The Midwives
With Questions and Proposed Answers
Background and Printed Text: Exodus 1:1-21
Exodus 1:1 And these are the names of the children of Israel coming Egyptward with He-Will-Heel [Jacob]. They came, a man and His house: 2They-Saw-A-Son [Reuben], Hearkening [Shimon], My-Joined-[One] [Levi] and He-Confessed-Yehovah [Judah], 3There-Is-A-Wage [Issachar], They-Shall-Cohabit [Zebulun] and Son-Of-Right [Benjamin], 4Adjudicator [Dan] and My-Wrestling [Naphtali], Troop [Gad] and Happy [Asher]. 5And he was, every being exiting from the thigh of He-Will-Heel [Jacob]: seventy being(s). And He-Will-Gather [Joseph] was in Egypt.
6And He-Will-Gather [Joseph] died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.
7And the children of Israel were fruitful. And they swarmed. And they multiplied. And they became very very strong! And the land filled them!
8And a new king arose over Egypt who didn’t know He-Will-Gather [Joseph]. 9And he said unto his people, “Behold, the people of the children of Israel is multiple and stronger than we are! 10Come-on! We shall wisely-deal to him lest he will multiply. And he shall be, when they shall happen a war, and he will be gathered—even he—upon our enemies! And he will fight into us! And he will ascend from the land!” 11And they set princes of slave-labour over him in order to humiliate him via their burdens.
And he built cities of warehouses to Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses. 12And whenever they will humiliate him, established, he will multiply. And established, he will spread! And they were cut-off from the faces of the children of Israel! 13And the Egyptians slave-drove the children of Israel via crushing. 14And they embittered their lives via hard slavery: via mortar and via bricks and via every slavery in the field with all their slavery that they slaved via them, via crushing.
15And the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives (the one whose name is Pretty [Shifrah] and the second whose name is Groan [Puah])─ 16and he said, “When ye child the Hebrews [fem.], and ye shall see upon the stones. If he is a son, and ye shall kill him! And if he is a daughter, and he shall live.”
17And the midwives feared the Gods. And they did not, just as the king of Egypt spoke unto them. And they caused-the-children-to-live.
18And the king of Egypt called to the midwives. And he said to them, “Why did ye this speech, and have caused-the-children-to-live?” 19And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrews [fem.] are not as women of the Egyptians [fem.]. For they are alive there! Before the midwife will come unto them, and they childed!”
20And Elohim good-did to the midwives. And the people multiplied. And they strengthened very-much! 21And he was. For the midwives feared the Gods. And He made houses to them.
I. The Scene (verses 1-5)
The text starts with an overview of the children of Israel who arrived in Egypt. A list is given of the sons.
A total of seventy folks who came out of Jacob’s thigh came to Egypt. Joseph was already there.
Questions
1. How many of Jacob’s children went to Egypt? They all did!
2. Verse 5 states that these all came out of Jacob’s thigh. What does coming out of his thigh mean, and why did the Bible give this piece of information? The thigh of a man is where his groin is located, and thus his penis and testicles. The sperm from the testicles are what fertilize the egg in a woman so that she becomes pregnant. Thus, every person who was born to Jacob came out of his thigh!
This tells the careful reader that seventy persons (including children and grandchildren, and perhaps even some great grandchildren) were directly from Jacob! They didn’t include the persons that Shimon and Levi captured when they slaughtered the Hivites in Genesis 34.
II. The Change of Scene (verse 6)
Verse 6 is a short scene change. Joseph died, along with all that generation.
Questions
1. What is so important about telling readers that Joseph and all his brethren died? This sets the scene for what will happen next. The folks who remembered what things were like under Joseph all died. Those alive had just heard the stories.
2. The text states that Joseph and all his brethren died, “and all that generation.” Why did Yehovah need to mention that all that generation died? Wasn’t that obvious? A Biblical generation is not what most folks think it is. A generation has to do with an administration—that is, with what kind of government is ruling a people. It isn’t referring to a family and having children. Folks mistakenly think that once a baby is born, that baby is the new generation. The Bible sees generations in a totally different way. A generation can last forty or even more than one hundred years! If the style of government leadership remains the same, the generation is the same. If it changes, a new generation will now develop. You may have heard of the World War II generation or the Viet Nam generation. This is using generation in the way that the Bible uses it.
III. The Multiplication (verse 7)
The children of Israel were fruitful—they were productive. They swarmed in groups, and they multiplied, having many children. They also became physically and mentally very strong. The land filled them—they had plenty to eat—and they filled the land with a great population.
