Long live Shiphrah and Puah!

In the story of the Jewish Exodus from the land of Egypt, about 3,400 years ago, we have history's first recorded case of civil disobedience in defense of a moral cause, and it just so happen that it was initiated by women.

Prior to the Exodus the population of the Israelite people living in Egypt had grown so large and potentially powerful that it posed a threat to the reigning Pharaoh. Accordingly, the Pharaoh used a form of state slavery to impose forced labor upon the male population for a long and indefinite terms of service under degrading and brutal conditions in order to control and even reduce the population. The plan did not work, however, and Hebrew people continued to thrive, to the great consternation of the Pharaoh.

The Pharaoh decided that he would use infanticide to slow the population growth. So the Pharaoh said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, “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." The midwives, however, feared God, and did not do what the Pharaoh had told them to do; they let the boys live. Then the Pharaoh summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?” The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.” So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own. (From Exodus 1:15-21)

The motivation for civil disobedience is a moral one, that, like the midwives Shiphrah and Puah, places fear of God over the laws of men that are established with a political or arbitrary authoritarian bias. It is the moral and ethical difference between right and wrong. It is the same fear of God that keeps us from mocking the handicapped or placing a stumbling block in front of a blind person, or keeps us from torturing animals. The fear of God "trumps" the law of men. It is the consciousness or subconsciousness of the existence of a higher law that makes demands upon human beings and constitutes the ultimate restraint on evildoers and provides the higher moral incentive for choosing to do what is right and just.

All of the power of the state, the outward magnificence of the regime, and the prowess of its leader, are illusionary and ephemeral, and in the ultimate reckoning they are insignificant, and turn to dust because they rest on foundations empty of moral content.

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