“People to meet in heaven: Shiphrah and Puah”
Exodus 1:8-22
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
She never meant to cause such a stir. She just didn’t think it was right to give up her seat on the bus.
You see, some fifty years before, back in 1900, the city of Montgomery, Alabama passed a law to segregate passengers by race, giving the driver the right to say where blacks could sit and where they couldn’t sit.
And over time and by custom, everyone understood that the first four rows of the bus were reserved for whites, and the back for blacks. And if a white passenger stepped on the bus, and there were no more seats, a black would either have to get up and leave or move to the back of the bus.
But on Thursday, December 1, 1955, after a long day at work, Rosa Parks boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus at around 6 p.m. She paid her fare and sat in a seat in the “colored section,” the seats reserved for blacks.
But as the bus traveled along its usual route, all of the whites-only seats soon filled up. Then when it stopped in front of the Empire Theatre, four more white passengers stepped on. Which posed a problem. Someone would have to give up their seat.
The driver, Jim Blake, came back to say, “Y’all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats.” At first, no one moved. But when he said, “Let me have these seats,” three got up and moved. But not Rosa.
Again, Blake looked at her and said, “Why don’t you stand up?”
Rosa answered, “I don’t think I should have to stand up.”
Blake said, “Well, if you don’t stand up, I’m going to have to call the police and have you arrested.”
She answered, “You may do that.”
So he called the police and had her arrested, which sparked a protest and a boycott and a big step forward in the Civil Rights Movement.
It seems there’s a time and a place to say “No.”
As Henry David Thoreau once wrote in his book Civil Disobedience, “If [government] is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine…I will not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.”
So it was for two women, two Bible women, one named Shiphrah, and the other, Puah, women we want to meet in heaven.
Please turn with me in your Bible to page 57, as I read the words of Exodus chapter 1. I’ll start at verse 8: “Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, ‘Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.’ Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.”
We’ll stop there for just a moment.
Look again at verse 8, “Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.”
If you know your Bible history, you know that, as the book of Genesis ends, Joseph became second-in-command of all of Egypt. By God’s grace, he ruled over an entire nation as Pharaoh’s right-hand man. And not only did he rule over it, he made it rich as well, as people from the entire region came to buy grain from them. And in time, all of Joseph’s family, his father and his brothers and their families, all came to live with him.
But as time passed, Jacob died, Joseph died, and his brothers did too. And so did Pharaoh, the one Joseph had known and served so long. And now, nearly a hundred and fifty years later, there was a new leader, a new Pharaoh in town. And he didn’t know Joseph, nor did he care about one who was once second-in-command in all of Egypt.
Besides, he had more than his share of troubles. Enemies bordered him on all sides and literally thousands of Hebrews, another possible enemy, lived right under his nose.
And that worried him! And he wondered—what would happen if the Hebrews inside teamed up with his enemies on the outside? His nation would be in for a lot of trouble.
So what should he do? Verse 11: “Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses.”
But there was a problem. Look at verse 12: “But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel.”
So pushing them, working them hard, didn’t control them. In fact, it made matters even worse. Now there were more Hebrews than ever before. What should he do?
That’s when he had an idea. It was a bad idea, a wicked idea--cold-blooded cruelty at its absolute worst. “Kill them just as soon as they’re born,” he said. “Not the girls. We can use them as household servants--slaves. But the boys—every single one must go.”
And that’s when we first meet these two Bible women—one named Shiphrah, and the other Puah.
Look again at the text, at verse 15: “Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, ‘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.”
Shiphrah and Puah. Beautiful names! Beautiful Egyptian names. “Shiphrah meant, “To comfort and swaddle, to cover in beauty” and “Puah” meant, “to coo or cry out.” What beautiful names for those who would bring new life!
Which, you see, was a problem. Not only did these women care for newborn babies, boys and girls alike, they cared for the mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, entire communities of both Egyptians and Hebrews. And the king was asking, commanding, that healers become murderers, and take their life?!
Does it remind you of something? It should. For the book of Matthew chapter 1 tells of another king, one named Herod, who would order the slaughter of the innocents, to kill our Savior Jesus.
But just as soon as Shiphrah and Puah understood what Pharaoh was asking, they must have stumbled from his court in fear. “We can’t do this,” they said to each other. “But if we don’t do it, he’ll kill us and our families too.”
So what did they do? Verse 17: “But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live.”
Days passed, and so did the nights, as each caught a glimpse of the other scurrying from one home to the next. And while Shiphrah held a young girl’s hands to calm her fears, Puah smoothed an older woman’s belly while she wept in pain. And each time they delivered beautiful, healthy baby boys, then laid them, squawling and kicking, safely in their mother’s arms.
Finally, Pharaoh summoned them into his palace. He thundered, “Where are the baby boys?! My soldiers tell me you’ve brought them none. Was I not perfectly clear?”
Look at verse 19: “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 grew very strong.”
This wasn’t the first act of civil disobedience in the Bible, nor would it be the last. In the book of Joshua chapter 2, the king of Jericho commanded Rahab to produce the Israelite spies. Instead, she let them down a rope so they could escape. When Queen Jezebel killed the prophets in I Kings 18, Obadiah took a hundred of them and hid them, so they could live. In Daniel chapter 3, when King Nebuchadnezzar ordered Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego to bow down before a golden idol, they refused, only to have God save them from the fire.
Not only must we Christians pray for our government, sometimes we must also disagree, especially when a government is in direct violation of the law of God. That is, after all, what Jesus once said in the book of Matthew: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may glorify your Father who is in heaven.” And that’s what Peter said in the book of Acts: “We must obey God rather than men.”
There are two things we should note before we leave this text. The first is this—it’s really kind of funny if you think about it. You see, Pharaoh was a pretty big guy. He ruled over all of Egypt. His people even worshipped him as god.
But as our God sought to accomplish His plan among the people of Egypt, who did He use? He used a couple of midwives to stand against all the power of Egypt.
Isn’t that just what He did with our Savior Jesus? For when He came to save us, He didn’t come to a king’s palace or to any earthly thrones. Instead, He came to a virgin named Mary, and said, “You will conceive in your womb and bear a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus. For He will save His people from their sins.”
And just one more thing. You’d have to look pretty closely to even notice it. In fact, most every translation doesn’t even catch it. In Exodus 1:17, most translations say, “But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them.” But you know, in the Hebrew, it doesn’t say, “The midwives feared God.” It says, “The midwives feared the God.”
You see, Shiphrah and Puah knew gods of all kinds—there was Horus, the god of war; Anubis, the god of the dead; and Ra, the god of the sun.
But they knew full well that there was only one God, one true God. And that’s why they worshipped Him.
That is, after all, what it says in Exodus 15: “Who among the gods is like You, O Lord—majestic in holiness, awesome in splendor, working wonders?”
We thank You, dear Father, for the work and the wisdom of these two women—Shiphrah and Puah. Grant that we too may live according to Your will, until we, by Your grace, meet them in heaven. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen