What Does Exodus 1:16 Mean?
And he said, When you help the Hebrew women bring forth, and see them upon the stools, if it is a son, you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, she shall live.
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 he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.THE KEY
The midwife’s very name is rooted in bringing forth, yet here she is made the hinge of a command that sorts newborns for death or life.
THE MEANING
A command makes the midwife’s sight at birth the hinge: if the child is a son, she is to kill him; if a daughter, she is to live. The order reaches directly into the moment life emerges and assigns different fates by sex.
THE ROOT
בְּיַלֶּדְכֶן
beyalledkhen
GROWS FROM
י־ל־ד
y-l-d
to bear, bring forth, or beget
“help the Hebrew women bring forth” in this verse is beyalledkhen. The Hebrew phrase for acting as a midwife grows from the same root that names bearing children and the children themselves. English gives us a job description; the root holds together the act of bringing forth and the life brought forth, so the order strikes at the very purpose of the midwives’ work.
ALSO GROWS
yalad: to bear, give birth, or beget
יָלַד
This is the action at the heart of the midwives’ role.
yeled: child
יֶלֶד
The child and the act of bringing forth share the same root.
toledot: generations, descendants
תּוֹלְדוֹת
What is brought forth continues into generations, the future this command threatens.
וַהֲמִתֶּן
wa-hamitten
GROWS FROM
מ־ו־ת
m-w-t
to die; in this form, to cause to die
“kill” in this verse is wa-hamitten. The command uses a causative form: make him die. Death is not named as an outcome that simply happens; the midwives are ordered to carry it out.
ALSO GROWS
mût: to die
מוּת
The basic verb names the death the order demands.
māvet: death
מָוֶת
The noun makes explicit the condition that the command would inflict.
met: dead
מֵת
This branch names the state the command aims to produce.
וָחָיָה
waḥayah
GROWS FROM
ח־י־ה
ḥ-y-h
to live, be alive
“live” in this verse is waḥayah. The same root gives the clause its plain force: the daughter lives. Beside the command to cause a son’s death, the verse gives one child life and marks the other for death.
ALSO GROWS
ḥay: living, alive
חַי
This branch describes the state granted to the daughter in the verse.
ḥayyim: life
חַיִּים
The root names life itself, not merely escape from the immediate command.
THE PATTERN
Power tries to secure itself by directing violence toward children it cannot control.
And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is brought forth, you shall throw into the river; and every daughter, you shall keep alive.Then Herod, when he perceived that he had been mocked by the wise men, burned with rage, and sent forth and killed all the children who were in Bethlehem and in all its borders, from two years old and under, according to the time he had carefully learned from the wise men.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 verb behind “shall live” here recurs in “saved ... alive” in the next verse: חיה (ḥ-y-h; ḥayah), meaning “to live.” The midwives preserve the boys too, so the life named in this verse becomes an act that defies the death order.
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