TWO MIDWIVES WHO FEARED GOD

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on May 14, 2023 under 2023 |

Bethany Bible Church Mother’s Day Sunday Sermon Message; May 14, 2023 from Exodus 1:8-22

Theme: To the degree that we reverently fear God, we will resist evil.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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For the past 30 years—every Mother’s Day—I’ve sought to share with you from a story in the Bible of a great woman of faith And today, I’d like to share with you the story of not just one woman of faith—but two. I don’t get the sense that, at the time of their story, either of them were mothers. But they nevertheless give us a great example of a truly ‘motherly’ spirit from God.

Now; not all stories about mothers are sweet and sentimental. Some of them are stories of tough women of valor—women who risked their own lives to serve God in the face of great evil. And that’s the story of these two women. We find their story told to us in the first chapter of the Old Testament book of Exodus. It picks up where the Book of Genesis leaves off—with Joseph and his family having been settled in Egypt. In Exodus 1:8-22, we read these words:

Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, “Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and it happen, in the event of war, that they also join our enemies and fight against us, and so go up out of the land.” Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were in dread of the children of Israel. So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor. And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage—in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve was with rigor.

Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shiphrah and the name of the other Puah; and he said, “When you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.” But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive. So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and saved the male children alive?” And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are lively and give birth before the midwives come to them.” Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty. And so it was, because the midwives feared God, that He provided households for them. So Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “Every son who is born you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive” (Exodus 1:8-22).

Now; this is a harsh story; and I almost hesitate to share it on such a holiday as Mother’s Day. But I nevertheless believe that it’s an appropriate story for our day. It teaches us about the godly character of motherhood in the midst of the harsh realities of life in a fallen, sinful world.

The repeated phrase that we find in this passage is that these two women “feared God”. We find it twice—once in verse 17, and again in verse 21. To ‘fear God’ doesn’t mean that they were afraid of Him in any kind of negative way. Rather, it meant that they had a clear sense of who He is, and that they deeply reverenced Him and respected His authority as Creator. They loved Him with a holy and reverent love, honored His holy commands, and sought to conduct themselves in a way that pleased Him. In that sense, they “feared” or “reverenced” Him.

And this is why they stood out during a very difficult time. In an age in which human beings made themselves the center of all things—in the midst of a cultural environment in which powerful men made themselves the source of all right and wrong—these two women reverenced and honored God the Creator. They put their reverence for Him above everything else—even when it might have cost them dearly to do so. We’d have to say that, if they ‘feared’ anything at all, it was that they feared offending God’s holiness more than offending human authorities. This emboldened and empowered them to stand against the tide of great human evil.

And I suggest to you that the great lesson we learn from these two women—a lesson that we very much need to embrace for our time—is that, to the degree that we reverently fear God, we will stand against and resist evil.

It would be very hard to find a more timely ‘Mother’s Day’ theme than that!

* * * * * * * * *

Now; I’ll tell you something that I’ll bet you didn’t know about the Book of Exodus. In the original language, the first word of the book is “And” (translated “Now” in the version I’m using). The last thing that we’re told in the Book of Genesis is the story of how Joseph had brought his entire family to Egypt; and how Pharaoh blessed them and graciously gave them the land of Goshen to settle into. The closing words of the Book of Genesis were:

So Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father’s household. … So Joseph died, being one hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt (Genesis 50:22, 26).

And now, the Book of Exodus picks the story up immediately from that point; and begins by telling us;

Now these are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt; each man and his household came with Jacob: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. All those who were descendants of Jacob were seventy persons (for Joseph was in Egypt already). And Joseph died, all his brothers, and all that generation. But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them (Exodus 1:1-7).

These words at the beginning of Exodus 1 are very important if we’re going to rightly understand the story of these two women. You see; they lived at a time when God was in the process of keeping an amazing promise He had made to Abraham. Way back in Genesis 12, God had told Abraham;

“Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3).

For years, old Abraham and his aging wife Sarah lived as foreigners in the land of Canaan without having children. But God took Abraham out one night to look up at the stars; and He told him,

“Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be” (Genesis 15:5).

God was going to bless Abraham, give him offspring, make them into a mighty nation of people, give them the land that Abraham was standing on, and bless the whole world through him. But before that would happen, God told him of something else that will happen first:

“Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions” (vv. 14-15).

Now; our God keeps all of His promises—even the promise that Abraham’s descendants would multiply and would be in a foreign land for four centuries as an afflicted people. That’s what we’re reading about in the first seven verses of Exodus.

And that brings us to the story of these two women. The first thing that we’re told about in this morning’s passage is …

1. THE TIMES IN WHICH THEY LIVED.

Verse 8 tells us;

Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph (v. 8).

