What Does Exodus 1:15 Mean?
And the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah for the one and Puah for the other.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah:THE KEY
The ruler appears only by office, while the women standing where birth meets power are preserved by their names.
THE MEANING
Authority can reach into the place where life begins, but the people receiving its words remain distinct and named. Shiphrah and Puah are visible as persons, not swallowed by the role the king assigns them. The verse keeps the human beings between power and vulnerable life in view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie undone is that power’s voice fills the whole room: the king speaks, but the text also preserves Shiphrah and Puah by name.
THE ROOT
הַמְיַלְּדֹת
hammeyalledot
GROWS FROM
ילד
To bear, beget, or bring forth.
The Hebrew word for “midwives” grows from the same root that names bringing forth and the child brought forth. English makes the attendants sound merely adjacent to birth; the root binds their work to the life emerging.
ALSO GROWS
yalad: To bear, beget, or bring forth.
יָלַד
The verb names the life-bearing work at the heart of the midwives’ role.
yeled: Child.
יֶלֶד
This branch names the life brought forth; the same root holds both the midwives and the child in one word-family.
שִׁפְרָה
Shiphrah
GROWS FROM
שפר
To be beautiful or pleasing; beauty, pleasingness.
Shiphrah’s name is commonly connected with שפר, “to be beautiful or pleasing.” The verse gives her a resonant name alongside her life-bearing role, so she stands as a particular person rather than an anonymous function.
ALSO GROWS
shāperāh: Was pleasing or goodly; used of a “goodly heritage” in Psalm 16:6.
שָׁפְרָה
This form carries the same sense of what is pleasing into a description of what has been received.
imrê-shāfer: Goodly or beautiful words (Genesis 49:21).
אִמְרֵי־שָׁפֶר
The root can describe beauty expressed in speech, giving Shiphrah’s name a quality beyond appearance.
פּוּעָה
Puʿah
GROWS FROM
פעה
A proposed Hebrew connection is “to cry out” or “utter”; the name’s etymology is uncertain.
If this Hebrew connection is intended, Puah’s name carries the sound of a cry into a scene where the king’s speech is prominent. This is a possible name echo, not a certain etymology.
ALSO GROWS
pāʿāh: To cry out or utter, in a proposed Hebrew connection.
פָּעָה
This proposed verb-root is one way Puah’s name may carry the sense of voice.
ʾefʿeh: “I cry out,” in the laboring-woman image of Isaiah 42:14.
אֶפְעֶה
Isaiah’s image joins a cry with labor; if Puah shares this root, the sound resonates with her role beside birth.
THE PATTERN
Power reveals its nature by what it permits or protects at life’s vulnerable beginnings.
And it came to pass, when she was hardened in her birthing, that the midwife said to her, Do not fear, you shall have this son also.But the midwives stood in awe of God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had spoken to them, but kept the boys alive.But when Jesus saw it, he was vexed, and said to them, Let the little children come to me, and do not hold them back, for the governance of God belongs to such as these.THE THREAD
But the midwives stood in awe of God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had spoken to them, but kept the boys alive.The Hebrew root ילד (yalad, “bring forth”) names the midwives in verse 15 and the children in verse 17. The language binds the women who attend birth to the lives the king’s command threatens.
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