January 5, 2013

Good for the Midwives

Shemot, Exodus 1:1–6:1

by Dr. Walter Herzberg , Assistant Professor of Bible and Professional and Pastoral Skills

Pharaoh instructs the midwives to kill the male children of the Hebrew women they deliver. Amazingly, the midwives do not obey Pharaoh’s orders. As a result, we read the following in Exodus 1:20–21:

God did good to the midwives
And the people increased and became very vast
And it was since the midwives feared God
That He/he made them houses/households

Question: What exactly was the good that God did for the midwives? This question has engaged the commentators throughout the generations.

By simply examining a few interpretations of various commentators, we shall attempt to consider the implied or sometimes explicit theology that ensues from their comments—all based on their consideration of the same textual/literary question(s).

Two other textual questions related to verses 20 and 21 above must be kept in mind before we proceed. Who is the antecedent of the pronoun he in the phrase “he made them houses”? (Most commentators suggest God, though more than a few suggest Pharaoh). And finally, are the houses he made literal houses, or are they meant to be understood metaphorically?

Rashi (1040–1140, France), asks our question: “What was the good” and answers that the reward is stated in the following verse (Exod. 1:21): that God made them [metaphorical] houses of the priesthood, levites and royalty. In other words, God established households or families for them. The implied theology of Rashi’s comment is articulated by U. Cassuto (1883–1951, Italy, Israel): that God rewarded the midwives measure for measure (“middah keneged middah”), as is his custom. The midwives save the Hebrew children and families, so God provides them with their own distinguished families as a reward.

Many commentators find fault with Rashi’s skipping to verse 21 in order to find the good, insisting instead that the good must be found in verse 20 itself: “the people increased and became very vast.” Yitzhaq Caro (Toledot Yitzhaq, 1458–1535, Spain) states that the fact that the people increased so greatly was the midwives’ reward. It was good for business! In other words, the more children being born, the busier the midwives would be. The implied theology of his comment may be that God will reward us with a decent livelihood if we are deserving (Jews have been praying for parnasah, a respectable livelihood, for centuries).

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