Questions
1. What does being fruitful really mean in the Bible? A person is fruitful if the person does good works—that is, if the person does what is morally right toward another person or ethically right in business and social things. Morality is all about right and wrong, righteousness and sin. Only a God/god can declare something as morally right or wrong. Ethics has to do with the right way to treat entire groups of folks in business and in dealings with them. When one group cheats another group, the cheating group is not practicing proper ethics. That will lead to violence.
If a person does what is right in the eyes of Yehovah toward another person, that person is doing a good work, and is therefore being fruitful to Yehovah. If a person sins, that person is doing a bad or an evil work.
The Israelis did right toward each other, and they prospered because of this. (When folks are violent toward each other, the societies in which they live become poor and unfruitful, with corruption taking all the good work that they do.)
Every person is compared to a tree. If a tree produces good fruit, that is a good tree. If a tree produces bad fruit, that is a bad tree. The same is true of every person. Are you producing good fruit?
2. What does “they swarmed” mean? This means that they began to congregate in groups because of the number of them and for business and social reasons. Thus, they were everywhere in some of the Egyptian markets, having things to sell. They also had social occasions like weddings where they gathered in large groups.
3. What does “they multiplied” mean? That means that they had many babies!
4. What is significant about their becoming very very strong? They will become a threat to the Egyptians, and they will be able to live well under harsh conditions. They will also become good fighters.
5. The text states, “And the land filled them!” What does this mean? Most (probably all) translators thought that this really meant that the land was filled with them—that their population became so big, that they were everywhere. Actually, they weren’t everywhere; they lived only in a few locations. Instead, the land provided food for them, and they had enough to eat. The land filled them so that they were not hungry. They did fill their cities, but that isn’t what the Hebrew text described.
IV. New King; New Fear (verses 8-11)
The new king was the new Pharaoh over Egypt. He didn’t know Joseph.
He told his people of Egypt, “Behold, the people of the children of Israel is multiple and stronger than we are! Come-on! We shall wisely-deal to [with] him lest he will multiply. And he shall be, when they shall happen a war, and he will be gathered—even he—upon our enemies! And he will fight into us! And he will ascend from the land!” They set princes over the Jewish slave labour pools in order to humiliate Israel by means of the burdens put on Israel.
Questions
1. What is important about there being a new king (pharaoh) who didn’t know Joseph? The previous pharaohs who knew Joseph was kind to the Israelis because of how Joseph saved Egypt from starvation. The new pharaoh didn’t know Joseph personally, and he didn’t know much about what Joseph was supposed to have done. Therefore, he didn’t feel the need to treat the Israelis as special. He instead saw them in a very different way.
2. Why did this new king talk to his people about the Israelis? The Egyptians began to become very nervous about the Israelis: they were multiplying and becoming very strong to the point that the Egyptians felt threatened by them. These are exactly the same reasons why many Southerners (in the United States) passed laws and humiliated the Black slaves who had been kidnapped from Africa. Just as the Israelis, the Black slaves had many children and became very strong—far stronger than the non-Black populations in the South. Folks who fear other folks because of superiorities tend to mistreat them, humiliate them, threaten them and even kill some of them to try to prove to themselves that they are superior (when they are in fact far inferior in the very ways they fear). Those who are wise know that every group has its strengths and weaknesses, and they trade with groups that have strengths in which they themselves have weakness.
The new king reacted in a typical racist manner.
3. What did the king and the Egyptians fear that the Israelis might do using their numbers and strength? They feared that the Israelis would turn on the Egyptians in a war, and join the battle on the side of the enemies! Then, they feared that the Israelis would ascend from the land of Egypt! The Israelis had become Egypt’s economy. If Israel left Egypt, the Egyptians would have to start doing their own work!
4. Was the fear of the Egyptians regarding the Israelis in war a reasonable fear? No, it wasn’t a reasonable fear. The Israelis would have fought on the side of Egypt in any war; the Israelis didn’t desire to be taken captive to a foreign land. They were doing well in Egypt.
The pharaoh and his people were becoming paranoid—that is, they were becoming fearful of the Israelis as if the Israelis desired to do them harm. Racism and paranoia always go together.
5. The pharaoh said, “Come-on! We shall wisely-deal to him lest he will multiply.” Wasn’t the people of Israel already multiplying? This pharaoh feared more multiplication. He thought he could stop it.
6. What was the official Egyptian answer to controlling the population growth and the strengthening of the Israelis? It was to make the Israelis into slaves, and to put them under slavemasters so that they would be humiliated. The Egyptians thought this would cause the Israelis to despair so much that they would stop having so many children, and they would be weakened.
V. Building Projects (verses 11-14)
Israel built two cities that held warehouses for Egypt: Pithom and Raamses.
