This article grapples with matters of power differences, truth-telling, justice etc.

The article studies the story of Shiprah and Puah, the midwives who refused to kill the newborn male babies of the Hebrew women.(Exodus chapters 1-2)

Dykstra analyses the story, considers evidence the midwives may have been Hebrews, but more likely were Egyptian women, and explores their behaviour.

Extracts from Privilege and Resistance, Laurel Dykstra, in The Other Side, Sept-Oct 2002 (latest issue)

That their nationality remains ambiguous actually appeals to me. Seeing the midwives as Egyptian allies of the Hebrews not only strengthens my commitment to resistance, it also deepens my confidence that people of privilege can be part of God's liberating work. ........... Through the Biblical account illustrates how the midwives' privileged status allowed them some leeway in talking with Pharoah, it also makes clear that they lack the level of (male) trust that allows for total honesty. So they lie. Those living in oppressive contexts must often sacrifice honesty for survival. But the Bible has a disproportionate number and variety of women who use deceptive words or deeds. Wether they are commended or condemned, Rebekah, Potiphar's wife, Rachel, Aschsah, Lot's daughters, Delilah, Jezebel, Micahl, Rahab, Jael, Ruth, and Tamar are all depicted as liars. Why is this?

Biblical tales of lying women consistently omit or underplay an important fact: The women's status is inferior to the men the lie to. They deceive because they lack power. But when the text continually depicts women as liars - and judges them more harshly than men who similarly lie - and when it ignores the power differentials that make those lies a necessity, we must ask whether it is the texts, not the women , that are lying. ............ How did these ordnary women find the courage to defy and decieve a king? The stroy answers by telling us twice that 'th3e midwives feared God'(1:17,21). What does it mean, to fear God? .....To fear God is to act according to basic ethical principles. ...... how could an Egyptian come to know and fear the biblical God? Apparently Shiprah and Puah achieved this through their everyday work among the Hebrews. As midwives, they had access to the lives of Hebrews at intimate and intense moments. Such regular contact could have shattered their cultural biases, helping them to see that they and the Hebrew slaves had common interests, that unfamiliar habits and customs might have their own inherent dignity, that goodness and life were not dependant only on Pharoah. ..... For the midwives to openly defy Pharoah would be to risk not only their own lives but the lives of the Hebrew infants as well. Looking at their behaviour from the perspective of how the Bible frequently depicts women, the midwives were not so much lying as they were boldly taking the prerogative of the powerless, refusing to acknowledge 'the truth' as the Empire defined it. ......... Shiprah and Puah would have been neither liked nor trusted by the Hebrews. the limited privileged status that allowed them access to the royal court kept them at a distance the very poeple they sought tohelp,. Even in the intimacies of childbirth, slaves know how to maintain a distance, to withhold true feelings, to speak only what they think is expected, and as soon as possible to close the door they had opened to 'the other' - even when that 'other' is a ministering midwife.

We remember Shiprah and Puah, then, not as fixed and flawless role models but as courageous foremothers who acted faithfully and were not paralyzed by their privilege. Like many others who courageously worked against the grain - in these first (two) chapters of Exodus and throughout history - their story needs to be retold and retold, It is the beginning of our own stories of resistance to empire.