Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem
Exodus 1
The Israelites Oppressed
1 These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; 3 Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; 4 Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. 5 The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy[a] in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.
6 Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, 7 but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.
8 Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. 9 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”
11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites 13 and worked them ruthlessly. 14 They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.
15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16 “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” 17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. 18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”
19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”
20 So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
22 Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”
Footnotes
a Exodus 1:5 Masoretic Text (see also Gen. 46:27); Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint (see also Acts 7:14 and note at Gen. 46:27) seventy-five.
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Mary was a midwife and "nursing sister" during The Blitz. Although she was not in London, her home town of Liverpool was a big industrial center and shipping port. And so, the Nazis bombed her city nearly as mercilessly as they did London.
Because petrol was stricty rationed to "Doctors Only", Mary made her rounds on a bicycle, dodging piles of burning rubble and delivering babies in bombed-out buildings. Nothing could stop her, and she was a bit of a local hero, just doing her job.
Mary was happily married and had two sons, Paul and Michael. However, when Paul was 14, Mary lost a valiant battle with breast cancer and died on 10/31/56.
Paul was so devastated that he cried himself to sleep every night, praying that she would "come back". Paul's Dad, who was a musician, bought his son a guitar to help him through his grief.
Years later, Paul pursued a successful career in music. But, along with fame and fortune came terrible temptations, drugs, chaos, and possibly an early death. One night, Paul's mother Mary came back to him in a dream and advised him to let all those things go. Paul wrote a song about it. It was called "Let It Be". And so, Mary the Midwife will be remembered forever.
In the first chapter of Exodus, we read of a Pharaoh who "did not remember Joseph". Somehow, in the intervening years since Joseph had saved Egypt from Famine and Death, his name had been forgotten. Perhaps the Royal House, embarrassed that a foreigner had saved the country, had all the momuments to Joseph erased. Maybe they co-opted Joseph and made him "Egyptian" to cover up that fact that he had been a Hebrew. Maybe they preserved his memory as "Imhotep" rather than Joseph. For whatever reason, the newest King saw the fertile, prosperous Hebrews as a real threat to his kingdom. He enslaved them, thinking that would keep them in check, but they kept multiplying. And so, Pharaoh embarked upon the first recorded instance of Government-Sponsered Genocide. His tactic was to kill all the Hebrew male bablies at birth.
Two courageous midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, continued to assist the Hebrew women at the birthing stool, and helped hide the male babies. When called to task by Pharaoh for disobeying his order, they made up a phony excuse about the babies being born before they arrived at the scene. These women risked death and torture to do the Right Thing.
Like Paul's mother Mary, the names of Shiphrah and Puah have been enshrined forever in a work of art. Everybody knows the song "Let it Be", and I use it to teach piano. I always tell my students the story of Mary McCartney, riding her bicycle through bombed-out streets, to bring new life into the world.
Shiphrah and Puah are enshrined forever in The Holy Bible, Exodus, Chapter One. And guess what...we don't even KNOW what Pharoah's name was.
Come and Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem, For Our FRiends in Need, For Persecuted Believers, and For Our Beloved Nation.
"He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification." (Romans 4:25)
God Bless America.
Blessings To All Who Visit This Garden of Prayer.
Hallelujah and Amen
ML/LTOS
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