Shifrah and Puah

The first women mentioned in the book of Exodus are not Miriam or Jocheved or Tzipporah. Not even the matriarchs (Sarah, Rebekah, Leah and Rachel) are mentioned in the listing of the names at the beginning of this book.

Rather, the women who are mentioned are not anybody nearly as well known (although they should be). They are Hebrew midwives. And their names? Shifrah and Puah. And why are they significant?

When a new king arose in Egypt who did not know Joseph, he decided that the Hebrews presented a threat to his country and imposed harsh labor on them. And more than that, he issued an evil decree that all male babies were to be killed. Whom did he tell this to? The midwives.

Now, midwives were not in a position of political power or strength. They did not tell Pharaoh what to do. Of the classes of people in Egypt, midwives are pretty far down the list. And yet, centuries before Thoreau and Gandhi and Martin Luther King and John Brown and many many others who engaged in "civil disobedience" there was Shifrah and Puah. They had the courage to disobey the mightiest man on the face of the earth. Unlike people who try to escape responsbility by saying they were "just following orders," Shifrah and Puah feared God more than Pharaoh. They followed God's laws and respected life. Now, whether what they told Pharaph about Hebrew women giving birth like animals was true or not, it was endorsed.

And because the midwives feared God, God established households for them.

Praise Adonai for Shifrah and Puah, who feared God rather than man. (Gal 1:10)