Not On My Watch

Exodus 1 & 2

In Exodus 1:8-9, this Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is worried about the increasing number of Israelites: “There are more Hebrews than there are Egyptians, and they’re getting stronger than we are. We must do something about this situation.” Yet, his plan to oppress the Israelites and force them into laboring for him does not fare well; in fact, the Israelites continue to increase in number under the excruciating service to the Egyptians. God’s people multiply. Feeling threatened and powerless, Pharaoh devises a nefarious plan and tells two Hebrew midwives – Shiphrah and Puah – to kill any Hebrew baby boys who are born, but the baby girls are allowed to live. It is clear Pharaoh does not consider women or girls to be a threat to his power or empire. But baby boys are another story!

Pharaoh is incredibly mistaken. These women, Shiphrah and Puah (who are surprisingly given names in a text that often leaves marginalized people nameless), do not listen to this unnamed Pharaoh or follow his demands:

“But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt told them. But they let the children live.” (Exodus 1:17)

Shiphrah and Puah strategically play to Pharaoh's bias toward Hebrew women and their fertility, saying, “It’s the most amazing thing, Pharaoh, but the Hebrew women are nothing like the refined Egyptian women you are accustomed to. Hebrew women are like animals. They deliver so quickly, and the baby just plops right out of them before we can even get there to help.” And it seems that Pharaoh believes them. 

Shiphrah and Puah have become some of our biblical heroes for how they cleverly and courageously stand up to Pharaoh. As writer Nadia Bolz-Weber said, “Sometimes, the most holy thing we can say is, ‘No – not on my watch.’” (Nadia Bolz-Weber, Shameless: A Case for Not Feeling Bad for Feeling Good (About Sex) (New York: Convergent, 2019), 90.) These truly vulnerable women refuse to follow the king’s villainous scheme and use his fears against him. They realize the absurdity of his lethal request and choose, boldly and faithfully, not to obey the most powerful person in the kingdom. They resist.

The God Who Sees

“And she called the name of The Living God, the one speaking to her, “The God Who Sees,” because she said, “Did I actually see God?” (Genesis 16:13)

The women in Moses’s story remind us of another biblical woman who God sees – Hagar. In Genesis 16, Hagar, a girl given to Sarai as a slave, is oppressed by Sarai. Why? Because after Sarai suggests Abram sleep with Hagar, Hagar conceives. So, Sarai becomes jealous and angry. The story uses the same Hebrew word for Sarai’s actions toward Hagar as Exodus 1:11 uses for the Egyptians' oppression of the Israelites. It was not mild mistreatment but cruelty and abuse.

The plight of Hagar, also an Egyptian, allows us to draw multiple connections between the two stories. When Hagar runs to the wilderness to escape Sarai, God’s messenger finds her and offers a blessing concerning her soon-to-be-born son, Ishmael. In fact, the divine blessing she receives in Genesis 16:10 sounds like the one God gave to Abram earlier in Genesis: “I will generously multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude.” In response to this angelic appearance and blessing, Hagar names God El-roi or “The God Who Sees.” This enslaved Egyptian girl becomes the first person in the Bible to give God a name, a name based on her experience of being seen by God. It is the first attribute of God that is recognized by a human and used as a name – the Seeing God.

God indeed sees the injustice and abandonment of Hagar. God sees the inhospitable place to which she has run, and God responds with a blessing.

A Benediction (Or Miscellaneous Thoughts)

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