Exodus 1 explained: Slavery and the Brave Midwives

Jacob's family in Egypt (vv. 1-7)

This picks up where Genesis ended: Jacob's family of seventy had moved to Egypt during a famine, when Joseph was a powerful official there. After that generation dies, the family grows so large that the wording echoes God's promise to Abraham of countless descendants, and even the blessing to be fruitful and multiply in Genesis 1.

A king who forgot Joseph (vv. 8-10)

A new ruler feels no debt to Joseph and paints the Israelites as a security threat, foreigners who might side with invaders or leave. Historians do not agree on which pharaoh this was or exactly when it happened.

Forced labor and bitter lives (vv. 11-14)

The Israelites are made into forced laborers, making mud bricks and doing field work, and they build supply cities in Egypt's northeastern Nile delta. The plan backfires, because the harder they are crushed, the more they grow, and Egypt's fear turns into even harsher cruelty.

Two midwives refuse (vv. 15-21)

The king orders the midwives Shiphrah and Puah to kill newborn boys at birth, but out of reverence for God they let them live and outwit him with an excuse about Hebrew women giving birth too quickly. Scholars are unsure whether they were Hebrew women or Egyptians serving Hebrews, and many note that the midwives are named while the mighty king is not.

Babies thrown into the Nile (v. 22)

When quiet murder fails, Pharaoh openly orders all his people to drown every Hebrew baby boy, which is a call for mass killing. The Nile, Egypt's source of life, becomes a means of death, and this sets up the next chapter, where a baby boy is placed in that very river.

Key verse: Exodus 1:17

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on whether the midwives' answer to Pharaoh was a justified lie that God rewarded, or whether God rewarded their courage while their deception remained a flaw.

Something to think about

When obeying those in power and doing what seems right pull in opposite directions, what helps a person decide which way to go?