Serah Bat Asher

"All the souls that came, etc." and "the sons of Joseph who were born to him, etc." (Genesis 46:26-27). Rabbi Levi in the name of Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman said: Have you ever in your days seen a man give his fellow sixty-six cups and then give him three more, and he counts them as seventy? Rather, this is Jochebed, who completed the count of Israel in Egypt. And some say: Serah daughter of Asher completed the count with them. This is what is written (II Samuel 20:16-17): "Then cried a wise woman out of the city... and he came near to her, and the woman said: Are you Joab?" She said: Your name is Joab, to say that you are a father (av) to Israel, but you are nothing but a reaper (kotzer), and you do not live up to your name; you and David are not men of Torah. Up to here have the words of Torah been exhausted? Is it not written (Deuteronomy 20:10): "When you draw near to a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace to it"? And he said to her: Who are you? She said to him (II Samuel 20:19): "I am of the peaceful and faithful of Israel." I am the one who completed the count of Israel in Egypt; I am the one who delivered the faithful to the faithful, Joseph to Moses.