15 Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 “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.” 17 But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. 18 So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?” 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.” 20 So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews[a] you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.” (Exodus 1:15-22)
Introduction
As God continues to bless the Hebrew people under slavery and oppression in Egypt, the king of Egypt is driven to further means of oppressing the people. He cannot allow his plans to continue to fail in the public eye. Remember that this is not mere hunger for political power and control, this is a religious conflict. The Pharaohs of Egypt were seen as divine, as descended from the sun god, Ra. You can see that in the “ra” in the name Pharaoh. So any weakness seen in the Pharaoh was a strike against the religious commitments of the Egyptians. Thus the reason why the king of Egypt goes to such extreme measures in attempting to stifle the growth and prosperity of the Hebrews. Furthermore, the barbarity of it doesn’t matter – he is the sovereign of the centralized state – he is the standard.
Not only was this a conflict between the Pharaoh and the Hebrew people, but between the Pharaoh and the Hebrew God as the Hebrew God was clearly blessing and prospering the Hebrews amidst their oppression.
Therefore, if a non-Egyptian god was overruling the plans of the Pharaoh, it was then, as Gary North says, “The very presence of their growing numbers in the face of deliberate oppression was a denial of the sovereignty of the Egyptian bureaucracy.”
Seed of Woman vs. Seed of Serpent
So in this religious war, the Pharaoh implements a program of infanticide toward the Hebrew boys. This is very interesting because as we have already seen Exodus open with God blessing the Hebrews through multiplication and fruitfulness, and now Pharaoh’s attack on the babies this biblical theme of offspring is developing. God told man in the garden to be fruitful and multiply. When man sinned, God promised in Genesis 3:15 that the seed of the women would bruise the head of the serpent, and the serpent would bruise his heel. Then all throughout the book of Genesis it is all about the seed and the offspring. Cain kills Abel. The sons of God, the Nephilim come for the daughters of men in Genesis 6. God promises Abram sons and many offspring. There is all kinds of drama and emphasis around the offspring of the patriarchs throughout the rest of Genesis. And now in Exodus as God has taken a family and turned it into a nation, the offspring, the seed of the woman, is being attacked by the seed of the serpent – Pharaoh.
What we have is the continuation and the development of the conflict between the two seeds. All throughout the Old Testament leading up to the birth of Christ, ever since Genesis 3:15 as the ancient serpent, the devil, was promised that his head would be crushed by the seed of the women, that serpent has been warring against the offspring of the woman. His plan was to try and destroy the line of the woman, destroy the seed, before it was brought to fruition in the One who would crush his head. So certainly the false gods the Pharaoh worshiped were fallen angels and demonic beings that influenced him to attack the baby boys in this way, as they desired to see the seed of the woman snuffed out – being not merely the political aspirations of Pharaoh.
In this attempted, yet failed, massacre of the Hebrew boys, we see pictured the same persecution attempted upon our Lord Jesus as He was just born. It was the Herod who wanted to put the Christ to death, and when he learned that he was tricked by the wise men, much like the Hebrew midwives trick Pharaoh, the Herod orders that all baby boys 2 years and under be put to death. It’s an interesting plot twist that during this time, God tells Mary and Joseph to flee to Egypt until this persecution is over. Basically indicating to us that at the time of Christ, Israel had become Egypt. So our own Savior faced this same threat of infanticide inspired by the ancient serpent himself. And like many of these Hebrew boys in Egypt, Christ’s life was also spared as an infant Israelite boy in Egypt. And as it says in Matthew’s account, “this was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’” That’s from the prophet Hosea.
Population Control (man’s control vs. God’s control)
Basically what we have back in Egypt is a population control program. It is a battle between who will control the population. Pharaoh or Yahweh? Will man control it, or will God control? Certainly God is showing quite clearly that no matter how hard man may try, it is God who determines and controls the population. Thus, any program of population control is an ungodly desire to usurp the sovereignty, authority, and position of God, and should not be attempted by Christian person. Our job is to be responsible and humble stewards of whatever God gives, not to seek to manipulate God’s giving hand, one way or the other. But Pharaoh of course thought he was god, so the One True God had to show him and humble him eventually.
One of the applications we ought to learn from this infanticidal population control effort and the pattern of war between the seed throughout the bible is that Satan, the serpent, always likes to attack children. Even though he failed to prevent the Christ from being born and having his head crushed, he rages now in anger, knowing his time is short, doing as much damage as he can.
One of Satan’s greatest attacks today remains his attack on children. Child sacrifice continues on with the permission of our government in this nation. Many states desperately want to legalize literal infanticide, post-birth murders. But if the enemy can’t get the children before they are too old, they are still attacked in other ways. Child-trafficking is a wicked and heinous evil that is far too large all around the world. We absolutely pray that God would destroy such wicked people who are involved in such evil.
