Texto Base (Fev) Ex 1,15-22
Introdução
A estrutura do texto
1:15–22 The scene shifts. Pharaoh issued orders to the midwives to kill all the boy babies (v. 15). When they refused, he interrogated the midwives relative to their disobedience of his order (v. 18), and commanded them to throw all Israelite boy babies into the Nile (v. 22). These verses, like verses 13 and 14, possess a chiastic structure, whose “… outer members of the chiasmus (A and A′) portray Pharaoh as the source of death; the inner members (C and C′) focus on the midwives as the source of life. Between them stands the fear of God—as a motivating factor (B) and as an attitude of faith which reaps its reward (B’).”15
Vv. 15–16
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah,
A “When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.”
v. 17
B THE MIDWIVES, HOWEVER, FEARED GOD
C and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.
Vv. 18–19
Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them,
C′ “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”
The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”
Vv. 20–21
B′ So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. AND BECAUSE THE MIDWIVES FEARED GOD, he gave them families of their own.
v. 22
Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people:
A′ “Every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”
v.15
v.16
v.17
v.18
v.19
v.20
v.22
A escravidão no Egito
O papel das mulheres no processo de libertação da escravidão
Let us note that God’s plan of salvation is initiated here by women. In contrast to the unnamed Pharaoh, they are named, a sign of dignity and importance. Their names Shiphrah and Puah appear to be Hebrew/Semitic rather than Egyptian, and may mean Shining One and (Young) Girl (Hostetter, ABD, 5:1221, 544f.). Such meanings are less important, however, than the fact that their names are given. We will have further occasion to observe the lifesaving role of women in the book of Exodus.
This parallel in particular highlights the importance of the activity of women in the divine economy. “In the refusal of women to cooperate with oppression, the liberation of Israel from Egyptian bondage has its beginnings” (Exum, p. 63). Women will also play a significant role in chapter 2. It can rightfully be said that women are here given such a crucial role that Israel’s future is made dependent upon their wisdom, courage, and vision. They make a difference, not only to Israel, but to God. God is able to work in and through these women and that creates possibilities for God’s way into the future with this people that might not have been there otherwise.
O temor a Deus como fundamento do processo de libertação
The Hebrew midwives (v. 15) show through their defiant actions that they feared God (vv. 17, 21) more than they feared the king of Egypt (v. 17). For the narrator to say this twice shows that he commends them for their faith. Also, this narrative names so few people (not even naming the pharaohs!) that it is probably a further display of the narrator’s approval of the women’s deeds that he gives their names, Shiphrah and Puah (v. 15), a detail unnecessary for describing the events themselves. The faithfulness of the midwives is also an indication that there were those among the people of Israel who feared God after all the years of enslavement and before there was any knowledge of God’s call of Moses. The exemplary actions of the midwives signify a central theme of the book of Exodus: Israel is called to fear God above any other ruler, nation, or circumstance.
The midwives “feared God” (v. 17) more than they feared the king of Egypt. If they are Egyptian in nationality, their God-fearing ways reveal the presence of God’s common grace and the residue of earlier divine revelation that their ancestors shared but gradually left in whole or part (cf. “the fear of God” in Abraham with the Philistines, Ge 20:11; the Amalekites in their savage attack, Dt 25:18; and the wicked in general, Mal 3:5). The midwives are “religious” in that they have respect for life.
But if the midwives are Hebrew women (see Notes), the “fear of God” is then a response of faith, just as Abraham’s act of offering Isaac was a response to God’s command in Genesis 22:8, 12. Even though these women lie to Pharaoh (which the Bible, as is often the case, does not stop to specifically condemn at this point), they are praised for their outright refusal to take infant lives. Their reverence for life reflects a reverence for God. Thus God gives them bāttîm (“houses” or “families,” v. 21; cf. Ru 4:11; 2 Sa 7:11–12; 1 Ki 2:24 [NIV, “dynasty”], 33 for this expression). The midwives may also have attempted to avoid answering Pharaoh’s question directly, and therefore they comment on what is true without giving all the details (vv. 18–19).
Quem são os hebreus?
In 1:15 and then 15 more times in Exodus, the term Hebrew(s) is used. It may be an older and broader term than Israel, Israelite(s). In the Bible, the term Hebrew is traced to Eber, the ancestor of Abraham and other peoples (Gen. 10:21–31; 11:16–26). Historians have often associated Hebrew(s) with the Habiru/‘Apiru, a restive social class of people widespread in the ancient Near East in the second millennium B.C. In most biblical passages, however, including all occurrences in Exodus (probably also 21:2; cf. Deut. 15:12), Hebrew(s) refers to the same ethnic group of people as Israelite(s) (cf. parallel use of Hebrew and Egyptian in 1:19 and 2:11–13). It is difficult to say why Exodus calls the same people Hebrew(s) 16 times and Israel, Israelite(s) about 170 times [Israel in Egypt].
Hebrew. This word occurs 12 times in the first 10 chs of the book, and only 22 times elsewhere in the OT. Six occurrences are in Genesis in the Joseph story, and eight are in 1 Samuel in connection with the Philistines. Six others (21:2; Deut 15:12; Jer 34:9, 14) have to do with a “Hebrew” slave. The word is often used in a dismissive way by either Egyptians or Philistines. It seems to reflect not so much an ethnic group as it does a class, and a lower class, at that. Cf. Gen 14:13; Jonah 1:9.