But a new Pharaoh arose in Egypt who did not know Joseph. With that single sentence, everything shifts. Genesis ends with Joseph clothed in honor, his family welcomed as guests, their future secure in a land of plenty. But when Exodus opens chapter one, it's generations later, and there is a Pharaoh who has forgotten. Not only has he forgotten Joseph, he has forgotten the wisdom that once saved Egypt from starvation, forgotten the generosity that spared his own people, the Egyptians, from famine, forgotten the bond that transformed foreigners into family. When memory like that fails, favor turns quickly to fear. In its place comes dismissal, denial, hostility. History gets rewritten to protect power rather than to tell the truth.
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This amnesia is not merely ancient, is it? It's ours too. We see it in the erasure of painful chapters of our history, the whitewashing of shameful truths, the reshaping of memories that should convict us, but instead try to lull us into a false comfort. Pharaoh's forgetting of Joseph echoes hauntingly in our own time, as the values that should bind us, compassion, justice, shared humanity, seem to be slipping from our grasp.
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Neighbors are cast as threats, immigrants as enemies, the vulnerable as disposable. When kinship is forgotten, when empathy is mocked as weakness, the will to dominate takes root. And this kind of power, power without love, hardens hearts, warps justice, and cloaks cruelty in the guise of law. This is how oppression begins. Not first with chains, but with forgetting. Not with walls, but with the slow corrosion of what we once held sacred.
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The Pharaoh who did not know Joseph becomes every leader who chooses amnesia over accountability, convenience over compassion, dominion over dignity. In recent months and days, and this past week, in fact, we have seen just how far such amnesia can go. When political discourse grows so poisoned that opponents are no longer seen as fellow citizens, but as enemies to be eliminated. Differences of opinion decay into dehumanization, and violence becomes not only thinkable, but very real and deadly.
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The choice between remembering and forgetting, we see, is not merely political. It is profoundly moral, profoundly spiritual. It is into this shadow the two women rise. Shipra and Pua, midwives. Ordinary, faithful, unarmed. They remember what Pharaoh has forgotten. That life is sacred. That our own well -being is inextricably woven into the well -being of others. With their remembering, the story of resistance and resilience begins.
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In a culture that prizes obedience above mercy, they choose another way. Consider what it means to be a midwife. You sit with women in their most vulnerable hours. You witness the fierce labor that brings forth new life. You know that every child emerging into the world carries not threat, but promise. Infinite possibility wrapped in fragile flesh.
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When Pharaoh commands them to kill Hebrew boys at birth, he is asking them to betray everything they know about their calling, everything sacred about their work of ushering life into being. So they don't do it. But don't mistake their defiance for mere disobedience. What Shipra and Pua do transcends law -breaking. They are midwifing hope itself into a world bent on destroying it.
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These women whose very hands are trained to cradle new life refuse to become agents of death because they understand what Pharaoh has forgotten. that hands are not meant for breaking, but for blessing. So they craft a story, weaving truth and deflection together with the wisdom of those who have learned to navigate power with care.
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It's more than a clever evasion. It's strategic storytelling, exploiting Pharaoh's own prejudices about difference while protecting what matters most, life itself. Notice, too, what else scripture does here. It gives us their names. Shipra, meaning lovely. Pua, whose name echoes the very sounds of childbirth itself. While the mighty Pharaoh remains nameless in this story, his identity consumed by power, his dignity erased by his cruelty, these two women are remembered.
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Their names are inscribed in the eternal story, while the ruler of the greatest empire on earth is simply Pharaoh. A title, a function, a forgettable tyrant. This is God's reckoning. The powerful who forget their humanity lose even their names to history, while the faithful who remember their calling are remembered forever.
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Shifra and Pua, their very names speak of beauty and birth, of the life -giving work they refuse to betray, of the sacred vocation they guard with courage. This is the kind of subversive wisdom that threads its way through scripture. The ingenuity that develops when people must find ways to preserve life and dignity within systems that would try to deny both.
