BibleProject Scholarship Team
– Feb 20, 2025
The Exodus story is one of the most powerful narratives in the Bible, but few recognize that it begins with seven courageous women whose wisdom, resilience, and faith directly challenge Pharaoh’s tyranny and pave the way for Israel’s deliverance.
Like many other women in the Bible, these female leaders of faith defy oppression, embody God’s purpose, and play an essential role in Israel’s history. The seven women in Exodus 1-2 are:
- Shiphrah and Puah, two Hebrew midwives, who defy Pharaoh and save life
- Moses’ mother and sister, who create a mini-ark and rescue Moses
- Pharaoh’s daughter and her maidservant, who resist Pharaoh’s control, save a Hebrew child, bless an enslaved Hebrew woman, and raise Moses as their own
- Zipporah, Moses’ wife, who protects her husband's life more than once
These seven women promote life and prepare the way for Israel’s exodus from Egypt. And in doing so, they disrupt Pharaoh’s anti-creational, death-dealing abuses of power.
Two Hebrew Midwives Bring Life
During creation, God tells humanity to “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the land” (Gen. 1:28, BibleProject Translation). And Exodus 1:7 (BibleProject Translation) declares that the Israelites “were fruitful … and multiplied … so that the land was filled with them.” Israel’s growth in Egypt is a good thing, but Pharaoh calls it a bad thing.
As the people of Israel continue multiplying in Egypt, Pharaoh feels threatened by their increasing power in numbers. The type to stomp on anyone who presents a challenge to his power, he orders two Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to execute a population control strategy. “If it is a son,” he says, “then you shall put him to death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live” (Exod. 1:16, BibleProject Translation).
This decree is not an act of kindness toward the girls. The story has already described Pharaoh as a merciless tyrant willing to enslave and brutalize the Israelites (Exod. 1:8-14). So why does he disregard the Hebrew daughters? He lets them live because he doesn’t think they have any power.
The irony is thick here, because Pharaoh’s words actually associate the daughters with life: ”If it is a daughter, then she shall live (Hebrew khayah)” (Exod. 1:16). And the story will unfold with God’s power of life ultimately defeating Pharaoh’s weapon of death.
The Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah emerge as early advocates of justice, courageously defying oppression by rejecting Pharaoh’s brutal edict to kill the Hebrew baby boys. Because they “feared God,” they “let the boys live (khayah)” (Exod. 1:17).
Pharaoh sets himself in opposition to God by brutally enslaving the Israelites and murdering their baby boys. He intends to crush God-given life, but the women of this story work to preserve and care for life. They are partnering with God (Gen. 1:28; Exod. 1:7) and therefore wielding immense power, which is unseen by Pharaoh.
When Pharaoh realizes that Hebrew baby boys are still appearing, he confronts the midwives. And they cunningly explain that Hebrew women are especially “lively” (khayeh), always delivering their babies before the midwives get there to help (1:19). Pharaoh seems stumped—he has little control over what happens in the birthing room. And in this story overshadowed by death, these women pursue God’s purpose to bring life.
Still, the midwives' refusal to kill Hebrew boys forces Pharaoh to try another tactic. This time he enlists the people of Egypt to help: “Every son who is born you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live (khayah)” (Exod. 1:22, BibleProject Translation).
Despite being outwitted by the two midwives, Pharaoh’s blind arrogance prevents him from seeing women as powerful.
Two Daughters and a Sister Protect Life
Next, two daughters—Moses’ mother, a “daughter of Levi” (Exod. 2:1), and the Egyptian princess, Pharaoh’s own daughter (Exod. 2:5)—resist his cruel command.
When Moses is born, his mother looks at her son and sees that he is “good” (tov, Exod. 2:2). This story echoes Genesis 1, in which God looks around at his whole creation and repeats seven times that it is “good” (tov). In contrast to Pharaoh, who is determined to destroy life, Moses’ mother recognizes and protects the good gift of life.
So to shield him from Pharaoh’s pronouncement of death, Moses’ mother hides her son for three months. And when she can’t hide him any longer, she creates a waterproof vessel, or a tevah in Hebrew, and places Moses inside it as she floats him down the Nile (Exod. 2:3). The Hebrew word tevah occurs in only one other biblical story: Noah builds a tevah (usually translated “ark”) to save his family from a flood (Gen. 6-7). Moses’ mother, like Noah, partners with God to build an ark and provide rescue from a watery death.