That former king of Egypt—the Pharaoh who had welcomed Joseph and his family, and had graciously given them the land of Goshen—had died. A new king had taken his place. And we’re told that he “did not know Joseph”. The way this is put to us in the original language suggests to us that it wasn’t because he had somehow ‘forgotten’ about Joseph. This wouldn’t have been possible, because the records had been carefully kept. Instead, it’s that he ‘didn’t want to know Joseph’. He didn’t respect Joseph, or his people, or his God. He didn’t intend to honor the policy of his predecessor; and so, he wasn’t interested in the goodness formerly shown to Joseph.

And he said to his people, “Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and it happen, in the event of war, that they also join our enemies and fight against us, and so go up out of the land” (v. 9-10).

This king was operating out of evil and selfish motivations—and perhaps even out of jealousy. He had seen how the Hebrew people were being blessed in a remarkable way—that they were growing astonishingly, and were prospering in the land. And it could even be that he had known of the promises that God had made to them. In any case, he and his people took action against them. They enslaved God’s chosen people in order to cease their growth.

Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raamses (v. 11).

Now; just imagine the enormous amount of labor that would have gone into building these cities—the trenches and canals that would have had to be dug; the stonework that would have had to be dragged across the sand; the hauling, and lifting, and constructing of the heavy stones for the buildings; the months and years and decades of agonizing labor in the hot sun. If the stories of other such tyrants in history are any indication, then the Egyptian taskmasters would have built these cities at the cost of multiple hundreds of thousands of Hebrew lives. They would have literally worked many of them to death. And that would have been how they would have sought to humiliate them, and dishearten them, and ultimately reduce their number.

But it didn’t work. In fact, it resulted in the exact opposite. Verse 12 tells us;

But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were in dread of the children of Israel (v. 12).

This “dread” may have been simply because the Egyptians were alarmed at the situation. But it’s also possible that they were beginning to realize that this was no natural ‘multiplication’ of a people group—that there was something going on from a Hand that was mightier than that of man. But as so often happens, the wicked heart of man did not repent. Instead, it dug down harder in its resistance toward that Hand.

So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor. And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage—in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve was with rigor (vv. 13-14).

Now; this is all very important, because it helps us to understand the kind of times that these two remarkable, God-fearing women lived. It would be hard to imagine harder times to stand faithful to God than these. To do what they were about to do would have meant that they stood in support of that which Pharaoh and the people of Egypt considered to be a threat. They would have done it at the risk of their lives.

But when I thought about their situation, the words of the Lord Jesus came to mind. He was once asked if it was right to pay taxes to Caesar. And He said;

“Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21).

These two women would not render to Caesar—or, in this case, to Pharaoh—what only belonged to God. They would, of course, obey him as long as human authority could legitimately be honored. But they would not give him the kind of reverent fear and total allegiance that only belonged to God.

Do we have that same commitment in our time?

* * * * * * * * * * *

Now; all of this leads us to …

2. THE CHALLENGE THAT THEY FACED.

And what a dreadful challenge it was! Verses 15-16 tell us;

Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shiphrah and the name of the other Puah; and he said, “When you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live” (vv. 15-16).

These two women—Shiphrah and Puah—probably weren’t the only Hebrew midwives in the land. The number of Hebrew women would have—at this time—have been somewhere between 400,000 to 600,000 in number; and there’s no way that just two midwives could have been sufficient for the job. More likely, these two women were leaders in their profession—responsible for supervising the work of many other midwives who helped young mothers in the delivery of their babies, and helped to care for the infants after they were born. But this wicked king was forcing them—and, no doubt, all the other midwives under them—to do something that was unthinkable. He gave them a command that was contrary not only to their vocation and calling, but to every natural, God-given impulse of humanity in general … and to womanhood in particular. They were to watch as the baby was delivered on the birthstool; and then, as soon as they saw the child’s gender, they were to act immediately. They were to let it live if it was a girl, and let it die if it was a boy.

How would such a thing have been done? In Acts 7:19, we’re told;

This man dealt treacherously with our people, and oppressed our forefathers, making them expose their babies, so that they might not live (Acts 7:19).

And so, this would be what is technically referred to as ‘indirect’ or ‘passive’ infanticide—the act of simply neglecting the baby boy until he died. And this would have been an order given to them from the ruling human authority. To obey would have meant murder; and to disobey would have meant execution. What would a woman go through—especially a woman whose calling it was to help deliver and care for a newborn child—in being given a choice like this?!

But as I thought of this, I remembered a guiding ethical principle in 1 Peter 3:17;

For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil (1 Peter 3:17).