Whenever the Egyptian slave captains humiliated Israel, Israel multiplied—had more children. Israel spread throughout Egypt. Finally, the Egyptians had to go through Jewish groups and faces to visit other Egyptians!
The Egyptians used crushing means to slave-drive the Israelis to work harder and harder. They made their lives bitter by the hardness of their slavery: by means of mortal and bricks and every type of labour in the field. They used crushing force to tell them what to do and where to go.
Questions
1. Who is he in, “And he built cities of warehouses to Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses”? He is Israel! Israel built those two very famous cities in Egypt!
2. The text states, “And whenever they will humiliate him, established, he will multiply.” Why did Israel multiply under humiliation? This generally occurs for any group and population when it is being mistreated. Members of that group tend to look for ways to find pleasure. One of the obvious ways to find pleasure is to have sex, and babies are born. Had the Egyptians realized this, they would not have done the very actions that certainly will increase Israel’s population! (Incidentally, the same thing happens during a war: those populations involved in the war tend to have a large increase in child births.)
3. Why did Israel spread under humiliation? A group that is being mistreated will try to find safe places to be to avoid the humiliation, if possible. Thus, the group will spread out. The more a large group is mistreated, the more members of that group will run and seek refuge elsewhere.
4. Who is they in, “And they were cut-off from the faces of the children of Israel,” and what was occurring? They are the Egyptians. There were so many Israelis, now, that the Egyptians were surrounded by Israelis. The group of Egyptians was cut into small groups by the large number of the Israelis. This made the Egyptians even more paranoid. Wherever they would go, Israelis were there, and the Israelis were stronger and tougher than the Egyptians. The Egyptians developed a fear of the Israelis and a desire to not be isolated from other Egyptians by the Israelis. This same fear occurs today by folks who feel surrounded by groups that they don’t know and of whom they are afraid. It is one of the main reasons why racism becomes very strong.
5. What was the response to this fear of the Egyptians? The response was this: “The Egyptians slave-drove the children of Israel via crushing.” This was the same response that many Southern slave-owners had to the increasing populations of African slaves kidnapped and brought to the United States. This continued in the United States after the Civil War.
6. What does embittered mean? It means to make bitter; to cause resentment; to remove joy and pleasure. The Egyptians were doing exactly the wrong thing.
7. What is mortar? It is what holds bricks and stones together. It can be like cement (as is used to make concrete) where it is liquid, first, then dries to become a very hard substance, or it can be like tar where it is a sticky and very thick liquid that acts like a solid after it is applied, but in any case it holds bricks and stones in place.
8. How are bricks made? They are made in several ways. Take straw and mud. Mix them together thoroughly. Heat the mixture in an oven at 500 degrees for an hour. See what you get when it cools. (They actually heat it above this.) The moisture goes out of the mud, and the straw and the mud connect together to form a very hard brick when it is done right. Mud alone is brittle if heated; it won’t support anything. Straw alone is weak; it won’t hold. Put the two together in this way, however, and a very, very hard substance results. It can be almost as hard as stone!
9. Who made these bricks? The Israelis made the bricks! Making many bricks is no fun! It is hot, dirty work, and after doing this for days, it makes life seem very bad.
10. What did the Israelis have to do that was included in “every slavery in the field”? They had to tend all the crops, including getting water to the crops by irrigating them. Irrigating isn’t so hard today, since there are electric pumps that can bring the water through pipes to the crops. Back then, there were no electric pumps, and pipes were very rare and hard to make. The water had to be hand-lifted if the fields were not below the water source, and the work was very hard and continuous.
There were many other field chores that the Israelis were forced to do. The Israelis had come as shepherds and cattlemen. Being forced to work in the fields was not what they were used to doing. Now, they had to do all the hardest work for the Egyptians, or get beaten.
11. What does via crushing mean? This is the Hebrew word that describes under much pressure. They were forced to work. If they didn’t work fast enough or hard enough, they were beaten and terribly mistreated.
VI. Abortion (verses 15-17)
The king of Egypt had a very modern idea for birth control. He spoke to the two heads of the Hebrew midwives (who birthed the babies)—to Pretty and to Groan, “When ye child the Hebrews, and ye shall see the gender of the baby upon the birthing stones. If he is a son, and ye shall kill him! And if he is a daughter, and he shall live.”
The midwives feared the Gods—Elohim—the Gods of Avraham, Isaac and Jacob. They did exactly what the king of Egypt didn’t speak unto them to do! They made certain that the children lived.
Questions
1. Why do you suppose that one girl baby had been named Pretty and another Groan at this time? (You will obtain various answers, of course. I propose that the one named Pretty was such a pretty baby. I propose that the one named Groan described how her parents felt about the harsh slavery.)
