A new and more sinister phase of Pharaoh's policy begins with an order to two Hebrew midwives, named here as Shiphrah and Puah. The naming of these women in a culture that generally preserved the names of kings and officials is itself a statement. Pharaoh is never named in this chapter — a studied silence — while these two servants of life are named for all of history. Their occupation as midwives placed them at the most vulnerable threshold of human existence: the moment of birth. That Pharaoh chose to weaponize this threshold reveals the depth of his tyranny. Luke 1:58–60 pictures another birth story with similar attendants and similar stakes, when Elizabeth's neighbors and relatives gathered for John's birth — the contrast between the culture of death Pharaoh represents and the culture of life Scripture consistently celebrates could not be sharper.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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