Commentary on Exodus 1:8—2:10

There is no one single biblical response to cruel systems of power and injustice: Even in this relatively brief selection of text, we see several different and creative ways women resist Pharaoh’s tyrannical commands. 

Pharaoh, this “new king [who] arose over Egypt,” did “not know Joseph” (Exodus 1:8). Ignorance in a leader is rarely good, especially when it is ignorance of the history of the leader’s own country. Not only is he ignorant, but he is also afraid that the Israelites, who are “more numerous and powerful” than the Egyptians, “will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land” (verse 10). This fear is what motivates Pharaoh’s plan to prevent Israelite population growth, attempts that will at each stage be thwarted. 

Pharaoh’s first attempt is setting taskmasters to abuse the Israelites with forced labor (Exodus 1:11), but verse 12 explains that the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied in number and grew. This echoes God’s command and blessing from the very first chapter in Genesis, that humans would “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28). The Israelites are doing nothing wrong here, simply fulfilling God’s mandate. The terrible situation is because of the fear and power of the ruler of the land, not in any way a punishment for sin.

The second attempt centers on two midwives named Shiphrah and Puah, in contrast to the anonymous leader of Egypt who is simply referred to as “Pharaoh,” which is a generic term like “president.” Exodus 1:15 identifies the two as “Hebrew midwives,” but there is no consensus as to whether this means they are Hebrews themselves, or the (Egyptian) midwives of the Hebrews. 

We are told twice that Shiphrah and Puah “fear God” (Exodus 1:17, 21), and even that fact has interesting implications for their ethnicity. In many ways, it would make sense that they fear God because they are Israelites. But if they are Egyptian, it would demonstrate that even those who share Pharaoh’s ethnic identity do not agree with his policies, and fear God more than they do the pharaoh. Later in the book of Exodus, it is clear that God cares that the Egyptians would know who God is (see Exodus 7:5; 14:4, 18; 32:12), so Shiphrah and Puah would be included in that group. 

The pharaoh tells Shiphrah and Puah to look at the women when they are on the birthstool—many commentators note how odd it is that he is giving instructions to professional midwives—and if the baby is a son, they are to kill it, but they can let the daughters live. The idea is for Shiphrah and Puah to kill the male babies before they are fully out of the birth canal so they can say it is a stillbirth and won’t be accused of murder. Pharaoh wants to kill the males who might grow up and fight, though some commentators have noted that killing female babies would also decrease the population. 

But because of the aforementioned “fear of God,” the midwives do not obey Pharaoh’s command, instead telling him that the Hebrew women are so strong and vigorous, unlike the Egyptian women, that they give birth before a midwife can arrive. Note how the description of the Hebrew women as unusually strong would likely exacerbate Pharaoh’s fear of this people, almost like pushing on a bruise. Interpreters over the centuries are divided on whether the midwives are telling a lie. 

Among those who say that Shiphrah and Puah are lying is Augustine, who concludes that lies are never justified, and that the two are rewarded with their own families (Exodus 1:21) not for their deceit but their benevolence to Israel. Gregory the Great said that lying is reprehensible, and that the midwives received their reward on earth because they will get no reward in heaven. Martin Luther, however, wrote that the midwives were a model for living under pressures of persecution because they disobeyed unjust orders, and that their lies were justified because they were meant to aid rather than injure. 

Pharaoh’s third genocidal attempt at population control is to command all people to throw every newborn son into the Nile River. Technically, Moses’s mother, introduced in chapter 2 as “a Levite woman,” obeys this command: She does place her son in the river, albeit protected in a papyrus basket plastered “with bitumen and pitch” (Exodus 2:3). Those materials were used by Noah to make the ark waterproof (Genesis 6:13), and the Hebrew word for Moses’s basket, tēbâh, is the same word as for “ark.” 

Exodus 2:2 in the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition explains that when Moses’s mother “saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months,” which seems to suggest that his physical appearance is the only reason she hid him. However, the phrase is more literally “she saw that he was good (Hebrew tôb),” which echoes God’s seeing God’s creation as good in Genesis 1. 

Unlike the cinematic version of this in The Prince of Egypt, where the basket goes on a dramatic and dangerous journey down the Nile, the text tells us that Moses’s mother places the basket in the reeds along the bank of the river where it would likely remain stationary. Perhaps she knew that the location was where Pharaoh’s daughter would routinely come to bathe. 

For when Pharaoh’s daughter came there, she saw the basket, and when she opened it and saw the baby crying, “she took pity on him” (Exodus 2:6). The term “pity” has been criticized for suggesting a condescending idea of superiority and inferiority, but the Hebrew word, ḥamal, can also be translated as “compassion.” She recognizes him as a Hebrew child, one of those her father had commanded everyone to kill. Moses’s sister then speaks up, asking whether Pharaoh’s daughter wants a nurse from the Hebrew people to nurse the child for her. When Pharaoh’s daughter says yes, Moses’s sister gets their own mother to nurse her brother, and Pharaoh’s daughter pays her to do so. The lectionary ends with the notice that when the child grew up, his mother brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter; he became her son and was named Moses, a word similar to the verb “to draw.”

The midwives disobey Pharaoh’s direct order. Moses’s mother sort of obeys Pharaoh, but in a creative and roundabout way. Pharaoh’s daughter also disobeys her father, drawing the boy out of the river instead of throwing him in (and also giving money to a Hebrew woman to raise the child, thanks to Moses’s sister’s action). All of these women act in nonviolent ways; all of these women preserve life.