2. Why did the king call just two women of the midwives? The king was used to speaking to representatives—to individuals whom he could hold responsible for what he ordered. Had he called all the midwives into the palace, the number would have been large, and he would have feared an uprising. He wanted to cause fear in the Israelis and in his slaves; he didn’t want to be the one who feared.
These two women were viewed as being like rulers over all the midwives; whatever the king said, they were responsible to get the speech out to all the other midwives and to made certain that the king’s orders were followed.
3. What are the stones in, “ye shall see upon the stones”? They are the birthing stools or birthing areas that women used when bringing out children in childbirth. I cannot tell if the stones were large and shaped or if they were pebbles so that the child could be placed on a softer surface while being cleaned from the afterbirth. The king knew how childbirth was accomplished, and he knew that stones were where they would birth the babies.
4. The king said, “If he is a son, and ye shall kill him!” What was he commanding the midwives to do? He was commanding them to put the little boy babies to death when they came out. This is exactly the same as modern abortion. The idea is to take a baby that would live, given time and what it needs, and to kill the baby for whatever reason.
5. Is abortion wrong? Is abortion murder? Explain well. The answer to this question depends on the god/gods in which a person believes. Whenever any question includes right and wrong, this always becomes a question of the god/gods of the person doing the answering.
Many folks believe in gods that find no fault with all abortions. Those gods see abortion as a convenience for mothers. Folks who believe in those gods are not doing any wrong by having an abortion.
Other folks believe in gods that make distinctions on the basis of how the pregnancy took place. If the girl was raped, abortion is fine to those gods. If the girl wasn’t raped, and if she is old enough to carry the baby without danger to her, those gods don’t permit an abortion.
Still other folks believe in gods who see all abortions as being murder, and those who do the abortions as murderers.
There are other possibilities just as there are other gods.
The God of the Bible also teaches regarding these things. When Rebecca became pregnant, she went to ask Yehovah about it because the pregnancy wasn’t normal; there was much activity inside her. Yehovah told her,
Genesis 25:23 “Two races are in thy belly. And two folks will be separated from thine internals.”
So, Yehovah called the little ones races and folks—that is, large groups of persons before they were born.
When women put their unborn children to death for no other reason than their own convenience, this shows that they are idolaters—believing in idols—in false gods. Anyone who believes in the Gods of Avraham, Isaac and Jacob has no right to condemn or judge idolaters; that is Yehovah’s business, not his/her business, even if the idolaters are in his/her own family.
If a teenager or younger girl is too young to safely birth a child, and she becomes pregnant, aborting the child is wise; it isn’t wrong.
If parents force a teenager who becomes pregnant to abort her child, and she could safely have the child, and would have taken care of the child, working for its benefit, that is the idolatry of the parents. They are doing that for their own convenience even if the girl was raped. This isn’t the same as cleaning her out right after the rape occurred; such a cleaning out is fine. Whenever parents force a daughter to abort later in pregnancy when the daughter would carry the child with joy (and a little help), they are doing damage to her and to their relationship with her instead of considering her and whatever her faith is (or isn’t). Parents who truly love their children will consider their children in these matters, and will seek what is the highest, best interest of their children without regard to themselves. Of course, such love isn’t so common. Most folks think of themselves and their convenience; most folks are idolaters.
The men and boys who get girls pregnant are just as responsible for the pregnancy as the girls, and are often more responsible. If the Bible is Truth, they will be held responsible for all that they do and don’t do.
If you are ever asked if abortion is murder, remember that it depends upon the god/gods in which a person believes. Saints in the Bible valued human lives; they didn’t see them as inconveniences to be destroyed. They were out to save lives, not to destroy them. The image of God is on them.
6. Why does the text state, “and if he is a daughter…”? That he refers to the human child in a generic way—that is, as a human, not as a girl or boy. We would say, “and if it is a daughter.” But that doesn’t make more sense; the child isn’t an it!
7. Why did the king desire for them to keep the girl babies alive? He wanted the girls to grow up and provide more wives for the Egyptians! Many Israeli girls were pretty.
8. Verse 17 states, “And the midwives feared the Gods.” What does this mean, and what did they do that showed this? The fear the Gods (that is, the Gods of Avraham, Isaac and Jacob) includes the following:
- It is to be aware that Yehovah (the Gods) will judge each person for what he/she has done and said in life. That awareness will cause a person to be very careful about what he or she does and says.