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Shifra and Pua are, in a way, the first conductors on an underground railroad, creating hidden pathways of protection for the most vulnerable. We see the same spirit in Rahab, hiding the Hebrew spies on her rooftop, in the Magi choosing another way home to outwit Herod's violence. We see it again in history, in Harriet Tubman guiding her people through the wilderness of bondage to the promise of freedom.
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We see it in countless men and women who discovered that sometimes That sometimes...Faithfulness requires creative resistance. Sometimes love must travel underground. Sometimes it must move through the shadows to keep hope alive. In this transcript of defiance is the deeper truth that love will always find a way. That God's purposes cannot be thwarted for long. And that even under Pharaoh's shadow, hope is being born.
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Shipra and Pua's acts of resistance ripple out like water. Each child they save becomes a wave in the sea of liberation. Each mother who holds her living child becomes a keeper of memory, a guardian of promise. And from this quiet defiance, God begins to weave the story of Exodus that will shape empires.
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The inspiration of these midwives spreads as other women become midwives of hope in their own right. But when Pharaoh escalates his cruelty, commanding that all Hebrew boys be thrown into the Nile River, the spirit of creative resistance finds new expression. Enter Jochebed, the mother of Moses. She too refuses to let fear dictate her choices. For three months she hides her son, and when hiding is no longer possible, she crafts a small ark, waterproofed with pitch, and places it among the reeds, entrusting her child to the very waters meant to destroy him, trusting that the river of death might become a river of deliverance.
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And then there's Miriam, the sister of Moses, watching from the shadows, ready to act at just the right moment. When the Pharaoh's daughter discovers the crying child, Miriam steps forward. Shall I find you, a Hebrew woman, to nurse the child? In that moment, Miriam becomes the bridge that returns the baby to his own mother's care, now safely under royal protection.
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And finally, Pharaoh's daughter, the oppressor's own child, chooses compassion over compliance with her father's decree. She knows this is a Hebrew child, but she chooses to save rather than destroy, to adopt rather than abandon. Even within the Pharaoh's own house, the spirit of the midwives works, turning an agent of empire into an instrument of grace.
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What strikes me as I watch these midwives of hope is the focused power of faithful resistance. Shipra and Pua could not topple an empire, but they could save the children in their care. Jochebed couldn't guarantee her son's future, but she could craft an ark and trust the river. Miriam could step forward at the perfect moment. Pharaoh's daughter could choose compassion. One by one, they did what was theirs to do. And moment by moment, the world begins to shift.
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Each one of us stands at the intersection of systems and souls, where policies meet people, where the abstract becomes personal. These choices we have may sometimes seem so small. The child you encourage, the stranger you welcome, the injustice you refuse to ignore, the dignity you defend when no one is watching.
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But every act of remembering, every choice of love over fear, every time we midwife hope into a world bent on destruction, these are the ripples that become waves, and the waves become, eventually, the sea of liberation. Shipra and Pua could not have seen the liberation of Israel when they defied Pharaoh. They only saw the babies in their hands, the mothers in their care, the sacred calling that would not be compromised. And yet, from that quiet faithfulness, God began a work that would shake an empire and set the captives free.
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The same work calls us. This is how deliverance begins. Not with the thunder of revolution, but with the steady courage of ordinary people refusing to let fear have the final word. People who insist on remembering what the world tries to make us forget. That every life is precious. That empathy is not weakness, but the very foundation of our humanity. And that hope finds a way, even in the darkest places.
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The story is still being written. Pharaoh may forget. Those in power may try to erase history. The world may shout that death -dealing forces will prevail. But we are here to remember. We are here to midwife hope, to cradle life, to speak truth, to choose compassion.
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Like Shipra and Pua, we begin with the child, the neighbor, the stranger, right in front of us. We work with the moment we have right now, right in front of us. This is the work of liberation, faithful choices, loving acts that ripple outward in ways we may never see.
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But when we rise each morning with our minds stayed on freedom, rooted in love, the world becomes a place where hope is not only possible, it is unstoppable. And we are its carriers. Everywhere we go, we carry what we need. It's been given to us. Hands ready to deliver hope. Hearts that refuse to forget. And the quiet courage of Shipra and Pua whispering in our ears.
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So go now, midwife hope, into this world.
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