Brave Women of God

Learning from the little-known legacy

of Shiphrah and Puah

Shiphrah and Puah Stand Before the King

Sketch by Tiffany Salerno, coloring by Anthony Salerno

Just a couple of little-known women going against a great big government.

Shiphrah and Puah lived in Egypt, where the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was not honored. They worked in the healthcare industry, which was controlled by a government whose instructions went against their beliefs.

How did they handle the mandate they were given?

Today, let’s examine the story of Shiphrah and Puah, a pair of little-known women who made an indelible mark upon history and saved many lives through their brave decision.

The king of Egypt told them to do something they knew was wrong, so they did not comply.

Instead, they risked the king’s approval — and possibly their own lives — to save the children in their nation.

How similar is that to what we may be called to do today?

As authorities more and more try to force people to comply with mandates that could be harmful to people of all ages, especially children, I believe we are entering an era in which the people of God will need to be braver than ever.

(You can learn more about these topics if you search for statistics and news about masks, lockdowns, vaccines and more on good-hearted search engines like DuckDuckGo, unlike Google, which bowed to the abortion industry’s demands to rid their engines of ads about abortion reversal pills that have saved thousands of lives — https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/google-blocks-ad-for-safe-and-effective-abortion-pill-reversal/).

In the past, we could comply with most things we were told and get by while still being obedient to God, but that era is quickly coming to a close.

We are now in a season where we need bold people of faith who will stand up to the system, and, as a woman myself, I am particularly inspired by these two women — Shiphrah and Puah.

Their story is told in Exodus 1:8-22.

These women weren’t famous and they didn’t have a ton of Instagram followers. They didn’t talk on the radio or get seen on TV. But they made a huge impact.

To summarize what happened — the king of Egypt told them that when they were working as midwives with Hebrew women, whenever a son came out, they should kill the baby, but if a daughter came out, they could let the baby live.

They were literally being told to kill babies. And the person telling them that was the top governmental leader in their nation.