When fearful, powerful rulers order death, may we all reach for the tools handed to us from our courageous, life-bringing foremothers in the faith: Shiphrah and Puah. “Learn them: Shif-rah. Pu-ah. Praise! Let them again be household names!” Their tools are: disobedience and cunning. May we disobey anything and anyONE who fails to honor God, who is LIFE.
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Scripture: Exodus 1.15-21
Resources:
- Carmen Susana Horst, “Shiphrah and Puah (Selah),” Drawing Near: A Devotional Journey with Art, Poetry & Reflection, ed. Eileen R. Kinch and John D. Roth (Herald Press, 2025), 180.
- Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of Their Stories (Shocken Books, 2002), 25.
- Renita J. Weems, Just a Sister Away: A Womanist Vision of Women’s Relationships in the Bible, (LuraMedia, 1988), ix.
- Ashley M. Wilcox, The Women’s Lectionary: Preaching the Women of the Bible Throughout the Year (Westminster John Knox Press, 2021), 196-197.
- Women’s Bible Commentary, eds. Carol A. Newsome and Sharon H. Ringe (Westminster John Knox Press, 1992).
- Image: detail from Dona Park, “Resisting Genocide: Shiphrah and Puah,” Drawing Near: A Devotional Journey with Art, Poetry & Reflection, ed. Eileen R. Kinch and John D. Roth (Herald Press, 2025), 179.
- Hymn - 546 There is a Line of Women Text: John L. Bell (Scotland), © 2002 WGRG, Iona Community (admin. GIA Publications, Inc.) Music: Charlene Nafziger (Canada), © 2019 Charlene Nafziger Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE, license #A-726929, #G9247078. All rights reserved.
