So Many Women

Moses is certainly the hero of the biblical Exodus story, but have you ever thought about how many women were important in making this story what it is? See Exodus chapters 1–15. First, there are the midwives: Shiphrah and Puah.

I have read that an Egyptian inscription lists the name Shiphrah. While there is no indication that it referred to a midwife, it was certainly a known name.

They saved many babies by claiming that the Hebrew women delivered their babies before the midwife could arrive, thereby negating Pharaoh’s death order.

It seems it was Jochebed’s idea as to how to save her third child, baby Moses, by building a little floating cradle and putting it among the bulrushes.

Miriam was important in this plan and played her part perfectly, offering to find a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby without revealing she would call the baby’s mother, although the princess may well have guessed. The princess is an important part of the story too. She easily could have followed the rules and had the baby killed, but she adopted, educated, and protected Moses until he was forty years old. It is believed that this princess may have been the famous eighteenth-dynasty princess who later became Queen Hatshepsut.

There is still an impressive temple of Hatshepsut in the Valley of the Kings south of Cairo, in Egypt. Her name has been almost completely chipped out, indicating that she may have fallen out of favor. Maybe for having adopted the Hebrew who became a murderer? Next, there is Zipporah, the daughter of the priest of Median whom Moses married.

She bore him two sons. But it is on the way back to Egypt with Moses that she becomes important, saving Moses’ life. This story has always puzzled me, but I have read that by circumcising her son and touching it to Moses’s feet (genitals), it functions as an expiation for the guilt Moses still carried for committing murder—there was a myth that circumcision could quell divine wrath. Miriam shows up again, leading the women to dance with timbrels as they sing their song of victory. I have read that Old Testament women were the ones who led the singing and maybe writing the songs of victory, as only women are seen with timbrels in ancient inscriptions. We thank God for using women to accomplish His will, then and now.

Ardis Dick Stenbakken