The Fear of God is the Death of Tyranny Text: Exodus 1:15-22
Introduction: The Serpent's War on Seed
We come now to a passage that is not merely a historical account of oppression in ancient Egypt. We come to a foundational lesson in spiritual warfare, a master class in the fear of God, and a primer on righteous civil disobedience. What we are reading here is not an isolated incident of political cruelty. It is a chapter in the long war that began in the Garden, when God promised that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent's head, and the serpent would bruise his heel (Gen. 3:15). From that moment on, the serpent has been at war with the seed.
Pharaoh is not just a paranoid despot. He is playing a role, wittingly or not, as an agent of the dragon. His goal is the same as Herod's goal centuries later, and the same as the goal of our modern abortion industry today: to destroy the promised seed. The people of Israel are multiplying, just as God promised Abraham they would. This exponential growth is a sign of God's covenant faithfulness. And because it is a sign of God's faithfulness, it terrifies the rulers of this world. A fruitful church, a fruitful people, is a threat to every godless regime. Pharaoh's response is to attack the children, specifically the male children, the very line through which the Messiah would come.
This is the context we must grasp. This is not a story about politics first. It is a story about worship. It is a clash of two fears: the fear of Pharaoh, which leads to slavery and death, and the fear of God, which leads to life and liberty. In this great contest, God raises up two unlikely champions. Not generals, not princes, but two midwives, Shiphrah and Puah. Their names are recorded in the annals of salvation history, while the name of this particular Pharaoh is lost to us. This is how God works. He uses the weak things of the world to shame the strong. And through their faithful, courageous, and canny resistance, God preserves His people and advances His redemptive plan. This passage forces us to ask ourselves a very pointed question: Whom do you fear?
The Text
Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other was named Puah; and he said, “When you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.” But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had spoken to them, but let the boys live. So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and let the boys live?” Then the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can come to them.” So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very mighty. Now it happened that because the midwives feared God, He made households for them. And Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “Every son who is born you are to cast into the Nile, and every daughter you are to keep alive.”
(Exodus 1:15-22 LSB)
The Tyrant's Command (v. 15-16)
We begin with the diabolical command of the king.
"Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other was named Puah; and he said, 'When you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.'" (Exodus 1:15-16)
Pharaoh's first plan, brutal slave labor, had backfired. The more he afflicted them, the more they multiplied. So he escalates his attack. He moves from oppression to state-sanctioned murder. Notice the insidious nature of his command. He tries to turn the very instruments of life into agents of death. Midwives, whose entire calling is to bring children safely into the world, are now being commanded to become executioners. This is the nature of tyranny. It seeks to corrupt and invert every good institution God has established.
Pharaoh commands them to kill the sons but let the daughters live. This was not an act of mercy. It was a calculated strategy of cultural assimilation and destruction. The daughters would grow up and marry Egyptian men, and within a generation, the distinct identity of the Hebrew people would be erased. The covenant line would be absorbed into the pagan empire. This is always the goal of the serpent: if you cannot kill the people of God outright, then corrupt them until they are indistinguishable from the world.
This command is a direct collision between the law of the state and the law of God. God said, "Be fruitful and multiply." God said, "You shall not murder." Pharaoh, the god-king of Egypt, says, "You shall murder, and you shall not be fruitful." This sets up the central conflict of the passage and, in many ways, the central conflict of the Christian life. Who is the ultimate authority? Whose law is supreme? The midwives are being put to the test. They must choose whom they will serve.
Godly Fear and Civil Disobedience (v. 17-19)
The response of the midwives is immediate and decisive.
"But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had spoken to them, but let the boys live." (Exodus 1:17 LSB)
Here is the principle in its purest form. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and it is also the beginning of all true courage. Their fear of God extinguished their fear of Pharaoh. They weighed the king's threat of temporal death against God's threat of eternal judgment, and they made a sane and rational choice. They understood what Peter would articulate centuries later: "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). When the state commands what God forbids, the duty of the Christian is clear. We must disobey.
