Read with Me
Exodus 1:15-22 (HCSB)
Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them as they deliver. If the child is a son, kill him, but if it’s a daughter, she may live.” The Hebrew midwives, however, feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this and let the boys live?”
The midwives said to Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before a midwife can get to them.”
So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very numerous. Since the midwives feared God, He gave them families. Pharaoh then commanded all his people: “You must throw every son born to the Hebrews into the Nile, but let every daughter live.”
Listen with Me
Pharaoh was panicked by the continued, rapid growth of the Israelites in Egypt. The harder he worked them, the larger their numbers seemed to be. Pharoah had no notion of who the God of the Israelites was, or of what He was doing. All he knew was that his nation looked like it was going to be overrun by this foreign people.
Pharaoh’s first solution was to intimidate the Hebrew midwives so that they would kill every Israelite male at birth. He saw no threat from the girls, as he knew that they would not grow into warriors. Instead, they would be married to Egyptian men, because that would soon be the only option, and then be fully integrated into Egyptian society.
But the midwives refused to go along with this plan. They knew that it was morally wrong to kill a child, and it was repulsive to them to participate in the annihilation of their own people. So, they simply refused to act.
When they were summoned by Pharaoh to explain themselves, they lied. They explained that by the time they got to the women, they had already given birth and had hidden the boy babies away. It was not for the lie that God honored them and rewarded them with large families of their own. Instead, it was for standing firm against Pharaoh’s order, which they knew to be immoral.
Since it seemed unlikely that he could get the midwives to comply, Pharaoh immediately shifted responsibility to the parents themselves – ordering them to cast any male children born to them into the Nile to drown.
Pray with Me
Father, it is so sad when mere men, ignorant of Your work in their nation’s history, try to impose their own vision on Your people. The only tools that they have at their disposal are intimidation and promises of benefits. But neither works against the true people of God. Nothing they can do to us physically is worse than being thrown into the fires of hell for all eternity (Luke 12:5). And nothing they can promise is greater than an eternity in heaven with You. Thank You, Lord, for this greater view that can still empower us to stand against tyrants today. Amen.