A sermon by Rev. Mitchell Hay and Rev. Barbara Lemmel.

Hebrew Scriptures Exodus 1:8-21

Now a new Pharaoh arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. 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.”

Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Ra'amses, for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. The Egyptians subjected the Israelites to hard servitude 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.

The king of Egypt said to the midwives to the Hebrews, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “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.”

But the midwives were God-fearing women; they disobeyed the king of Egypt's commands, but let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this and allowed the boys to live?” The midwives said to Pharaoh, “These Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”

So God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very strong. And because the midwives were God-fearers, God gave them families of their own.