Betraying Evil
Exodus 1:8-2:10
Now a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. The Egyptians subjected the Israelites to hard servitude and made their lives bitter with hard servitude in mortar and bricks and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this and allowed the boys to live?” The midwives said 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.” So God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”
Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.
The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”
Sermon
Who are the real Shiphrah and Puah?
These two characters are shrouded in a bit of mystery. They are only mentioned once in our Bibles: here in today’s story. But though they receive very little airtime, they play an outsized role in the story of God’s providence.
These two midwives are the very beginning of God’s deliverance of the Hebrew people. Their actions set off a chain of events—a butterfly effect—by which a prophetic leader is raised up, the Hebrew people are liberated, and God’s grand, epic drama of love ensues throughout the millenia.
We ought to pay attention to these women’s centrality to the providence of God.
So… I’ll ask again: who are the real Shiphrah and Puah?
We start off with a simple description coming in verse 15. They are “Hebrew midwives.” But hold on a second – does that mean they are midwives who are Hebrew? Or does that mean they are Egyptian midwives to the Hebrews? Even in the original language, this ancient text doesn’t seem to offer any clarity.
We hear Pharaoh then give instructions to the midwives, before we hear a comment from our narrator. From verse 17: “But the midwives feared God.” We can’t make any conclusions, but we do know that this fact was noteworthy enough to be stitched into the text. This was important enough to document for future generations. These women—somewhat extraordinarily—feared God over Pharaoh. Later, the midwives lie to Pharaoh, before our narrator offers another comment in verse 21, “because the midwives feared God, God gave them families.”
If we know nothing else, and if we can conclude nothing else, our narrator drives our attention to this point. Who are Shiphrah and Puah? They followed the way of God with ferocious determination and conviction, risking even their own safety.
“These two midwives are the very beginning of God’s deliverance of the Hebrew people. Their actions set off a chain of events—a butterfly effect—by which a prophetic leader is raised up, the Hebrew people are liberated, and God’s grand, epic drama of love ensues throughout the millenia.”
But are they Hebrew or Egyptian? We still don’t have an answer. And perhaps we will never get a conclusive answer.
However, we see that their fear of God was noteworthy and deserved special attention. And I might encourage you to consider what it would mean if they were Egyptian, and not Hebrew.
Because like we’ve heard for several weeks now, scripture rebukes us when we start drawing lines between “us” and “them,” and when we start making monoliths out of those who are different than us. Jesus found the foreign, supposedly too-wicked-to-live Canaanites in his family tree. And here, in today’s scripture, we might be catching a glimpse of God using Egyptians to deliver the Hebrew people.
Who are the real Shiphrah and Puah?
They might be Egyptians — part of the people who are supposedly too wicked, too monolithic, too single-minded, too foreign to be redeemed by God.
Maybe the scripture isn’t here to give us clear-cut, simple narratives. Maybe the scripture is a little more complicated than the easy answers of our childhoods. And maybe God’s deliverance—God’s love and grace and compassion—is a little wider than we expected?
“[Shiphrah and Puah] might be Egyptians — part of the people who are supposedly too wicked, too monolithic, too single-minded, too foreign to be redeemed by God… Maybe God’s deliverance—God’s love and grace and compassion—is a little wider than we expected.”
If Shiphrah and Puah are Egyptians—and it is an “if”—but if they are Egyptians, it changes the way we read this story.
Because when we assume they are Hebrew, then we hear a story about victims resisting the cruelty of the perpetrators of abuse. That’s a very holy reading, and one that is worth exploring.
But when we consider these two midwives to be Egyptian, then we hear a story about betrayal of one’s own power. This becomes a story about what it means to live as a person in a system of power and political rule that is unjust; living as a person privileged by cruelty against others.
Shiphrah and Puah, they are elevated to a higher status. Pharaoh entrusts them with the power over Hebrew people — Pharaoh entrusts them with life-and-death power over these foreigners. So these midwives aren’t any ordinary midwives. They are official agents of sorts, who have patriotic duties to Egypt and its king. Their jobs demand uncompromising loyalty to Pharaoh. And their jobs demand cruelty toward the vulnerable and weak.
However, Shiphrah and Puah do not place blind loyalty or blind patriotism over their convictions and fear of God. They are unwilling to favor their national pride over their obedience to God. And it is this obedience to God—and disobedience to their nation's autocrat—that drives them to do what is unimaginably difficult.
They become traitors to the very system of power that has elevated them. They betray Pharaoh and his interests. Not for the sake of chaos or spite or political performance; they betray Pharaoh for the sake of the vulnerable, and for the sake of what is right. They betray Egypt’s perverse orders for the sake of Egypt’s own soul. It is not motivated by a hatred of Egypt, but rather, they are motivated by faithfulness to a higher power, and a higher loyalty.
“They are unwilling to favor their national pride over their obedience to God. And it is this obedience to God—and disobedience to their nation’s autocrat—that drives them to do what is unimaginably difficult.”
Though we conceive of betrayal and disobedience as a vice, and not a virtue, there might be reason to believe it is an essential part of our faithfulness as Christians.
In 1960, the researcher Stanley Milgram read about the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Eichmann was a high-ranking Nazi figure who was responsible for overseeing the logistics of mass deportations during the holocaust. Eichmann’s trial prompted Stanley Milgram to research obedience. He was curious: are ordinary people so compelled by obedience that they could commit atrocities?
So Milgram designed an experiment.
In his experiment, Milgram created an elaborate ruse. He brought in a participant—someone as ordinary as you or I—and gave them simple instructions. He told the participant that they would be reading a series of questions to another person who is in another room. When the person answered correctly, you should move to the next question. When the person answered incorrectly, you should press a button, which would administer an electric shock to that person in the other room. After each question, the intensity of the shock would increase.
What Milgram didn’t disclose was that the person in the other room—the one who was being shocked—was fake. They were another researcher, playing along. Similarly, the shocks were not real — simply well-timed yips and exclamations from the researcher.
But when the experiment was conducted, Milgram found disturbing results.
Each participant would be asked to increase the intensity of the electric shocks. The exclamations they heard from the other room began gently. But those little yips turned into yells. And those yells turned into screams. And then… after turning the dial up even further, and when politely asked to press the button, those screams stopped. The person in the other room was assumedly dead.
Milgram found that more than seventy percent of the participants were willing to kill the person in the other room, if they were simply asked. Milgram showed us that obedience to humanity is sometimes the greatest threat to our faithfulness to God.
It seems that unspeakable evil begins with “please.” And following orders.
“[The midwives become traitors] not for the sake of chaos or spite or political performance; they betray Pharaoh for the sake of the vulnerable, and for the sake of what is right.”
And so, even though it is easy to castigate those who disobey as traitorous and unpatriotic evildoers, it is not so simple.
The opposite may actually be true.
Shiphrah and Puah remind us that disobedience—even blatant betrayal—may at times be one of the most courageous and faithful acts one can carry out.
Because their disobedience and betrayal was for the sake of what was right. It was carried out in the name of God, who loves and cares for the stranger and the most vulnerable among us. They disobeyed the instruction to engage in perverse violence, and refused to dehumanize the vulnerable foreigners in their midst. They chose compassion, and love, and dignity. They chose what was moral.
Who are the real Shiphrah and Puah?
They are two women who practiced holy disobedience. They are people of faith, who did what was right, even when it was at great risk to their safety. They are women who cared for the strangers in their midst, who protected the vulnerable, who never let go of their conviction. They are women who never let go of a world—and an Egypt—that could disobey the temptations of evil, and live in the freedom of what was faithful. Thanks be to God.
Sources
Sara M. Koenig, “Commentary on Exodus 1:8-2:10” Working Preacher,https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-21/commentary-on-exodus-18-210-2
“Stanley Milgram,” Harvard University, https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/stanley-milgram
