Exodus 1:15-16

And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah: And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew 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.

Pharaoh’s oppression now takes an even darker turn. At first, the strategy was affliction. Burden the people. Work them hard. Make life bitter for them. But when that failed to reduce their strength, Pharaoh moved from harsh labor to outright murder. He summoned the Hebrew midwives and commanded them to kill the baby boys the moment they were born.

That is how cruel the world can become when it sets itself against the purposes of God. It is never satisfied with mere pressure. If pressure does not work, it moves toward destruction. Pharaoh was not just trying to manage a population. He was trying to wipe out a future. He understood that if the male children were destroyed, the strength of Israel would eventually be broken. So the attack was aimed at the next generation.

And that is often where the enemy aims his fiercest blows.

He goes after what is being born. He goes after what carries promise. He goes after the future before it has time to grow strong. That is why this moment in Exodus feels so heavy. It is not merely political tyranny. It is hell moving against the covenant purposes of God. Pharaoh may not have understood the full spiritual weight of what he was doing, but behind him was that same old hatred that has always resisted the plan of redemption.

What makes this passage especially striking is the setting of the command. Pharaoh gives it to midwives. These women were called to help life come into the world, and he wanted to turn them into agents of death. That is always one of the ugliest marks of evil. It takes what God designed for good and tries to twist it into something destructive. It takes the place of compassion and turns it into a place of cruelty. It takes hands meant to serve and orders them to kill.

This is a chilling scene.

And yet even here, the story is already hinting that Pharaoh is not as powerful as he imagines. He can issue commands, but he cannot guarantee obedience. He can speak death, but he cannot overthrow the God who gives life. The king of Egypt may sit on a throne, but he is still only a man. He is still under the sovereign hand of the Lord, whether he knows it or not.

There is also something worth noticing in the way the text is written. Pharaoh is not named here, but the midwives are. The king stands in all his power, yet his name is left in the shadows, while the names of these two women are remembered. Shiphrah and Puah are named because heaven takes note of those who fear God in dark times. Earth often celebrates rulers, but Scripture has a way of remembering the quiet courage of ordinary people who refuse to bow to evil.

That is a needed reminder. The world may seem to belong to Pharaoh for a moment, but it does not stay that way. His word is not final. His cruelty is not ultimate. And his plan to destroy what God has purposed will not stand. Even here, in the darkness of this command, the Lord is already showing that He sees, He knows, and He is not absent from the story.