And that’s a principle that we need to remember for our time; dear brothers and sisters. There will be occasions when—like these two women—we’re forced into a situation of either being made to do an act of evil for which we must suffer judgment from God; or of being made to suffer at the hand of man for refusing to do it. In such situations, we’d have to say that suffering is unavoidable. We can’t choose not to experience suffering of some kind. But we can choose which suffering we will suffer. For those of us who fear God, it is immeasurably better to suffer human judgment for doing good, than to suffer divine judgment for doing evil.

Sincere, reverent ‘fear of God’ makes it very clear which choice we must make.

* * * * * * * * * *

And that leads us, again, to these two women and …

3. THE CHOICE THAT THEY MADE.

Verses 17-18 go on to tell us;

But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive. So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and saved the male children alive?” (vv. 17-18).

Note carefully the true reason why they didn’t do as they were commanded. They feared God. They may have had some level of fear of the wrath of the king. But they reverently feared God more than they feared the wrath of a man. Nevertheless, they still had to face that man. He could clearly see that his command had not been followed. He could see the brand-new baby Hebrew boys carried in their mother’s arms in the land. He demanded to know why his command had not been carried out.

And then comes a very controversial part of the story. Verse 19 tells us;

And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are lively and give birth before the midwives come to them” (v. 19).

Some Bible teachers have struggled with this. Did these women lie? And if so, does this mean that God ended up blessing a lie? One solution has been to say that, though the women did indeed lie, it wasn’t the lie itself that God blessed. Rather, it was the intention of their heart to save the lives of these children—through a lie—that the Lord blessed. But I’m not entirely sure that they lied.

It was obviously true that the Hebrew women were more ‘lively’ in giving birth than the Egyptian women. That was why Pharaoh and the Egyptians were trying to stop their growth. And for that reason, it was probably true that the Hebrew women gave birth before the midwives could get to them. What the midwives may not have told Pharaoh, however, was that—in making their way to the Hebrew women—the midwives found several ways to ‘be delayed’ in getting there.

This reminded me of another passage. You find it in Acts 5:29. The apostles were once commanded by the Jewish leaders to stop preaching in the name of Jesus;

But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).

You can only make that kind of commitment when you fear God as you should.

* * * * * * * * * *

So; out of fear of God, these women valued and protected innocent human life. They were mighty women of valor—God-fearing women who trusted and obeyed … even when it was dangerous to do so. And that leads us to notice, finally …

4. THE BLESSINGS THAT RESULTED.

First, we’re told,

Therefore God dealt well with the midwives … (v. 20).

He took care of them, and protected them from the wrath of this evil king. That’s not the story of everyone who ever disobeyed an evil command out of a reverent fear of God. Some were ‘dealt-well-with’ by being sent to a glorious eternity through being executed. These however were ‘dealt-well-with’ by being spared. But in either case, God is good to those who faithfully reverence Him. In either case, they heard their Lord say, “Well done!”

Second, we’re told,

and the people multiplied and grew very mighty (v. 20).

In other words, the evil intent of the king of Egypt failed. He did not stop the growth of the people of God. He didn’t succeed in thwarting God’s promise to Abraham. The Hebrew people continued to grow and become mighty.

Third, we’re told,

And so it was, because the midwives feared God, that He provided households for them (v. 21).

It could be that these midwives, up to this point, had not had families and households of their own. It could be that they had performed this great ‘motherly’ act of defending the lives of these innocent children while not being mothers themselves. And verse 21 may be telling us that, as a result of their faithfulness, God gave them families and households—and with them, the security of a hopeful future. Or, another possibility is that—because the word “them” is in the masculine in the original text—the ones that God provided households for were the very same infant boys that these midwives ended up saving.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now; this passage ends—it seems—in a very tragic way. Because the midwives didn’t do as he had commanded—the Pharaoh conscripted his own people into his murderous plan. Verse 22 tells us;

So Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “Every son who is born [that is, of the Hebrew people] you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive” (v. 22).

How horrible! I find it hard to imagine that the Egyptian people would have been willing to do such a thing! And we’re not really told how much—or if it all—it was carried out. But do you know what happened as a result of this diabolical command? A Jewish woman—in desperation—sought to save her precious brand-new baby boy by hiding him in a basket and sending him adrift on the Nile River. And that baby was discovered and saved by—of all people—Pharaoh’s own daughter! He grew up to be God’s appointed deliverer of His people. The people of Israel were thus saved and brought into their own land. They grew into a mighty nation—just as God promised. And from them, our Redeemer—the Lord Jesus Christ—was born for us into this fallen world.

Let’s learn a lesson, then, from these two midwives who feared God. As it says in Proverbs 29:25;

The fear of man brings a snare,
But whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe (Proverbs 29:25).

AE