But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live.— Exodus 1:17
Pharaoh’s first plan had failed. He worked the Hebrews from morning to night, hoping exhaustion would keep their numbers down, but “the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied” (Exodus 1:12). So he tried something quieter. He called in two midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, and gave them an order: when a Hebrew woman gives birth, if the baby is a boy, kill him (Exodus 1:15-16).
Think about who these women were. They had no army, no position, and no one to protect them. In that world, disobeying the king meant death. Pharaoh was counting on one thing: that they would be afraid of him.
They were afraid. Just not of him. “The midwives feared God” (Exodus 1:17), and they let the boys live.
To fear God is to take Him more seriously than anyone else. It means acknowledging that He is God and letting His word outweigh every other voice, even a king’s. Scripture calls this the starting point of all wisdom: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10).
This is not the fear a slave feels toward a cruel master. Pharaoh’s taskmasters produced that kind of fear. The fear of God grows out of love. The psalmist says to God:
But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.— Psalm 130:4
Forgiveness comes first, and fear follows. The more we understand how much God loves us, the less we are willing to betray that love. We keep Him at the center of our hearts, and we answer His love with our lives. Paul describes the opposite in Romans 1, people who “did not see fit to acknowledge God” (Romans 1:28) and pushed Him aside.
The midwives soon needed the wisdom that comes from this fear. Pharaoh summoned them and demanded to know why the boys were still alive. They answered that the Hebrew women were strong and gave birth before a midwife could arrive (Exodus 1:18-19). The babies were already born. Pharaoh had nothing to say, and the midwives walked out alive.
Then Exodus tells us how God responded.
So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.— Exodus 1:20-21
Their fear of God saved their own lives and gave them families of their own. Because they refused, Pharaoh’s plan failed a second time, and the Hebrews kept growing in number.
Pharaoh did not give up. His next order went to everyone: throw every newborn Hebrew boy into the Nile (Exodus 1:22).
The very next chapter opens with a Levite family and a newborn son. His mother saw that he was a fine child and hid him for three months (Exodus 2:1-2). That child was Moses, the one God would use to lead His people out of Egypt. Hebrews says his parents hid him “by faith,” and that “they were not afraid of the king’s edict” (Hebrews 11:23).
We don’t know whether Shiphrah or Puah ever held Moses. But Moses’ parents refused Pharaoh just as the midwives had. The rescue of Israel began with women who feared God more than the king.
The same choice has been made in much more recent history. During the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, Casper ten Boom, an elderly watchmaker in Haarlem, and his daughters Corrie and Betsie opened their home to Jews who were being hunted. They built a hiding place behind a false wall in Corrie’s bedroom. Like the midwives, they had no power. They were an ordinary Christian family living above a watch shop.
In February 1944, someone betrayed them, and the family was arrested. The people hidden behind the wall were not found. Corrie later wrote that an officer offered to send her father home if he promised to cause no more trouble. Casper, eighty-four years old, answered that if he went home, he would open his door again to anyone in need. He died in prison about ten days later. Betsie died in the Ravensbrück concentration camp that December. Corrie survived and spent the rest of her life telling their story.
The ten Booms knew the Nazis could kill them. They feared God more, and so their hiding place kept saving lives.
“The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe” (Proverbs 29:25). Jesus told His disciples not to fear those who can kill only the body, but to fear the One who holds both body and soul (Matthew 10:28). When God is the One we fear most, every other fear loses its grip on us.
So can fear save us? Scripture says yes, when it is the right fear.
The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death.— Proverbs 14:27
Shiphrah and Puah could not have delivered every Hebrew boy in Egypt. But their fear of God became a spark. It showed a frightened people that Pharaoh’s word was not the final word, and it kept a nation alive until its deliverer was born. God is still looking for people like them, in our homes and in our churches, whose fear of Him gives courage to the people around them.
Everyone fears someone. Two midwives chose to fear God, and a nation lived.
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