Exodus 1:15 records the moment Egypt’s king first addresses the Hebrew midwives directly, giving them an order that would make them agents of mass infanticide. The verse itself is a short introduction: it names the king, names the audience, and names the two women, Shiphrah and Puah, before the command is given in the next verse. Its meaning is less about what is said and more about who is being addressed and what is about to be asked of them.
The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah…
Exodus 1:15 (WEB)
What Exodus 1:15 Means
The verse opens with “the king of Egypt,” a ruler whose power over the Israelite population has already been growing more oppressive in the verses before it. Pharaoh is not named here, which is typical of how the book refers to him, and the focus falls on his authority rather than his identity. He “spoke,” which in this story means he issued a decree backed by the full weight of the state.
The phrase “the Hebrew midwives” tells you who receives the order. These were women who attended births, and their skill put them at the exact point where Pharaoh’s plan could be carried out or quietly refused. The verse then names two of them, Shiphrah and Puah, which gives the reader individuals rather than an anonymous group. What the verse does not do is say that the women were leaders or famous; it simply places ordinary, skilled workers in a position of enormous pressure.
Read on its own, the verse promises nothing about rescue or protection. It sets the stage. The comfort in the wider passage comes later, when the midwives “feared God” and refused the king. Exodus 1:15 by itself is an invitation to notice the moment of pressure, not a guarantee that the pressure will be resolved on the reader’s terms.
The Context of Exodus 1:15
Exodus is the second book of the Torah, traditionally attributed to Moses, and it tells how the descendants of Jacob grew from a small family into a large people while living in Egypt, and how God brought them out under Moses’s leadership. The book was written for a community that had lived through the events it describes and needed to understand their origins and their God. Its original audience would have recognized the story as the foundation of their national identity.
The verses just before this one, 12 through 14, describe the Egyptians oppressing the Israelites harder the more they multiplied, with forced labor that made their lives bitter. Verse 15 is the point where that oppression moves from labor to a targeted attack on the next generation. Verses 16 through 18 then show the order itself and the midwives’ response. Seeing the verse in that sequence explains why it carries so much tension: it is the hinge between cruelty that is merely harsh and cruelty that threatens the future of a whole people.
Key Phrases in Exodus 1:15
Exodus 1:17
But the midwives feared God, and didn’t do what the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the baby boys alive.
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Verse 17 gives the midwives’ response: they feared God more than the king, and they saved the boys alive. Reading it beside verse 15 shows that the tension named at the start is resolved by a choice of allegiance rather than a change in the king’s power. It helps the reader see that the story turns on what the midwives feared and trusted.
Acts 5:29
But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.
(WEB)
In this verse, the apostles tell the Jewish council that they must obey God rather than men when the two conflict. The principle is the same one the midwives acted on, offered in a later setting. Reading the two together helps you see that the question Exodus 1:15 raises has been faced by God’s people in many times and places.
A Short Prayer From Exodus 1:15
Lord, you see the pressure that comes at us from people with power over our work, our homes and our futures. When an order is given that asks us to set aside what we know is right, give us the clarity to notice it and the courage to refuse what must be refused. Help us to fear you more than we fear the people who hold influence over us. Be with the ones who are facing hard choices today, and give them wisdom and steadiness. Amen.
