Before Moses ever floated in a basket. Before the burning bush. Before any plague touched Egypt — two women changed the entire course of human history with a single act of defiance. Their names are Shiphrah and Puah. And if they hadn't done what they did, Moses would never have been born.
The Order That Should Not Have Been Possible to Refuse
The Israelites in Egypt had grown so numerous that Pharaoh was afraid. He had already crushed them with forced labor — building his cities with their sweat and their suffering. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied. So Pharaoh devised a plan that was both calculated and monstrous. He summoned the Hebrew midwives — the women whose entire professional identity was built around bringing life into the world — and gave them a direct order to destroy that life at the moment of its arrival.
Exodus 1:16: "When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live." That is the command of the most powerful man in the world, given in private, to two women who had no army, no political protection, no legal recourse, and no apparent means of resistance.
The Fear That Was Stronger Than Pharaoh
Exodus 1:17 says simply: "The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live." They just — did not do it. No dramatic confrontation. No public protest. They simply continued doing their work the way their conscience required, and the boys lived.
Pharaoh called them in. He demanded an answer. These two women — alone, without protection, before the throne — gave him one: "The Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive." Whether this was completely accurate or strategically framed, the outcome was the same: they protected the children. They defied the king. And they did it because they feared God more than they feared the consequences.
Exodus 1:20–21 records God's response: "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." God did not just protect them. He rewarded them with the thing that meant prosperity and legacy in their culture — families of their own. Because they protected life, God gave them life.
"The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live."
— Exodus 1:17
The Choice Between Two Fears
Shiphrah and Puah remind us of every person who has ever had to choose between the powerful voice demanding compliance and the quieter voice of God demanding conscience. We face versions of this choice constantly — when a workplace asks us to do something dishonest, when social pressure demands we go along with something that violates what we know to be true, when the Pharaoh in our lives says "this is just how things work here." The midwives show us what is possible when the fear of God is more real than the fear of consequences.
Their names are preserved in Scripture because God kept them there. Most people in Exodus are anonymous — but Shiphrah and Puah are named. Their names outlasted Pharaoh. Their names outlasted the empire that tried to use them as instruments of genocide. That is what happens when ordinary people in ordinary positions choose God over the command of earthly authority: God writes their name down.
The Takeaway
Fearing God over fearing people is not naivety — it is the most powerful position you can stand in. When you protect what God values, God protects and honors what you value. And sometimes the most significant act of faithfulness is simply refusing to do the thing that everyone with power is telling you to do.
Is there a place in your life where you are being pressured to comply with something your conscience is refusing — and what would it look like to choose the fear of God over the fear of people?