Women at Work in the Deuteronomistic History - International Voices ...

HIDE AND SEEK: MISCELLANEOUS WOMEN | 221
future (Gen 15:4–6).” 165 At any rate, numerous progeny was more exception
than rule, since children under six were at high risk and several pregnancies
usually resulted in about two to three surviving children. 166
In Gen 35:17 the midwife תדלימ ה appears, comforting Rachel while she
delivers Ben-oni and dies. In Gen 38:28, a midwife binds a red crimson around
one of Tamar’s twin sons. Finally, two midwives, Puah and Shiphrah appear in
Exod 1, where they are called to task because the Hebrew babies are not being
killed, as Pharaoh had ordered them to do. The general ideological assumption is
that Egyptian and Hebrew women are different. 167 But while Pharaoh assumes
Egyptian superiority, the Hebrew writer builds upon that same assumption of
difference to state that Hebrews are better. The Hebrew nationality of the two
midwives locates them among those persecuted by a Pharaoh who was afraid of
the possible growth of the Israelites. 168 For the writer, Shiphrah and Puah do not
challenge the system’s assumption that Egyptians and Hebrews are different,
but turn it around to justify their refusal to participate in the babies’ killing, in a
tactic of survival and resistance often used by minorities or oppressed groups. 169
Funny as Pharaoh’s fear of newborn children might seem to us, he joins
other rulers in their fear of people’s ways. Amico states: “The role of
midwife/wise woman is strongly attested in Hittite texts, where the practitioners
were known as the ‘Old Women.’ Thirteen of them are known by name, and at
least one Hittite king, Hattušili I, expressed strong disapproval for their
activities, perhaps because they were so powerful among the people.” 170 One
reason why they would be feared is that they, as wise women, ensured a safe
birth for mother and child through the use of proper incantations and other
“dark” practices and mysterious remedies, which sometimes would help and
sometimes would seem to have killed the mother or the child. 171 Furthermore,
165
Leo Perdue, “The Israelite and Early Jewish Family: Summary and Conclusions,” in Families in
Ancient Israel, 170.
166
Stager, “Archaeology of the Family,” 18; Gruber, “Breast-Feeding,” 61–2, quoting anthropologist
H. Granqvist, Child Problems among the Arabs (Helsinki: n.e., 1950), 52–5. Carol Meyers, “The
Roots of Restriction: Women in Early Israel,” BA 41 (1978): 91–103.
167
Weems, “Hebrew Women,” 28.
168
The grammar of the text is ambiguous as to the nationality of Shiphrah and Puah; I am assuming
they would be Hebrew because in general people have midwives from their same people –actually,
they usually learned by training, starting with their own families and with no formal preparation. It
would make sense that a people who are being enslaved and persecuted would have their own
midwives from among their own women.
169
Weems, “Hebrew Women,” 29–30; D. Knight, “Political Rights and Powers in Monarchic Israel,”
in Ethics and Politics in the Hebrew Bible (ed. D. Knight & C. Meyers. Semeia 66. Atlanta: Scholars
Press, 1995), 104.
170
Amico, “Status of Women,” 240.
171
Nancy R. Bowen, “The Daughters of Your People: Female Prophets in Ezekiel 13:17–23,” JBL