the name of one was Shiphrah, and | women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him; but if it be a daughter, then she shall live. the chief persons of the profession, having the direction of the rest. We learn from Plutarch, that some of the nations of antiquity had schools established among them where females were taught the obstetrical art. This was perhaps the office of these two individuals. meant, whether we regard the construction of the original, or of the translation. Doubtless there were Hebrew women capable of employing themselves in this service in behalf of their kindred, and if Egyptian women had been procured, it would have excited suspicion at once, and perhaps prevented their 16. See them upon the stools. Heb. access to them. (2) It cannot be de-al ha-obnayim, upon the nied that the character given of them, v. 17, as 'fearers of God,' applies more naturally to Hebrew women, who had been instructed in the religion of their fathers. The phrase, we think, is indicative of general character, and not of any sudden dread with which they may have been smitten on this occasion. Being habitually under the influence of a salutary fear of God, they could not be persuaded for a moment to entertain the thought of such horrid cruelty, though they may have been restrained, from motives of policy, from expressly saying to the king at the time that they would have no hand in the perpetration of such a deed. (3) Their names are purely Hebraic and not Egyptian. (4) As to the improbability of Pharaoh's selecting Hebrew women to be the instruments of such a cruel scheme against their own flesh and blood, it may be replied that the same reason held against his appointing Hebrew officers over their own countrymen, which yet we find he actually did, Ex. 5. 14. On the whole, therefore, we cannot but conclude that the midwives were Hebrew and not Egyptian women, notwithstanding that Josephus affirms the contrary.- - The name of the one was Shiphrah, &c. Two individuals only are mentioned, but as this number would be wholly inade. quate to the service of so many thousand Israelites, it is with great reason supposed, that Shiphrah ana Puah were stones. Commentators have been much divided in opinion as to the nature and use of the objects intended by the term here translated stools, but which is liter. ally stones. It would seem perhaps at first view, that they were some contriv. ance for procuring a more easy delivery for women in labor. But besides that, stone-seats were obviously very unfit for such a purpose, the Heb. word in Ex. 7. 19, signifies a vessel of stone for holding water, a trough. A far more probable interpretation, therefore, is made out by referring the pronoun them,' which it will be observed is not in the original, not to the mothers, but to the children; 'When ye see the new-born children laid in the troughs or vessels of stone, for the purpose of being washed, ye shall destroy the boys.' A passage from the travels of Thevenot seems to con firm this construction: "The kings of Persia are so afraid of being deprived of that power which they abuse, and are so apprehensive of being dethroned, that they destroy the children of their female relations, when they are brought to bed of boys, by putting them into an ear the trough, where they suffer them to starve; that is, probably, under pretence of preparing to wash them, they let them pine away or destroy them in the water. This view of the meaning represents the midwives above spoken of, as acting in the capa city of superintendents, for they are not ་ 17 But the midwives • feared God, and did not pas the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men-children alive. 18 And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men-children alive? Prov. 16. 6. p Dan. 3. 16, 18. & 6. 13. Acts 5. 29. supposed to place the children on the 'stools,' but to examine them after they are placed there by others. It is evident that if they actually assisted at the birth, the sex of the infant would be known without the necessity of inspecting its person during its ablutions at the trough. If it be a son, &c. The reason of the order is obvious; the state had nothing to apprehend on the score of insurrection from the weaker sex, and as they were fairer than the daughters of Egypt, they would naturally be preserved, with a view to their finally becoming inmates of the harems of their lords. 17. The midwives feared God, &c. Their faith shines conspicuous in this, for they must have been aware that it was dangerous to incur the king's wrath by disobeying his orders. Tyrants are not wont to suffer their decrees to be disregarded with impunity, and it was no doubt at the peril of their lives that they gave way to the dictates of piety towards God rather than comply with the injunction of the king. 19 And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them. r 20 Therefore God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty. q See Josh. 2. 4, &c. 2 Sam. 17. 19, 20. r Prov. 11. 18. Eccles. 8. 12. Isai. 3. 10. Hebr. 6. 10 and the latent implication may be, that they brought forth somewhat after the manner of the beasts of the forest, without requiring any obstetrical aid. This assertion of the midwives was doubtless true in itself, although not the whole truth; but the withholding a part of the truth from those who would take advantage of the whole to injure or destroy the innocent, is not only law. ful but laudable. 