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Exodus 1 — Two midwives outrank a king who forgot everything
6 min read
fresh.bible editorialHere is the complete chapter body with all six footnotes re-inserted at their original locations, each with a brief contextual bridge:
This is where the story of begins. Not with a dramatic or a voice from — but with a list of names, a population boom, and a king who conveniently forgot everything.
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The book of Exodus picks up right where left off. family had moved to during a , welcomed as honored guests because of role in saving the entire country. Seventy people arrived. And then generations passed. What happens next sets the stage for , the , the , and the birth of a nation. But it starts here — quietly, in the background, before anyone realizes what God is doing.
The chapter opens with a roll call. The sons of who came to with :
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin. Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.
Seventy people total. was already there — the one who'd made the whole move possible. But then Joseph died. His brothers died. That entire generation passed away.
And here's where it gets interesting: the people of were fruitful. They multiplied. They grew exceedingly strong. The text says the land was filled with them.
Seventy people became a nation. Not because of a military strategy or a political alliance — because of a God made to generations earlier: "I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars." This is that Promise quietly, steadily coming true in a foreign land. No fanfare. Just showing up in the birth rates.
Then one sentence changes everything:
A new rose to power over — and he didn't know .
Think about that. Joseph had literally saved the nation from starvation. He'd been second-in-command of the entire empire. And now? Completely forgotten. A new regime came in, and all that history was erased.
looked at the and saw a threat. He told his people:
"The people of Israel are too many and too powerful for us. We need to deal with this strategically. If a war breaks out, they could side with our enemies, fight against us, and leave."
So Pharaoh's solution was forced labor. They set taskmasters over the , crushing them with heavy work — building the store cities of Pithom and Raamses. They made their lives bitter with backbreaking labor: mortar, bricks, fieldwork. The text repeats it twice for emphasis: they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
But here's the part that must have driven Pharaoh absolutely crazy: the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied. The harder Egypt pushed down, the more spread out. The Egyptians went from annoyed to genuinely afraid. Their entire strategy was backfiring. Oppression was supposed to shrink the problem. Instead, it amplified it.
That pattern shows up everywhere, doesn't it? Pressure that was supposed to destroy something ends up being the very thing that makes it grow. The early would experience the exact same dynamic centuries later. Sometimes the worst thing you can do to an idea whose time has come is try to crush it.
The pivot point of the whole chapter comes down to two women most people have never heard of. — the most powerful man in the known world — called in two midwives. Their names were Shiphrah and .
He gave them a direct order:
"When you deliver a Hebrew baby, check the birthstool. If it's a boy — kill him. If it's a girl, let her live."
Read that again. The king of is ordering the systematic murder of newborn boys. This isn't abstract policy — he's asking the women whose hands deliver these babies to be the ones who end their lives.
But Shiphrah and Puah feared God more than they feared . And they didn't do it. They let the boys live.
When Pharaoh found out, he hauled them back in and demanded an answer. The midwives told him:
"The Hebrew women aren't like the Egyptian women. They're so strong and vigorous — they give birth before we even arrive."
Was it the full truth? Maybe not entirely. But these two women stood in front of an incredibly powerful ruler on earth and chose to God over compliance with a murderous order. They chose conscience over comfort. And the text says God honored them for it — he dealt well with the midwives, and because they feared God, he gave them families of their own.
Notice something: we know their names. Shiphrah. Puah. We don't know this Pharaoh's name — history literally forgot it. But these two midwives? Named. Remembered. Honored. That tells you everything about how God keeps score.
When the quiet plan failed, went public. He didn't whisper to two midwives this time. He issued a command to his entire nation:
"Every son born to the Hebrews — throw him into the Nile. But let every daughter live."
The chapter ends on this dark note. No resolution. No rescue. Just a national decree to drown baby boys in the river. It's horrifying. And it's meant to be.
But if you know what comes next, you know that the very river chose as his weapon of destruction is the same river where a certain baby in a basket will be found — by Pharaoh's own daughter. God has a way of turning the instruments of oppression into the instruments of . The empire's darkest move is about to set the stage for the greatest rescue operation in the Old Testament.