Midwifery

Midwifery surfaces in scripture at three points: a hard labor in the patriarchal narratives, a confrontation between Hebrew midwives and Pharaoh, and a prophetic image that catalogs the post-birth acts a midwife customarily performs.

At Rachel's Hard Labor

Birth in the patriarchal narratives is attended. As Rachel labors with her second son, the midwife speaks to her in extremis: "And it came to pass, when she was in hard labor, that the midwife said to her, Don't be afraid; for now you will have another son" (Gen 35:17). The midwife's role here is both practical (presence at the birth) and consoling (announcing the son before the mother dies of the labor).

Shiphrah and Puah

Two midwives are named in scripture, and they are named together. The king of Egypt addresses them by name — "Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah" — and orders that all male children born to Hebrew women be killed at the birth-stool (Ex 1:15-16). The midwives refuse:

"But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men-children alive" (Ex 1:17).

When Pharaoh confronts them, they answer that the Hebrew women are "lively, and are delivered before the midwife comes to them" (Ex 1:19). The narrative does not adjudicate the answer; it records the outcome. "And God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty. And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that [his Speech] made them households" (Ex 1:20-21). The fear of God yields households for the midwives and a multiplied people for Israel — both placed in apposition to the king's failed decree.

The Post-Birth Acts

Ezekiel's allegorical address to Jerusalem catalogs midwifery by its absence. "And as for your nativity, in the day you were born your umbilical cord was not cut, neither were you washed in water to cleanse you; you were not salted at all, nor swaddled at all" (Eze 16:4). The four acts named — cutting the umbilical cord, washing, salting, swaddling — are the customary work of a midwife. Their omission stands as the figure for the foundling's exposure, and the prophet's rhetoric assumes the reader knows that a properly-tended newborn receives all four.