
Shiphrah ( ') and Puah ( ') were two
midwives
A midwife (: midwives) is a health professional who cares for mothers and newborns around childbirth, a specialisation known as midwifery.
The education and training for a midwife concentrates extensively on the care of women throughout their ...
who briefly prevented a
genocide
Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...
of children by the Egyptians, according to
Exodus 1:15–21. According to the Exodus narrative, they were commanded by the
King of Egypt, or Pharaoh, to kill all male Hebrew babies, but they refused to do so. When challenged by the Pharaoh, they told him Hebrew women's labour was short-lived because they were 'lively' or 'vigorous', and the babies had been born (and protected) before the midwives arrived. God "dealt well with the midwives" and "made them houses".
Exodus 1:15–1:21
Interpretations
The Talmud
otah 11bidentifies Shiphrah with
Jochebed
According to the Bible, Jochebed (; , lit. ' YHWH is glory') was a daughter of Levi and the mother of Miriam, Aaron, and Moses. She was the wife of Amram, as well as his aunt. No details are given concerning her life. According to Jewish legend ...
, the mother of Moses, and Puah with
Miriam
Miriam (, lit. ‘rebellion’) is described in the Hebrew Bible as the daughter of Amram and Jochebed, and the older sister of Moses and Aaron. She was a prophetess and first appears in the Book of Exodus.
The Torah refers to her as "Miria ...
, Moses' sister, making the two midwives mother and daughter respectively.
"The midwives feared God"
The Torah has no word for
religion
Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...
. The closest related concept found in the Torah is what it calls "the
fear of God
Fear of God or theophobia may refer to fear itself, but more often to a sense of awe, and submission to, a deity. People subscribing to popular monotheistic religions for instance, might fear Hell and divine judgment, or submit to God's omnipot ...
" (Exod. 1:17). The midwives apparently believed that God's moral demands outweighed Pharaoh's legal demands. For this reason, author
Francine Klagsbrun said that the midwives' refusal to follow the Pharaoh's genocidal instructions "may be the first known incident of
civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active and professed refusal of a citizenship, citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders, or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be cal ...
in history." Theologian
Jonathan Magonet agrees, calling them "the earliest, and in some ways the most powerful, examples, of resistance to an evil regime".
The "fear of God" theme is reversed a few verses later when Pharaoh commands the Egyptian people to carry out the genocide (Exod. 1:22). The Egyptians apparently feared Pharaoh more than they feared God, and therefore, participated in the crime. Rabbi
Joseph Telushkin
Joseph Telushkin (born 1948) is an American rabbi and writer. He has authored more than 15 books, including volumes about Jewish ethics, Jewish literacy, as well as the book ''Rebbe'', a ''New York Times'' bestseller released in June 2014.
Biogr ...
compared the Shiphrah and Puah's defection with the
rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust, many of whom had been religious. Those who aided the Nazis, on the other hand, feared the Nazis' power more than they feared (or even believed in) God's judgment.
"Made houses"
Commentators have interpreted Exodus 1:20–21 in various ways. Some scholars argue that the two halves of each verse are parallel, so that it is the Israelites ('who multiplied and grew greatly') for whom God 'made houses'. This fits with the reference in Exodus 1:1 to the children of Israel coming down to Egypt, each with his "house". However, Magonet notes
[Magonet, Jonathan (1992) ''Bible Lives'' (London: SCM), 8.] that the more common view is that the houses are for the midwives - "houses" here being understood as 'dynasties'. Rabbinic thought has understood these as the houses of kehunah (priesthood), leviyah (assistants to the priests), and royalty – the latter interpreted as coming from Miriam.
Names
The names of Shiphrah and Puah are typical Semitic names. The name ''Šp-ra'' is found in a list of
slaves
Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...
in
Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
during the reign of
Sobekhotep III (around 1745 BCE). This list is on
Papyrus Brooklyn 35.1446, in the
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...
. The museum states that "Scholars assume that this is a hieroglyphic transliteration of the Hebrew name Shiphra." The name means "to be fair" or "beautiful", and may be related to, or even the same as, the Aramaic ''Šapphira'' and as Shiphrah, the name of the Hebrew midwife. The name of the second midwife, Puah, is a
Canaanite name which means "young woman" or "little girl".
[{{cite journal , last1=Albright , first1=W. F. , title=Northwest-Semitic Names in a List of Egyptian Slaves from the Eighteenth Century B. C. , journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society , date=1954 , volume=74 , issue=4 , pages=223, 229 , doi=10.2307/595513 , issn=0003-0279, jstor=595513 ]
External links
;Original text of Exodus Chapter 1
Hebrew – English original textat Mechon-Mamre.org
at Mechon-Mamre.org
Judaica Press translationwith
Rashi
Shlomo Yitzchaki (; ; ; 13 July 1105) was a French rabbi who authored comprehensive commentaries on the Talmud and Hebrew Bible. He is commonly known by the List of rabbis known by acronyms, Rabbinic acronym Rashi ().
Born in Troyes, Rashi stud ...
's commentary at Chabad.org
References
Historical theories and materials on the Exodus
Women in the Hebrew Bible
Midwives
Book of Exodus people