If the enemy can’t get to the children that way, they will be attacked through the humanist public education system, taught lies. They will be exposed to all sorts of evil that children have no business being exposed to there. Satan has greatly deceived the church today through this means with so many Christian parents sending their children to be educated in a humanist worldview exposed to all kinds of evil.
For all of us here who are involved in giving our children a Christian education through homeschooling efforts, don’t ever be prideful in your own righteousness, but also, I want to encourage you. Don’t ever feel embarrassed or ashamed or anything that the world wants to accuse you of. The education of your children is a battle for their souls. The education of your children is literally a battle for their souls. You don’t just give that up. You are not the crazy one. You are the sane one who knows what’s going on. May God bless each one of you in doing so, and may each of you strive to give your children the most well-rounded, robust, and indestructible education you possibly can because they will need all the armor and preparation and skills and abilities and knowledge as they can. Don’t cut corners. Don’t get lazy. Don’t forget the spiritual battle that education of your children is. You are in a fight, a battle, an all-out war, think like it, act like. Not only the formal education side, but also the media they consume. Are you taking charge of that? What are they being taught through what they consume? Media is a powerful and crafty way for evil to be taught in your home without you knowing it, if you are not diligent. Satan attacks the children because it is a battle over the future. And that’s why we should be educating and training them as Christians.
Having children, if God gives them, is resistance to tyranny. The enemy does not want Christians having children. And when Christian do have children, the enemy desperately wants them to not be raised like Christians. Reject population control, have children, and raise them as Christians.
I want to go back to our text in Exodus. Verse 15 and 16, notice Pharaoh’s strategy at first in implementing this program of infanticide. This isn’t a public announcement at first. He first goes to the midwives. These two midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, were in all likelihood the head of the midwives guild among the Hebrews. So Pharaoh first goes to the midwives secretly and puts regulatory burdens on them – that they must kill the baby boys. Now this is so often the tactic in the early stages of a tyrant’s plans – they first go to the professionals in the private sector and place burdens and regulations on them in order to carry out their tyranny. If they can force the private companies to do their dirty work for them, then they have a cover and make themselves look better. We can’t fall for this tactic. We need to be wise as serpents and see what is going on.
This tactic of Pharaoh is a very common tactic in our world today. Tyranny by proxy. This leads us to consider the next portion of our text and see our need for more people like Shiphrah and Puah.
God-Pilled Midwifery
So Pharaoh goes to these midwives with these orders of infanticide. Verse 17, “But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live.” Now it was probably a number of years between verse 17 and 18 as it would’ve taken time for Pharaoh to notice that there were still just as many boys among the Hebrews as before. But whenever he realizes that the midwives have not obeyed him he calls them in to question them.
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.” 20 So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.
Here we have a beautiful example of civil disobedience, righteous deception, and God’s blessing of the midwives and continued blessing on the people of Israel. Certainly when the state tells us to do something evil, we are obligated to disobey. We are to do so not as revolutionaries with a death wish, but we are to do so out of faith, fear of God, and with wisdom. The midwives disobeyed and deceived Pharaoh because they feared God. Almost certainly they risked being put to death by Pharaoh for their disobedience, which shows us their faith, that they believed in life after death and they believed in final judgment. It is a belief in those things that give us the courage to face death, because we know there is a greater judgment to come than any judgment man can do to us.
I want you to notice the biblical narrative going on here. It is not insignificant that it is feminine resistance and deception going on. It brings out more clearly the conflict between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. It brings us back to the garden. Instead of being deceived by the serpent, this time the women out-wit the serpent – it is a taste of garden reversal redemption. This time the woman gets the best of the serpent. Talk about female empowerment. This is it. The nature of this righteous disobedience and deception is feminine. It is not all out war and frontal assault. It is refusal to go and do evil. It is using the craftiness of words to righteously deceive. Certainly the story that midwives told Pharaoh was meant to deceive him. This tool of righteous deception is a tool that God has specifically given for women. They aren’t called to march on the front lines to battle and war with men outside the home. They fight on the home front, they fight on the front of nurturing children. While the men are out fighting, the enemy comes to the door, “ma’am is there any illegal activity going on here?” “No officer, none whatsoever.” The fact that God has given us the biblical category of righteous deception is a great tool and blessing that God has given for women. It’s a way to protect yourself, your children, and others from harm.
This is biblical female empowerment. The feminist boss babe vision is a lie that leaves women vulnerable and endangered to the serpent. The godly woman attending to her duties is protected and armed with the gift of righteous deception should the enemy come knocking. And a godly woman, instead of being deceived by the serpent, can out-deceive him and so protect her home. So Christian ladies ought to be prepared and have their minds made up of what they will do in such situations, with a right fear of God and the courage that comes from it. There are a number of people who believe that it was wrong for the midwives to lie to Pharaoh. There are others who believe they weren’t lying at all. But however you want to speculate, the midwives were clearly subverting and deceiving Pharaoh and God blesses them for it.