As Moses floats down the Nile in the tevah, Pharaoh’s daughter spots it floating among the reeds as she bathes in the river. She sends her maidservant to collect it and, upon opening it, finds a crying baby inside. In contrast to the hard-heartedness of her father, she feels compassion for the vulnerable child and chooses mercy over allegiance to her father’s tyranny. She rescues a boy that her father has sentenced to death by drawing him from the Nile—the very place her father commanded him to be thrown.
The name “Moses” means one who is “drawn out” or “pulled out” (Exod. 2:10). He does not (and could not) pull himself out of the threatening waters. He is drawn out and rescued by women who show compassion and preserve life.
Now Moses’ sister, Miriam, has been watching over her baby brother from a distance and courageously speaks to the Egyptian princess, offering to find a Hebrew nurse for the boy. Pharaoh’s daughter agrees, so Miriam strategically chooses Moses’ own mother. Pharaoh’s daughter ends up handing Moses back to his mother and promises to pay her wages if she agrees to nurse the boy.
When Moses no longer needs a nurse, his mother returns him to the royal family, and Pharaoh’s daughter raises Moses as her own son. Once again, two women work together to bring life.
Blinded by arrogance (and perhaps tradition), Pharaoh fails to see the wisdom and power displayed through the six women we have seen so far: Shiphrah, Puah, Moses’ mother, Moses’ sister, Pharaoh’s daughter, and her maidservant. Moses’ family—and ultimately all of Israel—is restored because of the actions of these women.
And then, at the end of Exodus 2, one more woman steps forward to protect life. She’s the seventh.
A Wife Saves Life
This seventh woman is Zipporah, the daughter of a Midianite named Reuel (so, she’s not an Israelite). When Moses grows up, he violently murders an Egyptian slave master who is physically abusing a Hebrew slave. To escape punishment from Pharaoh, Moses flees into Midian (Exod. 2:11-15). As a stranger all alone in Midian, Moses is vulnerable, but he marries Zipporah and finds protection and a new identity with her family (2:16-22).
By rescuing Moses, Zipporah becomes the seventh woman in this sequence of female deliverers in Exodus 1-2. We get to learn a little more about her in Exodus 4:24-26.
Now it came about at the lodging place on the way that the LORD met him and sought to put him to death. Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and threw it at Moses’ feet, and she said, “You are indeed a bridegroom of blood to me.” So He let him alone. At that time she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood”—because of the circumcision. (NASB)
This strange little story describes God threatening Moses’ life. It could be a consequence for murdering the Egyptian or a consequence for failing to observe God’s instructions about circumcision. Either way, Zipporah is the wise person in the narrative who knows what to do and who saves Moses’ life. Without her intervention, Moses dies.
The Exodus Begins With Women Who Partner With God
Old Testament scholar Phyllis Trible says this about the women of Exodus 1-2:
“Two midwives, a Hebrew mother, a sister, the daughter of Pharaoh, and her maidens fill these passages. The midwives, given the names Shiphrah and Puah, defy the mighty Pharaoh, who has no name. The mother and sister work together to save their baby son and brother. The daughter of Pharaoh identifies with them rather than with her father. This portrait breaks filial allegiance, crosses class lines, and transcends racial and political differences. A collage of women unites for salvation; with them the Exodus originates.”(1)
The seven women of Exodus 1-2 are not just minor figures in the background; they are architects of redemption, planting the seeds that grow into Israel’s liberation.
The story of Israel’s exodus from Egypt often brings to mind images of Moses standing with his staff raised over the Red Sea, or a plague of frogs hopping through Egyptian homes. But the exodus begins with the women who partner with God to bring about Israel’s rescue—this story couldn’t take place without them.
And their important role is further emphasized by Pharaoh’s dismissal of daughters as a threat to his control. He says Hebrew daughters can live because he isn’t worried about them overpowering him. But these women are empowered by God and prove him wrong.
Pharaoh represents the consequences of humanity’s rejection of God: the unjust use of power and oppression of the vulnerable. He has all the authority of a human dictator and wields it to bring about death.
But the women of this story courageously oppose Pharaoh’s death-dealing ways and partner with God to support life, treating every human being with dignity.
(1) Phyllis Trible, "Five Loaves and Two Fishes," Theological Studies 50 (1989): 290.
