Hebrew Midwives in Exodus 1: Reverence Under Pressure

When someone with power gives an order, obeying can feel like the only safe option. Exodus 1 shows two women who did not take that option. The king of Egypt ordered them to kill the newborn boys of Israel, and they refused.

To see why their refusal mattered, start where the chapter starts: with a people who kept growing, and a king who decided that growth was a problem.

Why did Pharaoh turn against a growing people?

Exodus 1 does not describe a king who lost his temper. It describes a king who made a decision. A new king arose over Egypt who did not honor Joseph, the man who had rescued Egypt in a terrible drought. He was not necessarily ignorant of Joseph. He simply would not honor Joseph or his descendants.

Israel kept multiplying. Pharaoh looked at a people who had come into Egypt as seventy souls and concluded they were more numerous and mightier than the Egyptians. He feared that in a war they would join Egypt's enemies and fight against him. So he put taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens, and they built the treasure cities of Pithom and Raamses for him.

Fear was not the whole motive. The Egyptians had already sold their land, their animals, and themselves to Pharaoh, and he counted the Israelites as slaves too. Every worker was worth too much to lose. First Timothy 6:10 names the love of money as the root of all evil, and that fits what is happening here. Pharaoh did not want to give up a free workforce.

Pharaoh presented his plan as the wise way to deal with Israel (Exodus 1:10). Scripture separates the wisdom of this world from the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1; Romans 1). By the time Egypt's wisdom had run its course, its land, crops, and cattle were devastated and its firstborn were lost. Had Pharaoh let Israel grow and leave in peace, his own kingdom could have gone on ruling.

Now notice what verse 12 says: the more Egypt afflicted Israel, the more Israel multiplied and grew. The verse does not teach that God sends affliction so His people will grow. Look at who did the afflicting. Pharaoh did. God did not bring that persecution. If He had, it would violate the Scriptures that name Satan as the one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Israel prospered and grew in spite of Pharaoh's cruelty, not because God was behind it.

The same line holds today. A verse like this one gets used to say that God put the sickness on you, or broke your marriage, or handed you the heartache. Believe that, and you will accept the problem because you do not want to fight God. James 4:7 draws the line: "Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you." Some things come from God and some come from the devil. What is from God, you submit to. What is from the devil, you resist. Blaming God for the affliction is a ploy of the devil, because it makes you passive and leaves him free to steal what God has given you.

What did the midwives fear, and what did they refuse?

Verse 15 names the two midwives: Shiphrah and Puah. Israel numbered in the millions by the time they left, so there were probably more midwives than these two. Either Pharaoh spoke to two of them privately because a public order to kill every Hebrew boy would have caused a great reaction, or these two were over the others and were meant to pass the order down.

The order itself was specific. If a Hebrew woman gave birth to a son, the midwives were to kill him. If the child was a daughter, they could let her live. The reasoning was that without the boys there would be no warriors to fight Egypt, and the girls would be absorbed into Egyptian life and no longer seem a threat. Pharaoh was a dictator, and no one in Egypt outranked him.

Now read the verse that answers it: “But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive” (Exodus 1:17, NKJV).

The verse does not start with their courage. It starts with their fear of God. The command was ungodly, and the midwives did not do it.

This is a biblical precedent for refusing ungodly laws and commands, an example of civil disobedience. No human authority, even one as powerful as Pharaoh, can bind you to do what God forbids.

Does refusing an ungodly command mean rebellion?

Scripture does teach submission to the authority over us. Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 say so, and so do other passages. But submitting and obeying are two different things. Had the midwives tried to stir up a revolution and topple Pharaoh, that would have been a failure to submit. They withheld their obedience, yet they stayed in submission.

The midwives did not start a revolt. They did not come against Pharaoh or challenge his authority. They simply declined to carry out his order. Submission never stretches so far that it makes you disobey God.

The New Testament shows the same pattern. Peter and John stood before the religious council and were ordered to stop speaking in the name of Jesus. They answered, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge" (Acts 4:19). The same Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2 that believers should submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme or to governors sent by him. He did not contradict himself, because submitting and obeying were never the same thing.

Refusing a wrong command does not require shouting at the authority, hating the person, or speaking evil of him. You can refuse respectfully. You can work within the law, using the freedoms the law already gives you. You can refuse to do the wrong thing without trying to overthrow the one who gave the order.

How did God respond to the midwives' answer?

Pharaoh called the midwives in and asked why they had let the boys live. Their answer was that the Hebrew women were not like the Egyptian women, because they were lively and gave birth before the midwives arrived. There may have been some truth in that, since the Hebrew women may have delivered quickly. But the answer was basically a deception, a misrepresentation of what was happening. The thing they had done, in the end, was refuse an ungodly command.

Read the next verses, because God's response is the point. “Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty” (Exodus 1:20, NKJV). Verse 21 adds: “And so it was, because the midwives feared God, that He provided households for them” (Exodus 1:21, NKJV).

Notice the connection. The midwives feared God, and He treated them kindly for it. Those who defied a wicked command from the government received His favor. The people kept multiplying in the same land where the king had tried to stop them.

When you read a passage like this, do not treat it as ancient history that has nothing to do with you. Read it and ask what God is saying to you, then make the application. When an authority tells you to do something ungodly, you do not rebel, and you do not obey. You do what is right, and the midwives are the scriptural precedent for it.

What happens when a wrong order goes public?

Pharaoh appears to have started quietly, speaking to the midwives and hoping the killing would go unnoticed. People might have thought many children were simply dying in birth. When the midwives did not obey, he moved to an open command. Every newborn son was to be thrown into the river, and every daughter was to live (Exodus 1:22). The quiet approach had failed, so the plan came into the open.

Pharaoh's edict still had a limit. The Israelites were his workforce, and they were building his treasure cities. He could not wipe them all out without losing the labor he relied on. The midwives never had to overthrow Pharaoh to save a child.

You can submit to the authority over you and still refuse to do what God forbids. The midwives did, and God showed them favor.

Go deeper: watch Through the Bible: Exodus 1 on YouTube.