Furthermore, I believe this is consistent with the history of redemption. The serpent deceives and the seed of the women deceives the serpent, until finally Christ deceives the serpent. Satan was doing everything he could to influence people to put Jesus to death. Finally, Jesus dies. But in His death, Jesus out-deceived the serpent because Jesus rose from the death. The death of Jesus defeated death and He rose again. That is outwitting the serpent.
In considering the midwives, let me add, by way of application, that what a great blessing it is when we have this kind of God-fearing Christians within places like the medical community. Particularly in the time in which we live, we live in an increasing time of medical tyranny and under a medical industrial complex which does not always have our health and best interest in mind. So it is a blessing to have God-fearing midwives and God-fearing people in the medical sphere who simply want to honor God by truly helping people with their health. And while it is a blessing to have such people, there remains a great need for more such Christians in such places, who understand they face a final judgment and are thus given courage to subvert the system where it is ungodly. We pray with some of the Psalms, that God would hide them from the eyes of the evil, and bless their work. It is not easy and it takes a lot of courage and a lot of wisdom and wits. Maybe God will call some of you girls here to be a God-fearing midwife one day. Know that that is an honorable thing to do and there is great responsibility that comes with it. Worldview matters and the way we practice health and medicine is not neutral.
The Nile
22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews[a] you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”
Seeing his plan with the midwives has failed, Pharaoh moves to his final solution. It is now open season on Hebrew baby boys. The public is now authorized by Pharaoh to cast the baby boys into the Nile. Much like Herod around the birth of Jesus, right? He first went to the wise men trying to use them. They deceived him. So Herod grew angry and called for the slaughter of every boy two years and under. Would God leave His people to be swallowed up by the Nile River in Egypt? No He would not. Pharaoh’s final solution was to command his citizens to throw baby Hebrew boys into the Nile. But how did the men of the Egyptian army end up dying years later? They were swallowed up in the Red Sea. God tells the best stories, doesn’t he? Pharaoh sought to throw the most vulnerable into the waters of death, so God threw Pharaoh’s most strong into the waters of death. The serpent would bruise his heel, but the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head.
No matter how violent and full of hatred the enemy is to God’s people, to Christ’s Church, God will not abandon us to the waters of death. No matter how much the dragon rages against the bride of Christ, seeking to devour and destroy, God will not abandon their souls. God through Christ protects us from the dragon who wants to destroy our souls. Even when the order comes for our execution, if we are in Christ, it can only be the execution of our bodies. They cannot have our souls, for we are hid with God in Christ. The enemy cannot devour us more than he can devour Christ.
Jesus Christ was that true Israelite Son who was cast into the waters of death, so that the daughters would live, so that the feminine would go free. The son was cast into the waters of death, so that the girl goes free – the bride – the Church – the elect of God – all you in Christ. Pharaoh thought he was so smart in sentencing the sons to death and letting the girls live – but he was only declaring the gospel – that The Hebrew Son would be sentenced to death, and we are sentenced to life, because The Hebrew Son died for us. What good news it is that Jesus drew all the attention upon Himself. All the punishment, judgment, wrath, and suffering was put upon Him, and not upon us, and all those in Christ Jesus. He was cast into death and came back out again. He outwitted the serpent, took our death, that we might take His life.
Who gets the daughters?
If you’re reading the Exodus narrative and you get to verse 22 and you see the command of Pharaoh that the sons are to be put to death and the daughters are to live, the question may arise, “Well who gets the daughters?” Who gets the daughters? If all the Hebrew boys are dying, who will the daughters grow up and marry? Will the daughters of the Hebrews be saved and rescued from Egypt in order to become brides, or will they be subjected to Pharaoh’s harem? If the son dies, do the daughters become brides or a harem? The dragon wanted the Hebrew daughters to carry his seed to corrupt the seed of the woman and have it for his own as an attempt to evade the promise of his defeat in Genesis 3:15, and to grow his offspring. Through Pharaoh, the serpent wanted the daughters for himself. We know of course they end up being rescued from such a fate, through Moses who is a beautiful type of Christ. So likewise it is Christ who rescues His bride on earth, from that awful fate of being taken into the harem of the enemy. We are rescued and cleansed and clothed in garments of white for that wedding day. Christ killed the dragon and got the girl.
That was you and that was me. Once in bondage to the serpent. Once enslaved to sin in Egypt. Once helpless without power or position. Once sentenced to death, indeed dead. Once having been deceived and without God in the world. But here comes Jesus Christ. He died, but He comes to life again – He has outdone the serpent – He has outwitted the dragon – look! His heel is bruised, see His hands and side – but see that lifeless serpent in His hand! We are freed from bondage, freed from the deception of sin, freed from darkness, clothed in wedding clothes, to be all of Christ’s and none of Pharaoh’s. That sin which so easily entangles us will one day entangle us no more. This body of death that wastes away will one day be glorified and restored. Christ will be all in all, for He is all in all. And we are His spoils of war, He rescued us from the dragon’s lair, and He is not giving us up, we are His bride, till death do us part – and we will never die, and so never part. Amen.
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