The first chapter of Exodus depicts Pharaoh’s response to the growing Israelite population. He doesn’t appear to be afraid of the Israelite women. However, he knows if he kills the males the Hebrews will ultimately be eliminated.
Consequently, he attempts to commit genocide by ordering the Hebrew midwives to kill all newborn Israelite boys.
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah,
“When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live” (Exodus 1:15-16).
Victor Hamilton points out that the Bible identifies the names of the two Hebrew midwives, while it does not name the Pharaoh or even Moses’ parents in chapter two.
When I think of these women, I remember Paul’s message to the Corinthians. Paul wrote about people whom I call the “nots.”
Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to abolish things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God (1 Corinthians 1:26-29).
Shiphrah and Puah probably supervised a legion of midwives, since the Hebrew population numbered over one million. Nevertheless, they are still among the “nots” of Egypt. They were overlooked on earth, but not so by heaven.
Genesis emphasizes in verses 17 and 21 that these women feared God. What is the “fear of the Lord?”
I think Deuteronomy 6 provides the best guidance on the fear of the Lord. There are three components to living in the fear of the Lord.
(1) Obedience – Deuteronomy 6:1-2: “Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the ordinances—that the Lord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy,
So that you and your children and your children’s children may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long.
(2) Worship and Love – Deuteronomy 6:4-5: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
(3) Deuteronomy 6:6: Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.
The third component doesn’t fit well into my breakdown of verses, but it is present all the same. Humility is a key aspect of living this way. Humble people accept God’s direction, knowing He is infinitely wiser than any human.
God rewarded the midwives with children.
The Birth of Moses
Pharaoh commanded that all Hebrew baby boys be cast into the Nile River. Defying this decree, a man and his wife whose son was born during this time could not bear to surrender him.
His mother crafted a small basket, placed the baby within it, and concealed it among the riverbank reeds—an action that was part of God’s divine arrangement.
Pharaoh’s daughter came to the river to bathe and discovered the baby boy. Taking pity on him, she chose to save him rather than abandon him to the water. Moses’ sister, who had been observing nearby, then approached and offered to find a wet nurse for the child. The woman she brought was the baby’s own mother.
When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water” (Exodus 2:10).
The significance of Moses’s name, which means “drawn out,” was profound. As Pharaoh’s daughter had drawn him from the water, God would later use Moses to draw the Hebrew people out of 400 years of slavery and into the promised land.
Reflections
As we read Exodus 2, we see the beginnings of Moses’s life story. Unlike the two Hebrew midwives in the previous chapter who already lived in the fear of the Lord, Moses had a significant journey ahead of him to learn that same reverence.
The theme of learning the fear of the Lord is central not just to this chapter, but continues throughout the book of Exodus.
Moses’ story prompts important questions for us:
- How well are we learning the fear of the Lord?
- Are we living in a loving relationship with God?
- Are we humbly listening for His direction?
- Are we willingly following His guidance?
YouTube Discussion
Rudy Ross, Bruce Kirby, and I discussed this passage on YouTube today.
Real Voices 