- It is to know that Yehovah watches what each person says and does, and sometimes takes action for or against that person. (Some folks take this the wrong way, and think that God is punishing them for something they did or didn’t do when in truth they are just having the normal difficulties of life that have nothing to do with what they did or didn’t do.) Yehovah is very patient, and doesn’t usually respond right away to what folks do. He usually gives folks much time to begin to do right.
- It is to know that Yehovah has all power, and He sees and knows what is happening. He sometimes takes action for a person using His power to bring things about. (That is why making a request to Him can be very good.)
- It is to know that forgiveness is with Him. (That cannot be used as an excuse to do wrong!)
- It is to refuse to do wrong even when the sometimes painful consequences of doing right seem very great. It is better to face God having done right than to face God having done wrong. Doing right sometimes is very expensive and painful, and doing wrong sometimes feels very good. A person who fears Yehovah knows that the good feelings that come with doing wrong will be much later followed by terrible pain that will last forever as a consequence of the sin (if the person doesn’t quit doing the sin and turn to doing right before God).
The midwives feared Yehovah much more than they feared what the king could or would do to them. The king was temporary, and life was temporary, but Yehovah is forever, and everlasting life (or death) is forever. Thus, the midwives did what was right in the eyes of Yehovah instead of what the king commanded them.
9. What does “And they did not, just as the king of Egypt spoke unto them” mean? This means that they did exactly what the king told them not to do: they saved the boy children alive.
10. How did they cause the children to live? They did what they could be aid the boy children in birth, and they nurtured them rather than killing them.
VII. The Excuse (verses 18-19)
The king of Egypt called the midwives. He said to them, “Why did ye this speech, and have caused-the-children-to-live?” The midwives responded unto Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrews are not as women of the Egyptians. For they are alive there! Before the midwife will come unto them, and they childed!”
Questions
1. Why did the king ask, “Why did ye this speech, and have caused-the-children-to-live?” Didn’t he know the answer? He knew the answer. He wanted to put fear into them. He was very angry, and he wanted them to know that he was very angry.
2. What does “Because the Hebrews [fem.] are not as women of the Egyptians. For they are alive there!” mean, and who are they in, “For they are alive there”? The Hebrew women are much tougher than the Egyptian women. They refer to the boy babies. They are alive there, indicating that the tough Israeli women already have living baby boys that they birthed without the midwives being present.
3. The midwives said, “Before the midwife will come unto them, and they childed!” Is this the truth? No! The midwives lied to the king. Midwives won’t be late for births if they can help it. What they said was a lie.
4. If what the midwives said was a lie, was that sin? No! It was an act of righteousness! (See how Elohim responds to see whether it is sin or not.) They lied to save the lives of innocent ones from the hands of guilty ones. That is always right to do before Yehovah!
5. At some time, you will probably hear a discussion like this: “When does life begin? Does it begin at conception, or at birth?” If you do, what is the right answer? The right answer is this: life does not begin at conception, and it does not begin at birth. It begins at Adam. The sperm and the egg that form the human embryo (the little baby immediately after fertilization) were already alive! Human life began with Adam, and that is the only right answer.
Yehovah places the soul (including the personality) of the little one after conception—after the egg and sperm connect to begin to form the human embryo, the littlest stage of the baby. Life is already there, however.
VIII. Yehovah’s Response (verses 20-21)
Elohim did good to the midwives. The people of Israel multiplied. They continued to grow even stronger. What happened next was because the midwives feared the Gods: Yehovah made houses to them!
Questions
1. In what ways did Elohim do good to the midwives? The text only mentions one way: He made houses to them. He did other things for them besides this. He made certain that the midwives were able to continue being midwives, and He provided for them so that they prospered. The king could have had them arrested and tortured or killed. Instead, the midwives did very well, and the people of Israel multiplied.
2. Did Yehovah want the Israelis to multiply in Egypt? Yes! That is why He sent them there!
3. Why did the Israelis become so strong (“they strengthened very much!”)? The very hard work built their muscles and their minds! Instead of hurting them, it did them much good!
4. What does “And he was” mean? This means that the event about to be described took place: the event was.
5. Why does the text again mention, “the midwives feared the Gods”? If something is mentioned twice in the Bible, it is very important! These women continued to fear the Elohim, and they continued to only do right. Israel prospered into a great race because of them!
6. What does “He made houses to them” mean? I can only take this in two different ways:
- Yehovah built them houses in which to live; they came and found those pre-built houses waiting for them to occupy them.
- Yehovah gave these woman households with many children of their own so that these women became mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers, etc. with many offspring.
I don’t assume that Yehovah pre-built physical houses for them in which to live; I am certain that he gave these women many offspring who were a great delight to these women who risked their lives for Yehovah’s people Israel!