20. God dealt well with the midwives. We may doubtless fairly infer from this that, in some way not expressly record. ed, they were favored with special to. kens of the divine approbation for the conduct they had evinced. At the same time, the fact of granting to the Israelites such a continued extraordinary multiplication was in itself a 'dealing well' with the midwives. They were no doubt many of them mothers themselves, and they could not but rejoice in the preservation and the increase of their fami lies, nor could the general favor thus bestowed upon the nation fail to redound to them. Indeed, we are strongly inclined to consider the final clause of this verse as perfectly synonimous with the expression made them houses,' in the next. The connexion between the two will be obvious from the remarks that immediately follow. In the mean time let us not fail to observe, that an upright and exemplary conduct, by whomsoever displayed, may be of the most eminent service to a whole community. Even a few feeble but right-minded women may, without their dreaming of 22 And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, tEvery son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive. t Acts 7, 19. have in the Note on Gen. 16. 2, detailed at length the ideal connexion between building and the begetting of children. In the scriptural idiom a house is a family, as the 'house of Judah,' 'the house of Benjamin,' the house of David,' &c., and to build or make one a house is to confer upon him a numerous pos terity. To the examples there adduced, the following may be added, 2 Sam. 7. 11, 'The Lord telleth thee that he will make thee an house (73) ;' i. e. will give thee a long line of descendants. 1 Kings, 2. 24, 'Now, therefore, as the Lord liveth, which hath established me, and set me on the throne of David my father, and who has made me an house(), as he promised, &c.,' i. e. given me a prosperous family. The phraseology might be still farther confirmed, but the above will be sufficient to show that the 'blessing' intended was that of a numerous increase, and not of a material habitation, or any thing of that nature, as some have supposed. 21. And it came to pass, because, &c. The original will easily admit a slight variation in the rendering of this paragraph, which, if we mistake not, will throw light upon the whole context; 'And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, and (because) he made them houses (i. e. increased the progeny of the children of Israel), that Pharaoh charged all his people saying,' &c. It is important for the English reader to be informed that the original for them' is in the masculine and not in the feminine gender; so that, without a violent grammatical anomaly, it cannot so properly or primarily be referred to the midwives, as to the families of Israel at large. If the expression, moreover, refers strictly to the midwives, it would have been more natural to insert it in the preceding verse, as explanatory of the manner in which God' dealt well' with them; 'Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and made them 22. Charged all his people, saying, houses.' But this is not the construc- &c., leaving it no more to the care of tion. There is nothing to illustrate his the midwives alone. Frustrated in his 'dealing well' with them but his mul- former device, the king is now urged on tiplying the nation, and as this is the to a higher pitch of enormity, and disundoubted import of the phrase 'made carding all secret stratagems for effectthem houses,' we cannot but considering his object, commands all his people the two clauses as essentially synoni- indiscriminately to destroy the Hebrew mous. At the same time, there is perhaps male children wherever they should find no good reason to doubt that the houses or them. The execution of this bloody families of the midwives were intended command would no doubt lead to scenes to be especially, but not exclusively, of barbarity and cruelty at which every referred to. Their houses shared in a tender feeling of our nature revolts with signal manner in the general prosperity. an inward shudder. Helpless babes We may now, having endeavored to would be mercilessly torn from their fix the connexion of the context, con- mothers' arms, and if they did not fol sider with more precision the import of low their dear offspring, as they were the phrase 'made them houses.' We ruthlessly thrown into the Nile, it was only because their religious sentiments | susceptible nature of woman in execut were stronger than their maternal in- ing deeds of blood! stincts. But we read, in a subsequent part of the history, a fearful requital of this sanguin ry transaction, when Pharaoh and his Egyptian host were overwhelmed in the waters of the Red Sea. 1 Righteous art thou, O Lord, because thou hast judged thus.' REMARKS. — (1,2.) In the history of the church, it is the special aim of the Spirit to present its humble beginnings in strong contrast with the abundant increase and ample prosperity of its more advanced periods. (7.) The land of enemies, and the scene of the most grinding oppression, is easily rendered in the providence of God a nursery for the increase of his church. (8.) Peculiar blessings from God, and fierce opposition from worldly powers, are not unfrequently connected in the lot of the church on earth. (8.) The people of God would have experienced less ill treatment at the hands of civil governments, were the national benefits which they are instrumental in procuring better appreciated and remembered. (8,9.) The prosperity of the righteous is doubtless an eye-sore to evilminded oppressors; but those who task their invention to devise methods of affliction are dealing wisely to compass heir own destruction. Eccl. 7. 16, Make not thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself?' (10.) Much of the real suffering of the saints in all ages has been inflicted on the ground of hypothetical offences. 