What is the context?
A new king who does not know Joseph sees Israel’s growing population as a threat. He fears that they might join an enemy during war and leave Egypt. Forced labor is his first response: the Israelites build store cities, make bricks and work in the fields under harsh conditions.
The oppression does not achieve its purpose. The people continue to multiply, and Egyptian fear grows. Pharaoh then orders the midwives Shiphrah and Puah to kill Hebrew boys at birth while letting the girls live.
The women fear God and let the boys live. The Hebrew verb can include reverence and honor, as Brown–Driver–Briggs explains under its entry for fearing God, including these verses. Their reverence has a practical result: they refuse the king’s command to kill.
When questioned, they tell Pharaoh that Hebrew women give birth before a midwife arrives. God is good to the midwives, and the people keep growing. The BSB describes God giving the women families of their own. Pharaoh then extends the command to all his people: Hebrew boys are to be thrown into the Nile. The chapter ends with the threat that will surround Moses’ birth.
How is this passage commonly understood?
The main readings commend the women’s fear of God and their protection of the boys. Their reply to Pharaoh receives different explanations. Wesley sees no reason to doubt that the women were telling the truth about the births. Calvin understands the reply as a falsehood, while distinguishing God’s approval of their reverence and mercy from approval of the lie.
Catholic teaching in Catechism 2482–2485 defines lying as intentional deception through falsehood and condemns it. That is a general teaching about truthfulness; those paragraphs do not decide whether the midwives’ particular reply was false.
The women’s identity is also read differently. Calvin takes them as Hebrew women. Wesley understands them as midwives serving the Hebrews who may themselves have been Egyptian. Both identify their fear of God as the reason they resist Pharaoh.
There is a further difference over the households in verse 21. The BSB and Wesley understand the blessing as families given to the midwives. Calvin applies the building of households to the growing families of Israel. Each reading connects the result with God preserving life through the women’s actions.
Where does this fit in God's plan?
Acts 7:18–22 places this oppression immediately before Moses’ birth and upbringing. The threatened people are the people from whom God is preparing a deliverer. Hebrews 11:23 also remembers Moses’ parents acting in faith despite the king’s edict.
A later parallel appears in Matthew 2:13–18: another ruler orders the killing of boys, while God provides a way for Jesus to be preserved. This is a parallel in the threat and rescue, rather than a claim that the two accounts are identical in every detail.
The women’s choice also recalls the apostles’ response to an order to stop their witness in Acts 5:27–29. Obedience to God takes precedence when a human command directly opposes Him. The larger story shows God preserving His purpose through people whose faithfulness may look small beside royal power.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.