Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 1:16
And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see [them] upon the stools; if it [be] a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it [be] a daughter, then she shall live.
16. upon the two stones ] This is the lit. rend. of the Heb.: the same word is used of the two circular stones, fixed horizontally on a vertical axle, to form the potter’s ‘wheel’ (see ill. in EB. iii. 3820). The allusion is in all probability to the two stones upon which the Hebrew women, in accordance with a custom attested for other nations, either knelt or sat at the time of their delivery: Ploss, Das Weib in der Natur u. Vlkerkunde, 1887, ii. 174 f., 177 f., Schapiro, Revue des tudes Juives, xl. (1900), p. 45 f. Spiegelberg ( Aeg. Randglossen zum AT., 1904, p. 19 ff.) cites from old Egyptian and Coptic texts the expressions, to sit on the brick, and (once) on the two bricks, in the same connexion.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Upon the stools – Literally, two stones. The word denotes a special seat, such as is represented on monuments of the 18th Dynasty, and is still used by Egyptian midwives.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 16. Upon the stools] al haobnayim. This is a difficult word, and occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible but in Jer 18:3, where we translate it the potter’s wheels. As signifies a stone, the obnayim has been supposed to signify a stone trough, in which they received and washed the infant as soon as born. Jarchi, in his book of Hebrew roots, gives a very different interpretation of it; he derives it from ben, a son, or banim, children; his words must not be literally translated, but this is the sense: “When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and ye see that the birth is broken forth, if it be a son, then ye shall kill him.” Jonathan ben Uzziel gives us a curious reason for the command given by Pharaoh to the Egyptian women: “Pharaoh slept, and saw in his sleep a balance, and behold the whole land of Egypt stood in one scale, and a lamb in the other; and the scale in which the lamb was outweighed that in which was the land of Egypt. Immediately he sent and called all the chief magicians, and told them his dream. And Janes and Jimbres, (see 2Ti 3:8). who were chief of the magicians, opened their mouths and said to Pharaoh, ‘A child is shortly to be born in the congregation of the Israelites, whose hand shall destroy the whole land of Egypt.’ Therefore Pharaoh spake to the midwives, &c.“
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The stools; a seat used by women when ready to be delivered, conveniently framed for the midwifes better discharge of her office.
Ye shall kill him, which it was not difficult for them to do without much observation.
If it be a daughter, then she shall live; either,
1. Because he feared not them, but the males only; and some add, that he was advised by one of their magicians, that a male child should be born of the Israelites, who should be a dreadful scourge to the Egyptians. Or,
2. They reserved them for their lust, or for service, or for the increase of their people, and the raising of a fairer breed by them.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
16. if it be a son, then ye shallkill himOpinions are divided, however, what was the method ofdestruction which the king did recommend. Some think that the”stools” were low seats on which these obstetricpractitioners sat by the bedside of the Hebrew women; and that, asthey might easily discover the sex, so, whenever a boy appeared, theywere to strangle it, unknown to its parents; while others are ofopinion that the “stools” were stone troughs, by the riversideinto which, when the infants were washed, they were to be, asit were, accidentally dropped.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And he said, when ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women,…. Deliver them of their children:
and see [them] upon the stools; seats for women in labour to sit upon, and so contrived, that the midwives might do their office the more readily; but while they sat there, and before the birth, they could not tell whether the child was a son or a daughter; wherefore Kimchi h thinks the word here used signifies the place to which the infant falls down from its mother’s belly, at the time of labour, and is called the place of the breaking forth of children, and takes it to be the “uterus” itself; and says it is called “Abanim”, because “Banim”, the children, are there, and supposes “A” or “Aleph” to be an additional letter; and so the sense then is, not when ye see the women on the seats, but the children in the place of coming forth; but then he asks, if it be so, why does he say, “and see them” there? could they see them before they were entirely out of the womb? to which he answers, they know by this rule, if a son, its face was downwards, and if a daughter, its face was upwards; how true this is, must be left to those that know better; the Jewish masters i constantly and positively affirm it: he further observes, that the word is of the dual number, because of the two valves of the womb, through which the infant passes:
if it be a son, then ye shall kill him; give it a private pinch as it comes forth, while under their hands, that its death might seem to be owing to the difficulty of its birth, or to something that happened in it. This was ordered, because what the king had to fear from the Israelites was only from the males, and they only could multiply their people; and because of the above information of his magicians, if there is any truth in that:
but if it be a daughter, then she shall live, be kept alive, and preserved, and brought up to woman’s estate; and this the king chose to have done, having nothing to fear from them, being of the feeble sex, and that they might serve to gratify the lust of the Egyptians, who might be fond of Hebrew women, being more beautiful than theirs; or that they might be married and incorporated into Egyptian families, there being no males of their own, if this scheme took place, to match with them, and so by degrees the whole Israelitish nation would be mixed with, and swallowed up in the Egyptian nation, which was what was aimed at.
