9He said to his people, “Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. 10Come, let’s deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it happen that when any war breaks out, they also join themselves to our enemies and fight against us, and escape out of the land.” 11Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. They built storage cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses. 12But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out. They started to dread the children of Israel. 13The Egyptians ruthlessly made the children of Israel serve, 14and they made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and in brick, and in all kinds of service in the field, all their service, in which they ruthlessly made them serve.
15The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah, 16and he said, “When you perform the duty of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth stool, if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.” 17But the midwives feared God, and didn’t do what the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the baby boys alive. 18The king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said to them, “Why have you done this thing and saved the boys alive?”
19The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women aren’t like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”
20God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied, and grew very mighty. 21Because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “You shall cast every son who is born into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.”
If today’s reading had a title it would be ‘call the midwife.’ These were difficult and dark days in Egypt for the Children of Israel, the new Pharaoh felt threatened by their sheer number and presence. Pharaoh’s paranoia and fear in keeping himself in power resulted in terrible consequences as he condemned the Israelite people into slavery. The more he tried to oppress them, the more God blessed them and they continued to grow in number.
Pharaoh’s next plan was even more brutal than slavery, it was truly wicked. He called for the midwives Shiphrah and Puah and told them that as they assisted in the births of the Israelite women they were to kill each new born baby boy as this would stop them from building an army against him. However, because the midwives feared God they refused to carry out Pharaoh’s orders. This was a real act of bravery as Pharaoh had the power to kill them and if he wasn’t concerned about the life of a new born how much less would he care about these two women. The midwives had a decision to make, risk death by obeying God or carry out the orders of a tyrant to save themselves. Thankfully they chose to obey God despite the risk.
Are we willing to do the same? We may not be under threat of our lives or be faced with such devastating circumstances, but how often do we put what others think in front of what God desires for our lives? Maybe we are even putting off becoming a Christian and giving our lives to him completely because we are anxious about what friends and family will think.
In being brave and honouring God, these two midwives ensured the safety of many Israelite boys including Moses and through Moses God engineered the freedom of his people from slavery. Not only did Shiphrah and Puah save the baby boys, they were instrumental in saving a whole nation. Just imagine what our obedience could do if we were just willing to put God first?