and obedience of sons to their mothers is unceasingly inculcated. The greatest comfort imaginable is that wherewith a mother comforts her son Isa 66:13.
2. Position in the New Testament
And what is true of the Old Testament is equally true of the New Testament. The same high type of womanhood, the same reverence for one’s mother is in evidence in both books. The birth of Christ lifted motherhood to the highest possible plane and idealized it for all time. The last thing Jesus did on the Cross was to bestow His mother on John “the beloved” as his special inheritance. What woman is today, what she is in particular in her motherhood, she owes wholly to the position in which the Scriptures have placed her. Sometimes the stepmother is spoken of as the real mother Gen 37:10. Sometimes the grandmother or other female relative is thus spoken of Gen 3:20; 1Ki 15:10.
Tropically the nation is spoken of as a mother and the people are her children Isa 50:1; Jer 50:12; Hos 2:4; Hos 4:5. Large cities also are “mothers” (2Sa 20:19; compare Gal 4:26; 2 Esd 10:7), and Job even depicts the earth as such Job 1:21.
See Family.
Jdg 5:7 (a) Deborah as the deliverer of Israel took care of the people of GOD as though they were her own children.
Isa 50:1 (a) Israel as a united nation is compared to a wife or a bride who begat the great multitude of the people of Israel. The nation had turned away from GOD as a wife turns away from her husband. (See Hos 2:2; Hos 4:5; Hos 10:14).
Jer 50:12 (a) Those who founded and established the great city of Babylon are described in this manner. They formed this mighty, powerful group, they nourished the Babylonians, and taught them to war. The Lord describes the heathen gods and their customs as having been those who moulded Israel into their present evil condition. They followed the gods of the Hittites and the Amorites.
Eze 19:2 (a) The strong, able founders of Israel are compared to a mother lion. The nature was fierce, and their attitude cruel. They were no longer the sheep of His pasture.
Eze 23:2 (a) This type probably refers to the one kingdom which existed under Solomon. It was afterwards divided into two kingdoms, which are mentioned as the two daughters.
Mat 12:49-50 (a) Our Lord indicates that there is a very close and sweet relationship between Himself and those who love Him enough to leave all other associations just to live with and for Him.
Rom 16:13 (a) The servant of GOD who leads GOD’s people has that sweet, tender care for them and looks after their best interests as we find in the family relationship.
Rev 17:5 (a) This term probably refers to the Roman Catholic church. Most of the large denominations have emerged from that tremendous system, and have carried with them some of the grave clothes, the habits, the ways and the customs of the Roman church. Some of these "daughters" are so near like the mother church that it is difficult to distinguish them from her.