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Shiphrah and Puah — the Two Midwives Who Defied a Genocidal Order

Exodus 1 opens with a new king in Egypt who “did not know Joseph” and grew afraid of the Israelites. That king — never named, simply “the new king” — isn’t satisfied with enslaving Israel; he orders the Hebrew midwives to kill any baby boy at birth. And right at that moment, the text introduces two women with names as sharply defined as the king is anonymous: “one named Shiphrah and the other Puah” (Exodus 1:15).

What the text actually says

Pharaoh commands Shiphrah and Puah: “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live” (1:16). The text immediately answers: “But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live” (1:17). When Pharaoh confronts them, they answer: “the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them” (1:19).

Whether that answer was strictly true or a clever deflection meant to protect life, the text doesn’t say. What it makes explicit is only God’s response to their action: “So God dealt well with the midwives… And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families” (1:20-21).

An unnamed king and two named midwives

Old Testament scholar Terence E. Fretheim, in his Exodus commentary (Interpretation series), points out that it’s no accident the Egyptian “king” goes unnamed while the two midwives are named specifically. In ancient Near Eastern literature, a king’s name was considered worth preserving; a commoner midwife’s name almost never survived in the record. The author of Exodus inverts that convention head-on — leaving power anonymous, and carving the names of two God-fearing women into history instead.

William H. C. Propp, a leading Egyptologist and Exodus scholar, notes in his Exodus 1-18 (Anchor Bible) that the text doesn’t even make clear whether Shiphrah and Puah were themselves Hebrew or Egyptian — the phrase “Hebrew midwives” can be read either as “midwives serving the Hebrews” or “midwives who were themselves Hebrew.” Propp argues that this ambiguity itself sharpens the point: their resistance is grounded not in ethnic loyalty but, as the text states outright, in fearing God.

How to read the midwives’ answer

If their answer to Pharaoh was a lie, does that mean the text endorses lying? That question has been debated for a long time. Nahum M. Sarna, in The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus, argues that the text isn’t interested in adjudicating the truthfulness of their statement — its focus is entirely on the action they took to protect life, and God’s approval of it. In other words, this passage isn’t establishing a general ethical rule that lying is always justified; it’s best read as a story about how God treats those who resist unjust power to protect the innocent.

Their place in the larger structure of Exodus 1

Shiphrah and Puah’s story is the hinge of the reversal running through Exodus 1. When the midwife plan fails to stop Israel’s growth, Pharaoh escalates to a far more blunt order — every Egyptian is told to throw every Hebrew baby boy into the Nile (1:22). And in the very next chapter, a baby placed in that same Nile turns out to be Moses. The midwives’ small act of resistance becomes the opening move that leads directly to Moses’s survival, and ultimately to the entire Exodus.

A note for preachers

Shiphrah and Puah aren’t remembered for a dramatic miracle or a stirring speech. Their faith showed up as a quiet but firm decision to use their professional position to protect life in the face of blatant state injustice. Their story is a reminder that the courage of faith doesn’t always show up on a dramatic stage — it often shows up in the repeated, ordinary decisions to do the right thing at work.

Sources

  • Terence E. Fretheim, Exodus (Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, Westminster John Knox, 1991)
  • William H. C. Propp, Exodus 1-18 (Anchor Bible, Doubleday, 1998)
  • Nahum M. Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus (Jewish Publication Society, 1991)

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