Six Women God Raised Up Making the Torah Possible
Preserving life and pursing God’s vision of human flourishing requires leadership. Resisting a culture of death requires leadership. Within the regular conversation of the Church is what some may experience as an annual interruption provided by the Incarnation of Jesus and the Resurrection of Jesus: women who lead. The women who showed up at the tomb became the first to proclaim and give witness to the Good News, “Jesus is alive!” Its this work of God that inspires the New Testament.
Likewise, though not as regularly considered in the church, the redemptive work of God in the exodus of Israel from Egypt provides us with what is not meant to be an interruption. In fact, I believe its because these events are treated as “interruptions” and not the normal activity of God that we find ourselves so shorthanded in the church and the mission of Jesus. If only we remained hitched to the full testimony of the whole Scripture, we would see that the interdependence of men and women in leadership has been God’s way in all our beginnings.
The extraordinary redemptive work of God precedes our texts. Exodus gives birth to Genesis. Moses emerges from the influence of the Egyptian empire because God has heard the cries of His people and is working. Genuine leadership in the Kingdom of God, is a response to the graceful stimulus of God. Such leadership takes its form in the promotion and preservation of life.
Exodus 1:15-22 (NIV)
15The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16“When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” 17The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. 18Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”
19The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”
20So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. 21And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
22Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”
Exodus 2:1-10 (NIV)
1Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, 2and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 3But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.
5Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. 6She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.
7Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”
8“Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. 9Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”
Exodus 2 is most often read as an introduction to Moses. But actually its an introduction of God and how He is working. These six women are called out by God. They are called “out” because they act in resistance to the culture of death. They have gotten out of step with the empire and the king’s insistence that every male child be thrown into the Nile. They are out of step with the culture of death.
The Company of the Committed
Let’s list out the company of those who resisted, who became aligned with God. They surely had to make internal decisions to pursue life even at the risk great cost, even their lives. That’s what leadership does: a leader counts the cost for pursing a vision greater themselves especially when it aligns with God’s righteousness.
Shiphrah and Puah: The midwives who delivered boys and girls equally and resisted the king’s death edict. They entered into a form of civil disobedience against evil; they did not give in when confronted by the king.
Jochebed: The mother of Moses. She kept her son and then strategically let him go. She built an ark for the preservation of his life. Her name means, “YAHWEH is glory.” Her husband is Amram.
Miriam: The sister of Moses. She assisted the redemption of Moses from death by strategically floating Moses in the Nile, waiting to see what happens, and then intervening with Pharaoh’s daughter to strategically find help (Jochebed) for nursing the child. Her name has several associations but the most direct is to her own birth: bitter – in reference to her birth in a season of bitter labour and harsh treatment at the hands of the Egyptians. (It should be noted that in some commentary Jochebed and Miriam are sometimes identified as the brave midwives, Shiphrah and Pauh.)
Bithiah: The Pharaoh’s daughter. In direct opposition to the king’s edict, she ordered the rescue of Moses from the Nile, had compassion on the baby, adopted him as her own, named the child, paid for his care (which came to Jochebed), and welcomed him into the Pharaoh’s court and family. She is named in 1 Chronicles 4:18. In Midrashic tradition is considered to be the one and the same daughter who rescued Moses. Her name means, “Daughter of Yah” — most often understood in reference to Yahweh.
The slave girl and the attendants: As persons under the leadership of Bithiah and as witnesses of Bithiah’s life preserving actions they have become complicit with her resistance to the king, and are aligned with her great value life.
Leading Agents of God’s Redemption
These six women are raised up by God as agents within His redemptive work. Together they conspired to preserve the life of a vulnerable child. They knew his name. They knew his history. They knew the treasonous actions that preserved his life. Yet, over the next twenty years they never yielded. As far as we know they never used the subversive knowledge as a threat. They did not know what Moses would become, but God did. They did not know what Word would create God’s people. They became participants in the supreme flow of God’s purpose.
The exodus was not just one redemptive act; our focus is the Passover. But the Passover has a history too. It is built on a series of redemptive acts inspired by God, making His values visible, and leading up to His dramatic intervention. Likewise the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus was not just one redemptive act; our focus is Easter. However, the story of God’s Kingdom is an extended series of redemptive actions inspired by Jesus before and after His Resurrection. In both the Exodus and in the Resurrection, women and men led themselves and others to respond to God even in the face of raw, violent, oppressive power. They chose to obey God in the regular course of their lives rather than those who would project a false supremacy and a culture of death. In so doing, they became leaders and participants in the flow of God’s true life. We can celebrate, we must celebrate how God works. God has always chosen to work redemptively through the leadership of both men and women.
