4. THEY WERE
GOD
FEARING
• "But the midwives feared God and they did not do
as the king of Egypt spoke to them, and they
allowed the male babies to remain alive." (Exodus
1:17)
Who were midwives, they helped at childbirth , took care of the baby and the mother. now we are all familiar with the story in exodus of how the pharaoh ordered all baby boys to be killed as soon as they were born
But before he gave this brutal command to the public themselves he called for two women SHIPHRAH AND PUAH Two Hebrew women who served as midwives for the Israelites in Egypt .The name Shiphrah, probably means "fair one." Puah meaning "girl."
He gave them an order ,can someone please read…..
Now that we know the initial cause for their appearance lets dive into their characters
So here are a few aspects of their characters
But Shiphrah and Puah, the Egyptian midwives of the Hebrew women (or Jochebed and Miriam, who actually were Moses’ mother and sister, and given nicknames relating to their midwifery) refused to follow Pharaoh’s orders – because they “feared” God, and preferred God’s law of “thou shalt not murder” to Pharaoh’s decree of genocide against the Hebrews.
They were god fearing
What do we understand by this…
It is a common mistake to think that fearing God is being afraid of him and shuddering at his name
It is true that our god is a mighty god but fear of god does not mean running away in fear
However it is the acceptance that god is powerful and it is symbolic of our respect and love for him
it was their love and respect for the father that stopped them from doing what was wrong
They were filled with humanity, they wouldn’t save their own life at the cost of another. Especially a child. They were not related in any manner to the families of the children but still could not bring themselves to kill them
They could have been selfish and killed the children but being children of god they knew the Gods law was above all
Ok can someone read this please
Now we see that they lied to the king himself
A person with so much power that all were frightened to even look up to his face
However they had disobeyed his orders and spoke to him with courage and bravery, they also took a leap of faith when they made the excuse of the Hebrew women being too quick
They said this even though they knew that it was lame excuse and the king could have easily disagreed with them and killed them for disobeying his orders.but their faith saved them
They knew that god was all powerful and had the final say
They feared the pharaoh but knew that no matter how powerful the pharoah may have been on earth, God has power over all
Shiphrah and Puah had greater "reverence," "respect" and "awe" for God and His statutes than they did for Pharaoh and his command. This was the passion that drove them to civil disobedience although it was (presumably) punishable by death.
They risked their lives cause they knew that god was just
So today I would like to end by asking you this question do you in the face of peer pressure do something that you know is not right just because someone may hate you or ridicule you or your friend s may abandon you or do you like the midwives say no and do what is right in the eyes of god ,because you want gods glory to shine through your actions ?
Thank you bindu aunty and Sheela aunty for this opportunity
