Chapter 2: The Women Who Defied a King

Pharaoh summoned two Hebrew midwives. Their names were Shiphrah and Puah. These were the women whose hands delivered every Hebrew child.

PHARAOH (to the midwives): "When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live." (Exodus 1:16)

No armies. No public announcement. Just two women and an order to end a nation one boy at a time.

But the midwives feared God more than they feared Pharaoh. They did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, and they let the boys live. (Exodus 1:17)

Pharaoh called them back.

PHARAOH (to the midwives): "Why have you done this, and let the male children live?" (Exodus 1:18)

SHIPHRAH AND PUAH (to Pharaoh): "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them." (Exodus 1:19)

Pharaoh could not prove otherwise. And God dealt well with the midwives. Because they feared Him, He gave them families of their own. (Exodus 1:20-21)

But Pharaoh was not finished. If the midwives would not do it in secret, he would do it in the open. He issued a command to all his people.

PHARAOH (to all Egypt): "Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live." (Exodus 1:22)

The Nile, the river that fed Egypt's crops and sustained its people, would now be used to swallow Hebrew children. But into this decree, one mother was about to do something no one expected.