Commentaire sur L’Exode 1:15

למילדת (the Piel participle) — This is synonymous with מולידות (the Hiphil participle, and both denote the women who assist the mother in bringing the child to birth). But some verbs are used in forms of a light conjugation (i. e. one which has no strong Dagesh as a characteristic) or in forms of a strong conjugation (one that has such a Dagesh), as e. g., שׁוֹבֵר (Kal) and מְשַׁבֵּר (Piel); דּוֹבֵר (Kal) and מְדַבֵּר (Piel). both having the same meaning; similarly here we may have מוליד (the Hiphil — without a strong Dagesh) or מְיַלֵּד (the Piel), both signifying one who helps to bring to birth.

למילדות העבריות; the ones who were Jewish.

למילדות העבריות, to the midwives resident in the capital. It was obviously impossible for such a large number of people residing in so many different parts of Egypt, to all be serviced by only two midwives. However, after the midwives in the capital, though Egyptian, betrayed the instructions by their king and explained to their king why they had done so, the king did not bother to rely on midwives anywhere else either, and the scheme was abandoned.

ויאמר מלך מצרים למילדות, The king of Egypt said to the midwives, etc. So far the Torah had described everything that happened in the plural, i.e. "they imposed taskmasters," "they enslaved them," etc. The king enjoyed a consensus of his people for his action (perhaps because the discrimination against the Jews had not yet been enshrined in law, but was "merely" a clever ruse to disenfranchise part of the population). Now, however, the king alone resorted to a measure which would not become public knowledge and would not run the risk of the Jewish mothers trying to hide the fact that they were pregnant so as to mislead the midwives. I will go into details later.

The Hebrew midwives - the understanding of our sages, o blessed memory, and Onkelos, and Rashbam, and Ramban and Ra"z is that those midwives were from the seed of Israel, and the understanding of the Alexandrian translator, and[Eusebius Sophronius] Hieronymos, and Yoseohus Flavius, and Don Itzchak [Abrabanel] is that they were Egyptian, these midvives of the Hebrews. And this is right, since how does it make any sense that [Pharaoh] would order Jewish women to destroy all the children of their own people and believe that they won't reveal such a thing? And [Philiphus] Klericus affirms that if they were not Jewish the text should have read "midwives to the Hebrews". And the Ra"z comes and says that it should read "the midwives that served the Hebrews" - and this has no standing, since the text could have said "the midwives that served the Hebrews" by omitting the word 'et' as it does in (Jer. 31:29) "every man that eats sour grapes". And what is proved by the phrase 'the midwives feared God' is no proof at all, since it is not written here Hashem, rather, E-lohim, and everyone who has a god (a God of truth or a god of falsehood) would fear killing babies that did not sin at all, whatever people they are from. And an example of this is what is said regarding Amalek 'and he attacked you in the rear, and you were tired and exhausted, and he did not fear E-lohim' (Deu. 25:18) and my dear student, R. Yaakov Chay Pardo, may the tzadik's memory bring blessings to us, adds that if they were from another people it made more sense to say they did this out of fear and not of love, since if they were Jewish what need would there be to remind us that they feared God, since all humans love the children of their own people. Also, what they point out that the names Shifra and Puah are not Egyptian, but come from Hebrew roots, this is not relevant, since they would come from the Land of Goshen, that is closer to the land of Israel (see Gen. 46:34), and it is possible that they just spoke a language closer to Hebrew like Cannanite, and so their names would be closer to Hebrew and Cannanite. And another thing that is clear is that for a people that is "many and strong" makes no sense to have only those two midwives, and so Rabbi Ibn Ezra and (and after him the Ra'z) says that those two were the supervisors of the all the midwives; and Rabbi Ovadia Sforno says that Pharaoh talked first to the midwives of his city, and after them not doing his bidding, he did not trust others from other places; and more, this is happening far away from his eyes, since Israel is living in the Land of Goshen and not in Egypt. How else could we explain that the land is full of them, but that "in the land of Goshen, where Israel lived, there was no hail"? And I say that Pharaoh did not want to talk to all the midwives at once, since if all of them would kill all the Israelite babies at one moment, the thing would be known and publicized.And if just two of them were going around killing them - and not all the other midwives, others could say it was an accident, and he thought to order all the midwives in small groups, so that the matter would not be known [if it had worked with those first two].

It sometimes comes in the קל (light) conjugation . . . מְיַלְּדוֹת (delivering births) is considered the כבד (heavy) conjugation since there is a dagesh in the ל . מוֹלִידוֹת [which means the same] is considered the קל (light) conjugation since there is no dagesh in the ל .

ושם השנית פועה. Her name reflected her vocation as mentioned in Sotah 11 פועה לולד, she would encourage the baby to leave its mother’s womb by whispering to it. Nowadays (author’s time) midwives call encouragement into the ears of the mother about to give birth.

