Hands of Defiance: Fear God, Not Kings

[Timl1980]

Part One – The Decree

 

Research: Exodus 1:15‑16 records Pharaoh’s chilling command to the Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah: “When you help the Hebrew women give birth...if it is a son, you must put him to death.” Midwives in Egypt were often women of low status, yet they carried sacred responsibility. Egyptian women of wealth wore pleated linen gowns, heavy collars of gold and faience beads, while Hebrew women labored in rough wool shawls. Meals for slaves were barley bread, lentils, onions, and garlic...while Pharaoh feasted on roasted meats and honey cakes. The contrast between palace and mud‑brick homes was staggering, and into that divide Jehovah placed two ordinary women with extraordinary courage.

 

Sometimes the most dangerous weapon in the world is not a sword...but a command whispered from a throne.

 

The day began like any other in Goshen. The air was thick with the smell of Nile mud and fish, the cries of merchants hawking onions and garlic, the clatter of copper bracelets on Egyptian women striding past in linen gowns bleached white by the sun. Shiphrah adjusted the rough wool shawl around her shoulders, her hands still raw from grinding barley into flour that morning. Beside her, Puah carried a clay jar of water balanced on her hip, her dark eyes scanning the crowded street.

 

They were midwives, daughters of slaves, women who lived in the shadows of Egypt’s towering temples and golden palaces. Their meals were simple...flat barley cakes, lentil stew, figs when they were lucky. Their homes were small mud‑brick dwellings, their clothing plain compared to the pleated linen and gold collars of the Egyptians. Yet their work was sacred: they caught life in their hands, they wiped the blood and sweat from mothers’ brows, they whispered prayers to Jehovah as newborns wailed their way into the world.

 

But today, the summons had come. Pharaoh himself wanted them.

 

The palace loomed ahead, its walls painted with scenes of gods and victories, lotus‑shaped columns rising like a forest of stone. Soldiers wearing leather kilts and carrying bronze‑tipped spears flanked the entrance. Shiphrah’s stomach twisted. She had delivered babies in secret huts, in fields, even in the back of a wagon...but never had she stood before the throne of the most powerful man on earth.

 

Inside, the air was cool, heavy with incense. Pharaoh sat on a gilded throne, his eyes lined with kohl, his headdress gleaming with a cobra of gold. His voice was smooth, but his words were like jagged iron knives...ready to rip and shred.

 

“When you serve as midwives to the Hebrew women,” he said, “and you see them giving birth, if it is a son, you must put him to death. If it is a daughter, she may live.” The words fell like stones into their chests. Kill the sons. Kill the future. Kill the promise Jehovah had made to Abraham. Shiphrah’s hands trembled. Puah’s jaw clenched. Around them, the painted gods on the palace walls seemed to leer, their stone eyes daring them to disobey. They bowed low, their faces hidden. But inside, their hearts pounded with a single, unspoken thought...What will we do now?

 

As they left the palace, the cries of Hebrew infants echoed faintly from the slave quarters...and Shiphrah knew the first test would come before the sun set.

Edited September 29 by Timl1980