Pharaoh's Fear and the Midwives Who Defied Him

The book of Exodus opens with a list of names—the sons of Israel who came into Egypt with Jacob, seventy souls in all. Joseph was already there. Then that whole generation died, and the new king who arose over Egypt did not know Joseph. The chapter does not explain how this happened. It simply records the shift: the old ties were gone, and the people of Israel were left exposed under a ruler who saw them only as a threat.

The new king spoke to his own people, not to Israel. He said the children of Israel were more and mightier than the Egyptians themselves. That was a political calculation, not a fact. He proposed a strategy: deal wisely with them, lest they multiply and, in the event of war, join Egypt's enemies and escape the land. The word “wisely” here is cold and tactical. It has nothing to do with wisdom from above.

So the Egyptians set taskmasters over the Israelites to afflict them with burdens. The Israelites built store-cities for Pharaoh—Pithom and Raamses. But the more the Egyptians afflicted them, the more the Israelites multiplied and spread abroad. The Egyptians were grieved by this, but they did not relent. They made the Israelites serve with rigor, bitter labor in mortar and brick and in all kinds of field service.

Then the king of Egypt spoke directly to two Hebrew midwives. Their names are given: Shiphrah and Puah. He commanded them that when they attended Hebrew women in childbirth, if the child was a son, they were to kill him; if a daughter, she could live. The command was specific and brutal. It targeted the male infants, the future warriors and fathers of Israel.

The midwives feared God. They did not do as the king commanded. They saved the male children alive. The text does not say they debated the order or sought counsel. It says they feared God, and that determined their action.

Pharaoh called the midwives to account. “Why have you done this thing, and saved the men-children alive?” He did not ask whether they understood his order. He asked why they had disobeyed it. The midwives answered that the Hebrew women were not like the Egyptian women—they were lively and gave birth before the midwife could arrive. The answer is clever and plausible. It is not presented as a lie or a truth. It is simply their reply, and it ended the interrogation.

God dealt well with the midwives. The people multiplied and grew very mighty. And because the midwives feared God, he made them households. The word “households” means families, descendants, a future. They had preserved life, and life was given to them.

But Pharaoh did not stop. He issued a new command to all his people: every son born to the Hebrews must be cast into the Nile River. Every daughter could live. The river that had once carried the basket of Moses would now be used as an instrument of death. The chapter ends there, with the command spoken and no rescue yet in sight.

Exodus 1 does not give us a hero in the usual sense. The midwives are named and honored, but they are not the focus of the story. The focus is on the pressure: a king who feared a people, a people who would not stop multiplying, and a God who was not named in the chapter but whose fear moved two women to resist the might of Egypt. The chapter is lean, factual, and ominous. It sets the stage without announcing what is coming.