h Sepher Shorash. rad. . i T. Bab. Sotah, fol. 11. 1. Niddah, fol. 31. 2.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(16) Upon the stools.Literally, upon the two stones. It has been suggested that a seat corresponding to the modern hursee elwildeh is meant. This is a chair of a peculiar form, upon which in modern Egypt the woman is seated during parturition. (See Lane, Modern Egyptians, vol. iii. p. 142.) But it does not appear that this seat is composed of two stones; nor is there any distinct evidence of its employment at the time of child-birth in Ancient Egypt. The emendation of Hirschbanim for bnaim, is very tempting. This will give the sense, When ye look upon the children.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Exo 1:16. See them upon the stools The word abnim occurs only here, and Jer 18:3. The LXX have not translated it.
If it be a son,ye shall kill him The order itself was inhuman enough; but it becomes, if possible, ten times more so, by making the midwives the executioners; thus obliging them not only to be savagely bloody, but basely perfidious in the most tender trust. Josephus says, that a prophecy of a child to be born of the Hebrew race, who should greatly annoy the Egyptians, determined Pharaoh to make this decree; but the sacred writer gives no hint of any such prediction, and refers us to a more satisfactory cause, Exo 1:10. The reasons are evident, why the daughters were to be saved; from whom no wars could be feared.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Is it not a mark of grace in these women? Pro 1:7 . And was it not similar to the faith of Rahab? Heb 11:31 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Exo 1:16 And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see [them] upon the stools; if it [be] a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it [be] a daughter, then she shall live.
Ver. 16. Then ye shall kill him. ] No greater argument of an ill cause than a bloody persecution. George Tankerfield, the martyr, was in King Edward’s days a very Papist, till the time Queen Mary came in; and then, perceiving the great cruelty used on the Pope’s side, was brought into a misdoubt of their doing, and began, as he said, in his heart to abhor them. a So did Julius Palmer, a martyr in Queen Mary’s days, who had been a stiff Papist all King Edward VI’s days, and was therefore expelled out of Magdalen College, whereof he had been Fellow; till beholding the martyrdom of the three bishops burnt in Oxford, he said to his friends, “Oh, raging cruelty! Oh, tyranny tragical, and more than barbarous!” and so became a zealous Protestant.
a Act. and Mon., fol. 1535.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
them: i.e. the children.
stools. Hebrew “two stones”. Probably the stone bath in which the children were bathed.
kill him. This was another assault of Satan, to destroy the male children, and so prevent “the seed of the woman “from coming into the world. See App-23, But God intervened by providing the Hebrew midwives, and preserving and preparing Moses.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
and see them: Or, rather, “and ye see them by the stone-troughs;” for so ovnayim, from aven, a stone, seems to signify – compare Exo 7:19, in which they washed the new-born infants. See this subject fully illustrated in Fragments to Calmet, Nos. 312, 313.
then ye shall: Exo 1:22, Mat 21:38, Rev 12:4
Reciprocal: Exo 18:11 – in the thing Num 20:15 – vexed us Deu 26:6 – General 2Sa 13:28 – commanded Psa 105:25 – to hate Ecc 4:1 – and considered Jer 31:2 – The people Dan 3:10 – hast made Heb 11:23 – the king’s
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Exo 1:16-19. The stools Seats used on that occasion. But the midwives feared God Dreaded his wrath more than Pharaohs, and therefore saved the men-children alive. The Hebrew women are lively We have no reason to doubt the truth of this; it is plain they were now under an extraordinary blessing of increase, which may well be supposed to have had this effect, that the women had quick and easy labour, and the mothers and children being both lively, they seldom needed the help of midwives: this these midwives took notice of, and concluding it to be the finger of God, were thereby imboldened to disobey the king, and with this justify themselves before Pharaoh when he called them to an account for it.