Texts in Conversation
In Exodus, the midwives say the Hebrew women give birth before they arrive. In the Aramaic Targum Neofiti, the women’s early deliveries are described as answers to prayers to their Father in heaven.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Exodus 1:19
Hebrew Bible
15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 “When you assist the Hebrew women in childbirth, observe at the delivery: If it is a son, kill him, but if it is a daughter, she may live.” 17 But the midwives feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live. 18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this and let the boys live?” 19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women—for the Hebrew women are vigorous; they give birth before the midwife gets to them!” 20 So God treated the midwives well, and the people multiplied and became very strong.
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Neofiti Exodus 1:19
Targum
15 The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one named Shiphrah and the other Puah. 16 He said, “When you help the Hebrew women give birth, look at the birthstools. If the child is a son, kill him; if a daughter, let her live.” 17 But the midwives feared before the Lord. They did not do what the king of Egypt had told them; they kept the children alive. 18 The king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this and kept the children alive?” 19 The midwives told Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are unlike the Egyptian women; they are vigorous. Before the midwife reaches them, they pray before their Father in the heavens. He answers them, and they give birth.” 20 The Lord showed kindness to the midwives, and the people increased and became very strong.
Date: 300–1000 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... the Fragments Targum was consciously composed as a collection of variants, by rabbis whose primary language (and whose community's primary language) had ceased - essentially since the Arabic conquests - to be Aramaic. It would be odd not to find later (sometimes esoteric) conceptions developed within it. On the other hand, we also may not assume that the Fragments Targum simply inflates prior developments such as are reflected in Neofiti, since the reference of Deuteronomy 33:24 does not appear there, although the haggadah does (in the Vatican manuscripts). In the same connection, it should be pointed out that the Targum called Pseudo-Jonathan, from the seventh century, does not preserve most of the references cited above, although it does present analogous renderings at Exodus 1:19; Deuteronomy 32:6, and an innovative usage at Deuteronomy 28:32, 33, where it is a question of praying to God with good works in one's hands for release in judgment. Clearly, as we come to later sources, there is a tendency both to embellish and to qualify the notion of God as 'father' ..."
Bruce Chilton, “God as ‘Father’ in the Targumim, in Non-Canonical Literatures of Early Judaism and Primitive Christianity, and in Matthew,” in The Pseudepigrapha and Early Biblical Interpretation, ed. James H. Charlesworth and Craig A. Evans, JSPSup 14 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1993), 151–169.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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