Shiphrah and Puah, Everyday Heroes

Mothers of Resistance

Shiphrah, Puah, and Everyday Heroes

August 23, 2026

Anna Ostenso Moore

 

One of my all-time favorite birthday gifts was given to me in elementary school by my Uncle Matt. It hung on my parents’ basement wall until I went to college. It was a poster of Bruce Lee in a karate pose, ready with nunchaku, and he held a cane this way. Mm-hmm.

At the time, I was not actually allowed to watch Bruce Lee videos because of the violence, yet he was my hero. I did not have words for why I admired him at the time, but now I can say that even though he died before I was born, he was one of the few people in media who looks like my dad and his five brothers. And my dad also had a black belt, and all I wanted to do was take karate lessons at that point.

Bruce Lee connected with my real life. I saw my family in him, and he inspired my imagination beyond my reality.

When I enrolled in Taekwondo finally in second grade, I imagined myself as him as I started to learn my first karate moves, and I will always have a soft spot for him.

In the last few years, I have noticed a need in me for more everyday heroes. I don’t have the same childhood wonder I did then, but I crave people and stories who are connected to real life, but extend my imagination beyond myself.

I cannot express how excited I was to realize I had the opportunity to share Shiphrah and Puah’s story with you all today.

The lectionary only has them every three years as an optional story.

I’m also delighted to talk a little bit about Moses’ mom, sister, and Pharaoh’s daughter.

These sacred stories are easy to gloss over in the expanse of our Bible.

They are vital, though, because Shiphrah and Puah were practicing creative resistance within their communities who were experiencing oppression.

Exodus gives us a quick glimpse of how the Hebrew people went from a position of at least equality with Joseph’s position in the Pharaoh’s cabinet, or whatever the government was called, to an enslaved people.

What we hear is that the Pharaoh’s decision to enslave was based solely on perception, not on reality or as a reaction to something they had done.

As the Bible says, it was a brutal time, and this is not to be glossed over.

This is when Shiphrah and Puah, two Hebrew midwives, lived.

It should be noted that the Pharaoh is never named in Exodus, although tradition will give him a name.

Shiphrah and Puah are immediately named.

Naming women and not a man of high status is saying, “Pay attention. They’re important.”

I wonder what Shiphrah and Puah were thinking and feeling when the Pharaoh summoned them and spoke to them.

They were women who were called to assist in bringing life into the world, and the Pharaoh was commanding them to do the opposite. Were they scared? Were they shocked? Were they confident in their response of not listening to him?

We know that they feared God, and we know that they blatantly disobeyed the Pharaoh because his words, although some would have considered it law at the time, were not about God.

When the Pharaoh questions them about their disobedience, they use his own cultural bias about the women they’re working with against him.

What is translated as vigorous in today’s passage has a bit of a pejorative term, and Pharaoh buys their answer and they are dismissed.

At least in this telling, Pharaoh has no more words for them.

Shiphrah and Puah leave unscathed. God blesses them with families. And it should be noted that there is no mention of their husbands or the men in their life.

We have many male faith leaders in our sacred stories. They are important, too.

But today is about mothers of a resistance movement.

The Pharaoh, as we heard, becomes even crueler in his next decrees, commanding the Egyptian people to kill all Hebrew baby boys.

Shiphrah and Puah do not completely stop Pharaoh’s tyranny, but they did what they could do within their lives.

And I wonder how many lives Shiphrah and Puah have saved.

This many thousands of years later, how many generations were impacted by their bravery?

Exodus is a book of deliverance, and Shiphrah and Puah are the first to truly deliver in all senses.

I wonder where you see yourself in this sacred story.

I thought of a group of women during Metro Search from our neighborhoods in Minneapolis.

They heard from doctors that many of their patients who feared leaving their houses could not afford diapers, and so they were washing the disposable diapers they had.

It was what those young moms could do in incredibly hard times, and it was resulting in unwearable diapers.

Through a web of connection and communication, a group formed to supply the women with free cloth diapers should they choose to use them.

This was never an official organization. There wasn’t time for that. There was no time for even structure.

Instead, it was people sending messages, driving different places, asking questions of the person who introduced them to that person.

Individuals, healthcare providers, and even some companies amassed enough cloth diapers to support many families.

Some pulled their leftover stashes from their garages, whether it be five or 100.

Others contributed fabric from wet bags. Some sewed.

Some drove those diapers to where they needed to be, and others contacted companies for more.

We don’t know the impact. It wasn’t an attempt to solve everything, but it was one basic need that could be met within those women’s grasp.

It was a faithful response of love during a time in which love was the only choice.

Our passage continues with the story of three other women who are not named at this point. Moses’ mother, Moses’ sister, and the Pharaoh’s daughter.

Eventually, we learn that Moses’ mother is named Jochebed, and we make the assumption that this is Moses’ sister, Miriam, although he could have had others.

Jochebed took great risks in keeping her baby alive, hiding a noisy, dependent child for three months from notice.

I can’t even begin to imagine the anxiety and fear she must have had to think that placing her baby in a river is the safest option for him.

As we heard, the Pharaoh’s daughter saw that basket.

When she saw Moses, she knew he was Hebrew.

She also knew her father’s command.

The Pharaoh’s daughter not only kept Moses alive, she paid his mother to do so.

The Pharaoh’s daughter raised Moses with wealth, comfort, and position, and there is no question that she was blatantly disobeying her father.

She raised the person who would set the Hebrew people free from her father’s tyranny, a sacred story for another week.

Sacred stories of faithful people within their everyday lives, living with imperfect courage and bravery inspire me.

Those sacred stories could be thousands of years old, like the ones we read today. They could just have happened a week ago or anywhere in between.

But I believe that we need these stories to live faithfully in our lives.

Because when we share them, our communal attention is drawn beyond the distractions of immediate anxiety and fears.

We hear of people who live with challenges and still respond with love and hope, and we realize that we can do the same, too.

It is our calling as followers of Jesus to share these stories wherever we are.

It is our calling to let our holy imagination be shaped by them and our actions directed by them.

If you don’t know where to start, start by saying their names.

Start with Shiphrah and Puah.

Share their stories in your everyday, whether it be on a walk with friends, a phone call with grandkids, or the art projects that you draw.

We may never see any of the women that we talked about today on posters, but I still love that image of surrounding ourselves, our homes, our lives with them in order to be inspired to live like them.

We will be in good company, and that is good news.

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