Chapter 1

When you deal mercifully with God’s people, the LORD will surely reward you and not forget you.

Some scholars say that midwives in Israel were always barren women who, in order to find their place in a society where the family was valued above all else, were given the responsibility of helping other women bring life into the world. If this is true, then it makes the fact that God gave them “houses” or “posterity” as a reward for their faithfulness an even more beautiful blessing.

It is unclear whether Shiphrah and Puah were Hebrew or Egyptian and if they were “Hebrew midwives” or “midwives to the Hebrews.” Most likely, they were Hebrew because their names are Semitic, not Egyptian. But either way, one gets the idea from the scriptures that they attended both Hebrew and Egyptian births because they were able to give the Pharaoh a comparison ( Exodus 1:19) and tell him that the “...Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered before the midwives come in unto them.” Also, the fact that Pharaoh called for them shows that they were held in high respect (as most midwives were) among the Egyptians and the Hebrews, probably as a result of their great skill and experience.

It is only logical, given the size of the Hebrew population, that Puah and Shiphrah were not the only midwives attending births. In fact, we read in Numbers 1:46 that when the children of Israel left Egypt, there were 603,550 men who were over the age of 20 years old. Many of these men were probably saved by midwives who refused to kill them as babies. The large number of men also indicates that the midwives were organized and that perhaps there was a wide-scale organization that helped save and hide male babies. No matter how they did it, it is impressive that they were able to save so many babies and keep it a secret from the Pharaoh.

The first attack of the enemy was on their jobs, their livelihoods.

The Second attack was on their families - especially their children.

Persecution does not stop the growth of God’s people, instead, it fuels it.