V. 15 u. 16. Was auf indirektem Wege noch nicht gelingen wollte, versuchte der König nun auf direktem, kürzerem, aber noch immer möglichst verdecktem Wege. אבנים: Man denkt dabei an den Sitz, auf welchem die Frau sich befindet, wenn sie gebiert. Es kommt aber das Wort in dieser Bedeutung nicht wieder vor. משבר ist dafür der gewöhnliche Ausdruck. אבנים kommt überhaupt nur noch einmal vor und heißt da: Töpferscheibe. Ohnehin dürfte schwerlich an die Unterlage zu denken sein, auf welche das bereits geborene Kind kommt. Dort hat es sich in der Regel bereits als lebend angekündigt. Es geht aber aus dem Ganzen hervor, dass der König eine heimliche Tötung beabsichtigte, die selbst der gebärenden Mutter nicht zum Bewusstsein kommen sollte. Auch die Weisen im Rabba denken z. St. keineswegs an einen Sitz der Gebärerin, sondern an einen Körperteil der Gebärerin selbst. Eine der dortigen Erläuterungen heißt: מקום שהולד נפנה בו, der Ort, in welchem das Kind sich wendet, also offenbar der Mutterschoß, in welchem das Kind die Bewegungen zur Geburt macht. Dieselbe Auffassung ergibt sich auch aus Sota 11 b.: אר׳׳ח סימן גדול. מסר להן בן פניו למטה וכו׳ verglichen mit Nidda 31 a.: זו הופכת פנים וזה אינו הופך פניו, woraus sich ergibt, dass die den Hebammen empfohlene Aufmerksamkeit sich auf einen der wirklichen Geburt vorangehenden Moment beziehen kann und zwar denjenigen meint, in welchem das Kind die zur Geburt notwendige Wendung macht, die bei weiblichen und männlichen Geburten verschieden ist. Dies dürfte uns ein Wink sein, אבנים als einen uneigentlichen Ausdruck zu fassen. Der Töpfer heißt ja auch יוצר, er formt etwas und unter seiner Hand gewinnt es Gestalt. Jirm. 18, 4 in der Werkstätte des Töpfers ist אבנים entschieden die Bildungsstätte, die Stätte, worauf ein Stoff irgend eine Form erhält, wahrscheinlich ist es eine kreisende Scheibe, an die dort gedacht wird, und wagen wir zu glauben, dass es hier heiße: "Habet ein Auge auf den kreisenden Mutterschoß", sehet so früh als möglich zu ermitteln, ob es ein Knabe oder ein Mädchen ist, und ehe es noch geboren ist, greift rasch zu und tötet die Knaben. Die Wurzel ist jedenfalls אבן, die Form ist א֗בֶן, daher אָבנים. Möglich, dass die Töpferscheibe aus zwei Steinen bestanden. Möglich, dass dem ganzen Worte die Wurzel בנה (mit vorgesetztem. א׳ wie אפן von פנה) zu Grunde liegt, die ja auch nicht bloß bauen, sondern auch gestalten bedeutet: תבנית.

למילדת “to the midwife;” there is a disagreement in the Talmud regarding the identity of these two women. According to one opinion they were Yocheved and her daughter Miriam. According to the second opinion, they were mother-in- law Yocheved, and her daughter-in-law. Elisheva, wife of Aaron. (Talmud Sotah, folio 11) An alternate interpretation: this interpretation takes its cue from the fact that the Torah spelled the word מילדת in the singular mode instead of with the letter ו, seeing that there were two women. According to the spelling there was only a single midwife, Yocheved. Miriam was a teenager not capable yet of acting as a midwife, rather she acted as a bleater, to help the infant cry while still inside its mother’s womb encouraging it to emerge from the womb as fast as possible.

שפרה SHIPHRAH — This was Jochebed; she bore this additional name because she used to put the babe after its birth into good physical condition (משפרת) by the care she bestowed upon it (Sotah 11b).

The same is true of the words שוֹבֵר (break) and מְשַׁבֵּר , דוֹבֵר (talk) and מְדַבֵּר . שׁוֹבֵר is in the קל conjugation, whereas מְשַבֵּר is in the כבד conjugation, yet their meaning is basically the same. The same is true of דוֹבֵר and מְדַבֵּר .

למילדות העבריות, to the Hebrew midwives, etc..It is interesting to surmise what exactly the king said to these midwives the first time. [remember that the Torah credits the king with a second אמירה in the next verse. Ed.] Perhaps the Torah has clued us in with the words: "the name of one was Shifrah, whereas the name of the other one was Puah." No doubt there had been numerous midwives who attended the Jewish women. The king did not bother to know any of them by name except those whom he entrusted with a specific task. The Torah tells us that the king spoke to them by name, thus selecting them to perform a Royal command. By calling them by name, the king elevated them to the status of "midwives -in-chief." He had to commence his instructions by saying: "when you deliver the Hebrew women, etc." meaning that the order he was giving applied not only to those two but to all the Hebrew midwives. He instructed them directly as a sign of promoting them over their colleagues.

שפרה, פועה, some commentators claim that there were many midwives in Egypt, as it is impossible to believe that the two mentioned here could look after all the wives of 600000 adult males. These two were the supervisors of all the other midwives.

פועה PUAH — This was Miriam, and she bore this additional name because she used to Call aloud and speak and croon to the babe just as women do who soothe a child when it is crying (Sotah 11b).

This is Yocheved. . . It is written nearby (v. 21) that Hashem gave Houses to the midwives, which Rashi there explains as “Houses [i.e. families] of the Kohanim and the Levites and Royalty.” And we do not find that these families came from another woman, rather from Yocheved and Miriam. Therefore Shifra must be Yocheved, for she was Miriam’s mother — as it is not logical to write first the daughter and then the mother. [It follows that] Puah is Miriam.

We encounter the expression אמירה as one which describes appointing someone to a high position in Deut. 26, 17-18 where Israel and G'd each elevate the other to an exclusively superior status. Israel had appointed G'd as its only G'd, and in return G'd appointed Israel as His chosen people. Perhaps the fact that the midwives risked the displeasure of Pharaoh as well as being demoted or worse is reflected in the reward G'd gave them as reported by the Torah in verse 21.

פועה has the meaning of crying aloud, as (Isaiah 42:14) “I will cry (אפעה) like a travailing woman”.