1:15 The king of Egypt said 1 to the Hebrew midwives, 2 one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 3
26:26 “You are to make bars of acacia wood, five for the frames on one side of the tabernacle,
32:35 And the Lord sent a plague on the people because they had made the calf 4 – the one Aaron made. 5
1 tn Heb “and the king of Egypt said.”
2 sn The word for “midwife” is simply the Piel participle of the verb יָלַד (yalad, “to give birth”). So these were women who assisted in the childbirth process. It seems probable that given the number of the Israelites in the passage, these two women could not have been the only Hebrew midwives, but they may have been over the midwives (Rashi). Moreover, the LXX and Vulgate do not take “Hebrew” as an adjective, but as a genitive after the construct, yielding “midwives of/over the Hebrews.” This leaves open the possibility that these women were not Hebrews. This would solve the question of how the king ever expected Hebrew midwives to kill Hebrew children. And yet, the two women have Hebrew names.
3 tn Heb “who the name of the first [was] Shiphrah, and the name of the second [was] Puah.”
4 tn The verse is difficult because of the double reference to the making of the calf. The NJPS’s translation tries to reconcile the two by reading “for what they did with the calf that Aaron had made.” B. S. Childs (Exodus [OTL], 557) explains in some detail why this is not a good translation based on syntactical grounds; he opts for the conclusion that the last three words are a clumsy secondary addition. It seems preferable to take the view that both are true, Aaron is singled out for his obvious lead in the sin, but the people sinned by instigating the whole thing.
5 sn Most commentators have difficulty with this verse. W. C. Kaiser says the strict chronology is not always kept, and so the plague here may very well refer to the killing of the three thousand (“Exodus,” EBC 2:481).
6 tn Heb “two hands to the one frame.”
7 tn Heb “joined one to one.”