Shiphrah and Puah, I am guessing these two names don’t roll off your tongue every day. And you don’t hear much about these two women from the book of Exodus. They never seem to be included at the cool kid’s table, but God made sure they made His book.

These women were Egyptian, and they “were chiefs over all the midwives, who were more than 500.” Although Egyptians by birth, they embraced the Hebrew faith, as it says in Exodus 1:21, they “feared God.”

When you read in Exodus 1:15-20, you see where the Pharaoh has ordered these two Egyptian midwives to kill all male children as soon as they are born. But these two women, stood firm in the God of the Hebrews, and not the king of Egypt. Because of their faithfulness, and with much risk, God not only protected them from a sure death from disobedience to the Pharaoh, He commended them and rewarded them.

Shiphrah and Puah are the definitions of having the courage to stand firm in their faith. They had risked their own lives for many Jewish infants.

It is not easy standing firm in God’s ways, especially when everything in the world is telling us differently. These two women weren’t just standing up for what they believed; they continued with the right actions.

Shiphrah and Puah remind me of when Paul was talking about his sufferings in 2 Corinthians 11:22-30. Paul was sacrificing his life for the gospel. Someone once put it like this:

If you only do what everyone else is doing, you will produce nothing better than anyone else.

Embrace the courage and the power given to us from God. And let us pray not to be ashamed of our faith but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in our soul, body, and mind, whether by life or by death.