Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
Download the book in PDF, ePub, Kindle for a complete version.
The midwives were commanded to murder them. Observe, the orders given them, Ex 1:15, 16. It added much to the barbarity of the intended executions that the midwives were appointed to be the executioners; for it was to make them, not only bloody, but perfidious, and to oblige them to betray a trust, and to destroy those whom they undertook to save and help. Could he think that their sex would admit such cruelty, and their employment such base treachery? Note, Those who are themselves barbarous think to find, or make, others as barbarous. Pharaoh's project was secretly to engage the midwives to stifle the men-children as soon as they were born, and then to lay it upon the difficulty of the birth, or some mischance common in that case, Job 3:11. The two midwives he tampered with in order hereunto are here named; and perhaps, at this time, which was above eighty years before their going out of Egypt, those two might suffice for all the Hebrew women, at least so many of them as lay near the court, as it is plain by Ex 2:5, 6, many of them did, and of them he was most jealous. They are called Hebrew midwives, probably not because they were themselves Hebrews (for surely Pharaoh could never expect they should be so barbarous to those of their own nation), but because they were generally made use of by the Hebrews; and, being Egyptians, he hoped to prevail with them.
17 But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt
commanded them, but saved the men children alive.
Their pious disobedience to this impious command, Ex 1:17. They feared God, regarded his law, and dreaded his wrath more than Pharaoh's, and therefore saved the men-children alive. Note, If men's commands be any way contrary to the commands of God, we must obey God and not man, Ac 4:19, 5:29. No power on earth can warrant us, much less oblige us, to sin against God, our chief Lord. Again, Where the fear of God rules in the heart, it will preserve it from the snare which the inordinate fear of man brings.
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?
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.
Their justifying themselves in this disobedience, when they were charged with it as a crime, Ex 1:18. They gave a reason for it,