This is not rebellion for rebellion's sake. This is not anarchy. This is allegiance. Their disobedience to Pharaoh was an act of obedience to a higher king. All earthly authority is delegated authority. As Paul says in Romans 13, the magistrate is God's servant to punish evil and praise good. When the magistrate inverts his God-given role and begins to punish good and praise evil, he forfeits his right to be obeyed in that matter. He has become a lawless authority, and to obey him in his lawlessness is to become a partner in his sin.
Pharaoh, of course, notices that his genocidal plan is not working, so he calls them on the carpet.
"So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, 'Why have you done this thing, and let the boys live?' Then the midwives said to Pharaoh, 'Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can come to them.'" (Exodus 1:18-19 LSB)
Now we come to the tricky bit, the part that makes modern, peacetime Christians nervous. The midwives give Pharaoh an answer that is, shall we say, economical with the truth. They deceive him. And we must be very clear here. This was not a sin. Deception is an act of war, and Pharaoh had declared war on God's people. In the same way that we distinguish between murder and lawful killing in a just war, we must distinguish between sinful lying and lawful deception in a just war.
Rahab was justified by her works when she sent the spies out "another way" than she told the king's men (James 2:25). God Himself gave David strategies of deception in battle. To tell the truth to a bloodthirsty tyrant who has no right to it, so that he might more effectively murder the innocent, is not righteousness. It is complicity. The midwives were not violating the ninth commandment, which forbids bearing false witness against your neighbor. Pharaoh, by his actions, had declared he was not their neighbor in this matter, but their enemy. They were protecting life from a murderer. Their deception was an act of faith, rooted in their fear of God.
God's Sanction and the Tyrant's Fury (v. 20-22)
And how does God respond to this act of faithful disobedience and wartime deception? He blesses it.
"So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very mighty. Now it happened that because the midwives feared God, He made households for them." (Genesis 1:20-21 LSB)
The text is explicit. God's blessing is tied directly to their action. First, God blesses them by accomplishing through them the very thing Pharaoh was trying to stop: the people multiplied. God's purpose cannot be thwarted by the schemes of wicked men. Second, God blesses them personally. "He made households for them." This likely means He gave them their own families, their own husbands and children. These women who protected the seed of Israel were themselves blessed with seed. God honors those who honor Him. He did not just approve of their fear of Him; He approved of the actions that flowed from that fear. He blessed their disobedience to Pharaoh.
Pharaoh, however, is not done. When covert evil fails, the tyrant resorts to overt, public evil. His rage escalates.
"And Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, 'Every son who is born you are to cast into the Nile, and every daughter you are to keep alive.'" (Exodus 1:22 LSB)
The wickedness is now nationalized. The command goes out to "all his people." This is what happens when a nation gives itself over to a godless ruler. The sin of the king becomes the sin of the people. They are now all commanded to be complicit in the murder of the innocent. The private sin of the state has become the public policy of the empire. And it is into this river of death, this baptism of wickedness, that the deliverer, Moses, will soon be placed. But God will turn this instrument of death into an ark of salvation. This is the gospel pattern. The enemy overplays his hand, and God uses the very evil the enemy intends for destruction as the means of redemption.
Conclusion: A Time for Midwives
This is not just a story about ancient Egypt. We live in a nation that has its own Nile River, flowing with the blood of the innocent. Our government has sanctioned and our culture has celebrated the slaughter of millions of unborn children. The spirit of Pharaoh is very much alive, and he is still at war with the seed.
And so the church today is faced with the same choice as Shiphrah and Puah. Whom will we fear? Will we fear the god-state, the prevailing cultural consensus, the threat of lawsuits, the loss of tax-exempt status, the charge of being hateful and bigoted? Or will we fear God?
The fear of God is the only antidote to the fear of man. The fear of God frees us to speak when the world demands silence. It frees us to act when the world demands complicity. It frees us to call murder what it is, and to protect life when the state seeks to destroy it. It frees us to establish households that are fruitful and mighty in the land, standing as a direct rebuke to a culture of death.
We are called to be a generation of midwives. We are called to stand in the gap, to receive the children that the world wants to throw away, to disobey the ungodly commands of a lawless state, and to trust that God will be good to us. He will bless our faithfulness. He will build our households. And He will, in His time, drown the Pharaohs of this world in the sea of His judgment, while leading His people into the promised land. Therefore, fear God, and honor the king. And when the king commands you to dishonor God, you must fear God only.