Two midwives for sixty thousand?
Just a note: If the facts and numbers are indeed as they are, how does it make sense that two midwives took over the enormous number of sixty thousand women giving birth [as opposed to sixty thousand men from the age of twenty to sixty], and the Torah implies that they would not have gone to Egyptian midwives.
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A. Shephera and Puah are names of families such as tribes that were named so generations later after the skill of the eponymous fathers in the work of procreation. Like the markers in the Book of Genesis or the Sukkots in Chronicles… and see.
B. An illustration of the righteousness of the two who were granted houses. But there were thousands of other midwives, only these became famous.
C. Onomatopoeic names (Rashi) as a definition of midwives
D. In the Magen with Pharaoh, these held a senior position such as the minister of midwives. (Like Joseph's brothers, whom Pharaoh asked to be ministers of livestock for his own)
And Akmal
Here are some interpretations:
https://mg.alhatorah.org/Full/Shemot/1.15#e0n6
I took a little from what I saw:
Iven Ezra First interpretation: (15) For the midwives – there were services for all the midwives.
Second interpretation: (15) And he said – There is no doubt that there were many five hundred midwives, these two would serve over them, to pay a tax to the king from the wages, as I have also seen today in many places. And the mother and the daughter were (Babli Sotah 11:) in the way of Kabbalah, because it is true.
Sha”del: And I say that Pharaoh did not want to speak to all the midwives at once, because if they had all killed the children of Israel at one time, the matter would have been evident and publicized, not so if two of them had killed them, and not the others, they could have said it was an accident, and he had in mind to command all the midwives one after the other, alternately, so that the matter would not be known.
Ramban (can it be combined with the Sdel?): And it seems that it had been in place for a few days, because Aaron's birth was not the decree, and when Moses was born it seems that it was canceled, perhaps Pharaoh's daughter, out of compassion for him, told her father not to do so, or when she heard that the matter had come from the king, she canceled it, or it was according to the rules of the law, as our rabbis say (Exodus 1:29), because it is all a trickery on their part that the rabbi does not know.
Radz Hoffman: The name of the one and others - these two were supposedly the heads of the midwives' community, who were required to convey the king's word to their fellow midwives; compare Rabbah and others.
Chazkuni: (15) Shifra, Puah - some commentators say: There were many midwives in Egypt, because these two would not have provided food for the midwives. Rather, these two would have served over all of them.
Rabbi Yosef Ibn Caspi: (15) And the king of Egypt said to the midwives – this is a different decree, and these midwives were superior to all of them, because it is possible that there were more of them there.
Abarbanel: ……And here are the midwives, A.A., as it is said that there were only two, because how could two women suffice for a people as large and powerful as the Israelites? And it should not be said that there were two, but rather the midwives, all of them, according to the words of the commentators, because it was appropriate for the Scripture to call them the midwives, like the chief cupbearer, the chief baker, and the chief cook, because what good was Pharaoh in his regulation of this matter for the midwives, if he did not command their maidservants to do so, and also did not command them to be marked for the midwife who was under them? But the matter is as follows: It was a custom in Egypt that two midwives would come to stand with every woman who was giving birth, and one of them would be engaged in delivering the child and in its proper care, and therefore it is called a shephera, after the one who improves the birth. And the second was the matter of holding the woman in labor and the assistant with words, voices, and prayers, and therefore Puah is called from the language of the serpent-born woman. And he said that Pharaoh's word to the Hebrew midwives, may God bless them all, for he did not say to the two midwives, but according to all the many midwives, here is this word and commandment, and they were divided into two of those nations, and this is what they said: the name of the one was Shephah and the name of the second Puah. And they were not Hebrews, because how could his heart trust in the Hebrew women who would kill their children? But they were Egyptians from childbirth, the Hebrew women, may God bless them, helping them to give birth, as the saying goes, "In your children, the Hebrew women." And behold, the midwives, although they were Egyptians, feared God and did nothing of what the king of Egypt commanded them, until he rebuked them by saying, "Why did you do this thing and let the children live?" And this verse is not a double meaning in different words, but they say, "Why did you do this thing?" They did not kill the children as he commanded them. Therefore, they said in the language of the dead, "Why did you do this?" And they said, "And you revived the children." We answered, "It was not enough that they did not kill them, but they also endeavored to preserve them and to save them and to nourish them when they came out of the womb in such a way that they revived the children in the opposite way to what He commanded them." And the midwives replied to him to apologize for this, saying that they were not like the Egyptian women, but the Hebrew women, because they live. Here, the Lord, in the matter of correction and improvement in children, are not like the Egyptian women who do not know what is appropriate to do for their children and rely on the midwife. But the Hebrew women are not like that, because they live. Here, it is from the language of a living man, many active women, the Lord, quick and diligent in the affairs of their children and revive them.
