Exodus/Shemoth 1:15-22 – When is it 'alright' to tell a lie?

In the previous article “What if you were a Hebrew slave in Egypt” we speculated if, after 400+ years, the generation of Yaakovites/Israelites who have become slaves to a ‘Pharaoh who did not know Yosef” would know anything at all about their roots and ancestry.  Would if they even care about who they supposedly are, a distinct people with a destiny proclaimed by the God of their forefathers? 

 

Surely, generation after generation would have recounted the story about Yosef, son of Yaakov, whose misfortune turned into good fortune not only for himself but for his whole family.  Would this generation be wondering why misfortune has come upon them because the Pharaoh they now serve feels insecure about their multiplying population? 

 Exodus/Shemoth 1:15-22

15 Now the king of Egypt said to the midwives of the Hebrews—

the name of the first one was Shifra, the name of the second was Pu’a-

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16 he said:

When you help the Hebrew women give birth, see the supporting-stones:

if he be a son, put him to death,

but if she be a daughter, she may live.
17 But the midwives held God in awe,

and they did not do as the king of Egypt had spoken to them,

they let the (male) children live.
18 The king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them:

Why have you done this thing, you have let the children live!
19 The midwives said to Pharaoh:

Indeed, not like the Egyptian (women) are the Hebrew (women),

indeed, they are lively:

before the midwife comes to them, they have given birth!
20 God dealt well with the midwives.

And the people became many and grew exceedingly mighty (in number).
21 It was, since the midwives held God in awe, that he made them households.
22 Now Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying:

Every son that is born, throw him into the Nile,

but let every daughter live.

 Verse 17 seems to indicate that the Hebrew midwives did have knowledge of God enough to fear Him more than Pharaoh, since they disobeyed the command to kill male infants born to the Hebrew women.  Because of their courage,  God rewarded them with households  (vs. 21) .  

 

Question:  Does this mean that telling a lie is allowed under certain circumstances? Apparently, in this specific instance,  it was not only allowed in order to save human lives, specially Hebrew lives, in fact it was even rewarded! 

 

There are many stories about Jews who were spared from sure death during the holocaust because people risked their own safety and lives to protect God’s people from Hitler’s Nazi Germany.  The evil of anti-semitism has plagued the people of Israel as early as this preparatory stage, the formation of the yet-to-be-born nation.  

ArtScroll Tanach notes:

 

“it was the first instance in history of what has become the familiar pattern of anti-Semitism.  The Jews are too dangerous to keep and they are too important to lose.  So Pharaoh proposes a solution.  He will harness the Jews by enslaving them, so that the state will benefit from their talents without fear that they will desert the country.  God thwarted the evil plot.  The more the Jews were tormented, the more their population grew, and infuriated the Egyptians further (Rashi), thus leading to the next stage in persecution.  

Having failed to stem Jewish growth through slavery, Pharaoh devised a more blatant, if secret, form of destruction.  He ordered the Jewish midwives to kill the male babies; then the females would be forced to blend into Egypt.  

According to the Sages, the midwives Shifrah and Puah were Jochebed and Miriam, the mother and sister of Moses.  Pharaoh had another reason for the infanticide.  His astrologers told him that the savior of the Jews was about to be born, so Pharaoh ordered all the boys to be killed.  Indeed, Moses was born during the time this cruel order was in effect.”

Had the midwives obeyed Pharaoh, there would not be a Moses.

So back to the Q: What’s the A?

 

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