Yochabel Quotes in The Ten Commandments (1956)

Yochabel: Why have you come here?

Bithiah: Because Moses will come here.

Yochabel: My son?

Bithiah: No, my son! That's all he must know.

Yochabel: My lips might deny him, Great One, but my eyes never could.

Bithiah: You will leave Goshen, you and your family, tonight.

Yochabel: We are Levites, appointed shepherds of Israel. We cannot leave our people.

Bithiah: Would you take from Moses all that I have given him? Would you undo all that I have done for him? I have put the throne of Egypt within his reach! What can you give him in return?

Yochabel: I gave him life.

Bithiah: I gave him love!

Yochabel: [Yochabel's last line, were said in deep joy] God of our fathers, who has appointed an end to the bondage of Israel, blessed am I among all mothers in the land, for my eyes have beheld Thy deliverer.

Bithiah: They're going away, Moses, and the secret's going with them. No one need ever know the shame I brought upon you.

Moses: Shame? What change is there in me? Egyptian or Hebrew, I am still Moses. These are the same hands, the same arms, the same face that was mine a moment ago.

Yochabel: A moment ago you were her son, the strength of Egypt. Now you are my son, a slave of Egypt. You find no shame in this?

Moses: If there is no shame in me, how can I feel shame for the woman who bore me, or the race that bred me?

Joshua: Let the old woman loose!

Egyptian guard: She'll stay where she is, and you'll die in the lion pit!

Lilia: Joshua!

Yochabel: Run to the prince and beg mercy!

Lilia: Mercy from Rameses?

Yochabel: No. From Prince Moses, there on the pavilion.

Moses: Would you bury the old woman alive in a tomb of rock?

Yochabel: Wise and noble One, It caught. I have not the strength to free myself.

Moses: Your shoulders should not bear a burden, old woman.

Yochabel: The Lord has renewed my strength and lightened my burdens.

Moses: He would have done better to remove them.

Moses: Will you swear in the name of this God that you are not my mother?

Yochabel: We do not even know His name.

Moses: Then look into my eyes and tell me you are not my mother.

Yochabel: [shaking her head] Oh, Moses, Moses, I cannot. I cannot.

[Yochabel, then heavily wept, on Moses' arms]

Yochabel: God of Abraham, take my child into Thy hands that he may live to Thy service.

[Little Miriam bowed her head and prayed silently, while Yochabel prayed verbally]

Little Miriam: But, mother, we have not even given him a name.

Yochabel: God will give him a name.

[after speaking, Yochabel then gently, slowly and carefully pushed the basket, towards the Egyptian palace and Nile River]

Yochabel: Follow it, Miriam. Watch it from the reeds. See where the Lord will lead him.

Little Miriam: [With a quiet whisper, to keep from being overheard by any Egyptain, that may be around] Yes, mother.

[Little Miriam's final line, then she looks and watches her unnamed little brother arc, being discovered, by Bithiah]

Bithiah: Moses, do not enter! There is only sorrow here.

Moses: Are you comforting it, my mother? I followed you here to find this woman Yochabe...

[to Yochabel]

Moses: You were the woman who was caught between the stones.

Yochabel: Until you came.

Bithiah: My son, if you love me, you will...

Moses: I love you, my mother, but am I your son...

[to Yochabel]

Moses: or yours?

Yochabel: No, you are not my son. If you believe that men and women are cattle to be driven under the lash, if you can bow before idols of stone and golden images of beasts, you are not my son.