What Does Exodus 1:18 Mean?
And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said to them, Why have you done this thing, and kept the boys alive?
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 called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive?THE KEY
The Hebrew verb behind “saved ... alive” grows from חיה (chayah, “to live”), making the midwives’ defiance an act of keeping life in motion.
THE MEANING
Pharaoh’s question meets you wherever authority treats the vulnerable person’s survival as a challenge: the boys are alive, and that fact cannot be hidden. The midwives’ work is visible enough that power demands an account of it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the claim that a ruler’s command settles what may count as life: the boys’ survival is already a fact the king has to confront.
THE ROOT
וַתְּחַיֶּיןָ
vatteḥayyenāh
GROWS FROM
חיה
chayah
to live; in this verb, to keep alive
“kept the boys alive” in this verse is vatteḥayyenāh. The KJV phrase gathers the Hebrew into one verb rooted in חיה (chayah, to live): the midwives preserve life. The same seed appears in words for the living and for life itself.
ALSO GROWS
chai: living; alive
חַי
This word names the state the midwives preserve: the boys remain among the living.
chayyim: life
חַיִּים
The verb turns on life itself, not a status granted by the king.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צרר
tsarar
to press in, bind, or constrict; צַר (tsar) means narrow or constricted
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim carries the image of the two narrows, constriction pressing life inward. Here that narrowing takes the shape of a ruler treating the survival of boys as defiance, while the midwives keep life moving.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: narrow; constricted
צַר
It gives the place name its image of pressure and limited space.
metzar: strait; narrow place; distress
מֵצַר
This branch makes the constriction a lived condition, like the danger surrounding the boys.
מְיַלְּדֹת
meyalledot
GROWS FROM
ילד
yalad
to bear, give birth, or bring forth
“the boys” in this verse is meyalledot. The name of the midwives’ work grows from the same root as the word for a child. Their role and the lives they protect are held together in the language of birth and bringing forth.
ALSO GROWS
yalad: to give birth; bring forth
יָלַד
This is the action at the heart of the midwives’ work.
yeled: child; boy
יֶלֶד
The children whose lives they preserve are named from the same root as the work that brings them into the world.
THE PATTERN
When authority demands harm, preserving the threatened becomes an unmistakable form of refusal.
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 if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods, nor bow down to the golden image which you have set up.Then Peter and the other sent ones answered and said, We must obey God rather than humankind.THE THREAD
And Adam called his wife's name, the living one, Eve; because she was the mother of all living.The word translated “living” is חַי (chai, living), from חיה (chayah, to live), the same root as “saved ... alive” here. Genesis also names Eve חַוָּה (Chavah, the living one), linking the midwives’ preservation of these boys with life carried forward.
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