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Exodus 1:8-2:10 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁸ Now a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. ⁹ He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. ¹⁰ Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” ¹¹ Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. ¹² But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. ¹³ The Egyptians subjected the Israelites to hard servitude ¹⁴ and made their lives bitter with hard servitude in mortar and bricks and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.

¹⁵ The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, ¹⁶ “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” ¹⁷ But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. ¹⁸ So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this and allowed the boys to live?” ¹⁹ The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” ²⁰ So God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very strong. ²¹ And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. ²² Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”

2 Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. ² The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. ³ When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. ⁴ His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.

⁵ The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. ⁶ When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. ⁷ Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” ⁸ Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. ⁹ Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. ¹⁰ When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

The Midwives’ Call

Beloveds, this is one of those passages of Scripture that asks something difficult of us.

It asks us to see the truth; and it models telling the truth.

The Book of Exodus begins with a new king who “did not know Joseph.” There had been a relationship between Joseph and the old king, a history of mutual dependence, a time when Joseph’s family had been welcomed into Egypt. But now the memory is gone. The new king, the new Pharaoh does not know Joseph.

The new Pharaoh looks at the Hebrew people and says, essentially, “There are too many of them. They are too powerful. They are a threat.”

And then what happens? He lets fear mandate policy. That policy becomes oppression. The oppression begets violence. And the violence eventually becomes an attempt at genocide.

The Israelites are forced into hard labor. Their lives are made bitter. And then Pharaoh commands the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to kill the baby boys. Peggy read from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition of our Bible, where it is written: ²² Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”  

The midwives refuse to obey Pharaoh so he commands and emboldens “all his people” to drown the newborn male children in the Nile. This is horrific. It is a story about what human beings can do when fear becomes more important than love, when power becomes more important than justice, when people begin defining their neighbors as threats instead of as human beings. 

This breaks my heart. And not just because it happened once. It breaks my heart – and makes me justifiably angry – because it continued to happen throughout history – and continues to this day. 

That is one reason this ancient story still feels so painfully relevant. We know what it is to live in a world where people are categorized and scapegoated. We know what happens when immigrants, refugees, racial minorities, religious communities, LGBTQ people, poor people, or political opponents are described as dangerous, inferior, or somehow less deserving of dignity. 

The Book of Exodus demands that these atrocities be seen. But we are not expected to remain in the gloom and despair. Because into this machinery of oppression step two women whose names we are given. Shiphrah. And Puah. A rare instance when the Bible remembers the names of women.

The Pharaoh has all the institutional power. He has the army. He has the throne. He has the authority to issue commands. But Shiphrah and Puah have something the Pharaoh does not have. They have moral imagination. They have faith. They have courage. 

Scripture tells us, “They feared God, and they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them.”

They refuse to obey Pharoah’s inhumane directive. And then, when Pharaoh demands an explanation, they find a way to resist him. They do not have to defeat his armies in battle. They do not need to overthrow the government. They simply refused to participate in his evil. 

Sometimes faithfulness is simply saying, “I will not do that. I will not participate in cruelty. I will not treat another human being as disposable.”

And notice: the text does not say that God first makes the midwives powerful and then they become courageous. They are vulnerable and yet they are courageous. 

Then the story moves to another group of women.

Moses' mother, three months after he was born, realizes she cannot hide him any longer. So she makes a little basket, covers it with pitch, and places her child among the reeds in the Nile. What did she think would happen? We cannot know. 

His sister (Miriam) stands nearby and watches. And Pharaoh's own daughter, after sending her servant to fetch the basket, looks into the basket and sees a child. Not a Hebrew problem. Not an enemy. Not a threat.  She sees a child. And she has compassion for him.

Her own Father’s system says: destroy him. Her compassion says: save him. And somehow, through the courage of midwives, the love of a mother, the watchfulness of a sister, and the compassion of a princess, the future of an entire people is carried forward. 

That gives us a different way to think about the question, “Who are our modern-day Moses’?” Maybe we should be careful about looking for or naming one heroic person. The Exodus story is much more communal than that. Moses survives because ordinary people make extraordinary choices. The midwives. His mother. His sister. Pharaoh's daughter. Even the women whose names we never learn.

The story of liberation begins before Moses ever speaks. Before Moses confronts Pharaoh. Before the Red Sea parts. Before the Commandments. Before the Cloud of God's Presence leads the people through the wilderness.

Liberation begins with people refusing to cooperate with oppression. It begins with people protecting life. It begins with people seeing one another's humanity. It begins with asking ourselves, “What is mine to do?”

“What is mine to do?” and “What is ours to do?”

Where are we being asked to resist something that diminishes another human being? Whose suffering have we learned not to notice? Who has been reduced to a category in our minds? Where have fear and suspicion begun telling us who is worthy of compassion? And where, perhaps, is God inviting us to become a little more like Shiphrah or Puah—to use whatever influence we have to protect life?

Because the hope we carry forward is not naively that there are no Pharaohs. The hope is that the Pharaohs never have the final word. The empire never has the final word. Violence is never the final word. Fear is not the final word. God is.

And the God revealed to us is not a distant God. The larger story will tell us that God hears the cries of the oppressed. God sees suffering. God remembers covenant. God comes near.

God is present with God's people—day and night, in cloud and fire, in wilderness and uncertainty.

God is near. And that means our hope does not depend upon having enough power to control the world. Our security does not come from defeating everyone who frightens us.

We do not have to respond to every lie in order to live truthfully. We do not have to become unkind because someone else has been cruel. We do not have to raise our hand against another person in order to trust that God sees us. Our calling is not to become like Pharaoh in order to defeat Pharaoh. 

Our calling is to become more fully human. More courageous. More compassionate. More willing to protect life. More willing to tell the truth. More willing to love our neighbors, especially when the world tells us that some neighbors are less deserving of our love.

There is one final detail I love in this passage. Pharaoh's daughter names the child Moses because, she says, “I drew him out of the water.” Because in Hebrew Moses resembles the word for drew.

She doesn't know everything this child will become. She doesn't know that he will one day lead a people out of slavery. She simply sees a child in danger and draws him out of the water.

We never know how our small acts of kindness will multiply; what our small acts of faithfulness will become.

But we know our God is: 

A God who hears. 

A God who sees. 

A God who remembers. 

A God who accompanies. 

So when the world tells us to be afraid, may we remember Shiphrah and Puah. When the world tells us someone is disposable, may we remember the baby in the basket. When we feel powerless, may we remember that liberation began with people who simply refused to participate in evil. And when we cannot see the way forward, may we trust that we are not walking alone.

Let us endeavor to have the courage of the midwives, the tenderness of Moses' mother, the watchfulness of Miriam, and the compassion of Pharaoh's daughter.

May it be so. 

Amen

Rev. TJ Mack – August 23, 2026 – Union Congregational Church of Hancock