We have said: (15) To the Hebrew midwife - to those who were in the city of Egypt, because indeed in such a large nation there were not only two midwives. But after they betrayed the king of the Egyptian midwives, after the king himself spoke to them, he did not take it into his heart to trust the midwives of the other places.
R’ Moshe Alsheikh: (20) And God was good, etc. – here is what the people and themselves greatly multiplied. Here is the good to the people and how can it be said, and it was good to the midwives. But here were the midwives in fire and water, saying, Woe to us from Pharaoh, woe to us from Israel from Pharaoh, because behold, he will not believe that we will not suffice the child with the Hebrews and they will give birth without a midwife. And woe to us from Israel, for if any of the children were to come out weak or with a broken leg or a broken arm, and the like, who would turn away from the heart of the people from saying, "This is nothing but that the midwife, wanting to do Pharaoh's will, wanted to kill him, and she could not, except to weaken him or break one of his limbs, because the Lord was not with him to kill him, and there was suspicion of blood." Therefore, the Lord bestowed two benefits on the midwives: one, that the people multiplied greatly, to the point that Pharaoh believed that two of them would not be enough for them, nor for one out of a thousand newborns; and on the suspicion of the people, they became very strong, because they were all born strong, healthy, and strong, in such a way that there was no reason to suspect them at all:
Or Chaim: ………. To the Hebrew midwives, etc. - we need to know what He said to them in this statement. And perhaps because the statement is that he read and said the Hebrews who were named one, etc., because since many had come before him and he did not know these midwives, he called them by their names to single out the speech for them, since they were the greatest of all the midwives, and he wanted to impose the matter on them, because that is through authority. He also wanted to make them great and honorable in this call over all the midwives, and therefore he listed their names, and for this reason he returned to say it another time and said, “In your children,” etc., “I say that the commandment is not for the two of them alone, but for all the midwives, but these shall be honorable over them.”
From the Hebrews: (15) And the king of Egypt said – as the plain text says to the Egyptian women who were giving birth to the Hebrew women – and there were two kinds of midwives. A] who was engaged in the midwife sitting on the crutch to deliver the baby, and the second who was engaged in the newborn to cut the umbilical cord and perform the circumcision, the one was called Shifra and the second Puah, and there is no evidence that there were only two midwives, so there were many and only two types of midwives, or as the Rabbis said, six were assigned to all of them, and so according to the Ri'a,………….
Netzi”b: (15) Whose name was Shifra – according to the plain meaning that they were called by necessity, not only were they midwives in all of Israel who lived in several cities, but they were the chief midwives, and according to Pharaoh's command, all the midwives under them were commanded. And the sermon is known and explained in Rashi's commentary. And the sermon came out of the text twice, “And he said,” but the first statement was that he knew the work of midwives, that one improves the birth and the second is against it, and now “And he said (again) to your children, etc.” And for this sermon, he also warned the chief midwives, and they will warn the midwives who are under them. And see verse 18.
Very beautiful. Thanks for the input.
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