Shiphrah
Shiphrah, Puah, Jocheved, Miriam, Pharaoh's Daughter, and the Infant Moses, circa 245, Dura-Europos Synagogue in Syria, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library.
At the beginning of the Exodus story, a new king becomes ruler over Egypt. Troubled by the number of Israelites/Hebrews in the land, he puts them to forced labor. But still, the Israelites multiplied. So the Pharaoh concocts a new plan for population control. He summons two midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, and gives them these instructions: “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” (Exodus 1:16).
And what do these two midwives do? They disobey. Then, when interrogated by the Pharaoh himself, they do something remarkable—they lie. The midwives are asked why they let the male children live, and they say the Hebrew women “are not like the Egyptian women” and give birth so quickly that the babies are born before a midwife arrives.
First-time childbirths take approximately 12-24 hours. Other births are typically 8-10 hours. A midwife would know this. Apparently, an Egyptian king would not. Shiphrah and Puah manipulate the king’s own prejudices about both the Hebrews and women, and they exploit his ignorance of obstetrics. He has no difficulty believing the Hebrew women are different than Egyptian women. And, given his order, he seems incapable of believing women are a legitimate threat.
After the Pharaoh fails in his plan with the midwives, he commands all his people to throw the Hebrew boys into the Nile, but let the daughters live. The king really doesn’t get it; he should be worried about the daughters, too.
The great liberator of the Israelites, Moses, is the product of women who disobey. Moses’ mother does not kill her son as the king commands, but instead places him in a basket and hides him among the reeds of the Nile. An Egyptian princess finds that basket, recognizes the child is a Hebrew, and raises him in her own household. And it all begins with the Hebrew midwives. “Shiphrah and Puah become the first deliverers in the book of deliverance” (Wilda C. Gafney, Womanist Midrash, 91).
“Shiphrah” and “Puah” are both Semitic names. These Hebrew midwives were not just midwives to the Hebrews; they were Hebrews themselves.
Given the size of the Hebrew population, Shiphrah and Puah were not likely the only two midwives available to the Hebrews. They may have been the heads of the midwifery guild.
Scholar Wil Gafney translates Exodus 1:19 (the midwives’ statement to the Pharaoh) as, “The Hebrew women are brutish, animalistic, not refined, like Egyptian women. Their babies just plop out of them” (Gafney, Womanist Midrash, 91).