Week 3 Genesis 43-Exodus 12
A lot of water has passed over the dam between Genesis 50:26 and Exodus 1:7. Hundreds of years of water in thirty seconds of reading.
Jacob’s family is a lot bigger now, big enough that Egypt’s ruler thinks the country’s foreign minority along the northern border could become a security risk. So by law the families of Israel lose whatever legal rights they have and are re-classified as unpaid mandatory labourers of the state – slaves. And another decision is made to help control the Hebrew population: universal male infanticide. The program of killing Hebrew newborns is assigned to two Hebrew midwives.
The bible doesn’t say anything else about Shiphrah and Puah. Just this story. Just that they were supposed to kill children, and that they decided not to. And just that the thing that motivated them to not kill children was that they revered God – Exodus 1 says that twice. And so even though revering God seems like shaky grounds on which to disobey the state, they disobeyed the state.
I’m pretty sure they didn’t know what the outcome would be. I don’t imagine they figured they would be rewarded for their disobedience. Don’t imagine they thought the pharaoh would come onside if they explained their reverence-for-God argument. Don’t imagine, even after they surveyed their mostly downside outlook, it would have made too much difference.