'Lest when there falleth out,' &c. (11.) Counsels of wickedness riper rapidly into acts and practices of cruelty, (13, 14.) The favor of God toward his children in affliction, is often the signal for their oppressors to load them with new burdens of anguish. (15.) How fiendish is the policy which would employ the tender and (17.) The true fear of God will deter the weakest creatures who are capable of cherishing it, from the commission of sin, and when the command of man is put in competition with the command of God, they will boldly say with the intrepid disciples, Acts, 4. 19, 'Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.' (20.) Even in this world a supreme regard to the will of God seldom goes unrewarded. This reward is sometimes entailed as a precious legacy to generations yet unboru. (22.) Relentless persecutors proceed from secret subtilty to open cruelty, and downright murder is the resource when other stratagems have failed of effecting their object. CHAPTER II. To what extent the murderous edict mentioned at the close of the foregoing chapter was carried, or how long it continued in force, we are not informed. But when we consider that the love of offspring was an absorbing passion with the Israelites, inasmuch as all their future hopes depended upon and were connected with the possession of a numerous issue, we can easily conceive the horror that must have hung over that ill-fated people so long as the bloody statute remained unrepealed. Yet now, at this very time, when men in their weak counsels proposed utterly to root up the vine of Israel, which had already spread its branches so widely and borne such abundant fruit, it pleased God to call into existence the future Deliverer, and to make the very evils to which his infancy was exposed, the means of his preparation for that high office, which was, in a distant day, to devolve upon him. This remarkable event in the history of oppressed Israel it is the object of the present chapter to relate. A CHAPTER II. ND there went aa man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. a ch. 6. 20, Numb. 26 59. 1 Chron. 23. 14. 2 And the woman conceived and bare a son: and bwhen she saw him that he was a goodly child she hid him three months. b Acts 7. 20. Hebr. 11. 23. 19. Marriage connexions between kindred thus nearly related was afterwards forbidden under the law, Lev. 18. 12, but more indulgence was granted in this and other respects in the early and unsettled state of the commonwealth. 1. And there went a man, &c., Heb. va-yelek. According to Calvin, there had gone; implying that the marriage had taken place some time previous to the royal order for the drowning of the male-children. Certain it is that Aaron was three years old at the birth 2. And the woman conceived. The of Moses, and we have no intimation anxiety and apprehension naturally inthat his infancy was in any way ex- cident to the delicate situation in which posed to peril. As such an order would Jochebed found herself, must have been naturally be executed with most severity aggravated by terrors more dreadful than immediately upon its being issued, and the prospective pangs of child-birth, or as Aaron's infancy was unmolested, it the loss of life itself. As a wife and a seems a fair presumption that the edict mother in Israel, she was looking and came forth not far from the birth-time longing for the birth of another manof Moses; so that the pluperfect rend- child; but that fond expectation was as ering of the verb may perhaps be con- often dashed by the bitter reflection, sidered the most correct. The verb that an order had gene forth which 'to go,' by a peculiarity of idiom in the would in all probability consign her original, is frequently employed in a son, if she should bear one, to the jaws sense including not the idea of locomo- of the devouring crocodile of the Nile. tion, but simply that of commencing, or Yet it would seem not improbable from entering upon, an action or enterprise; the apostle's words, Heb. 11. 23, that thus, Gen. 35. 22, And it came to pass, some extraordinary presentiments in when Israel dwelt in that land, that the minds of his parents accompanied Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his the birth of this illustrious child, and father's concubine.' Deut. 31. 1, And strengthened the faith under which he Moses went and spake these words unto was hidden for three months from the all Israel.' Hos. 3. 1, 'Then said the rage of the Egyptian dragon, which Lord unto me, Go, yet love a woman stood eager for his prey as soon as it beloved of her friend.' The word in should see the light, Rev. 12. 4.such connexions may not improperly be ¶ When she saw him, that he was a considered as an expletive. Something goodly child. Heb. tob, good. The similar occurs in the New Testament, original term, as remarked on Gen. 39. Eph. 2. 17, And came and preached 6, is used to denote bodily endowments, peace to you.' So also 1 Pet 3. 19, as well as the qualities of the heart, By which also he went and preached and its import may be learned from the unto the spirits in prison.'-The name of corresponding Gr. phrase employed by the man here mentioned was Amram, the Stephen, Acts, 7. 20, HOTELS TO Arç, son of Kohath, the son of Levi, Ex. 6. fair to God, i. e. divinely or exceedingly 16-20, and the name of the woman fair. In Heb. 11. 23, the epithet is the whom he took to wife was Jochebed, same (arr) but rendered 'proper.' the sister of Kohath, and consequently The implication obviously is, that an the aunt of Amram, Ex. 6. 20. Num. 26. extraordinary beauty distinguished the เ |