Obeying God
Shiphrah and Puah are two Hebrew midwives charged by the king of Egypt (Pharaoh, seen as divine) to do something unethical. While we are called to submit to governing authorities, there is a time to rebel against them. The apostles, when charged not to teach about Jesus, replied, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). Several years earlier, Shiphrah and Puah took the same approach. They feared God, rather than men (Exodus 1: 17). And God blessed them for their civil disobedience. Those who seek to follow Jesus at Southside must heed the example of the women in Exodus 1:15-22.
15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16 “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” 17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. 18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”
19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”
20 So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
22 Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”
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