Exodus 1:17
וַתִּירֶאןָ הַֽמְיַלְּדֹת אֶת־הָאֱלֹהִים וְלֹא עָשׂוּ כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר אֲלֵיהֶן מֶלֶךְ מִצְרָיִם וַתְּחַיֶּיןָ אֶת־הַיְלָדִֽים׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
Tap a word to see its entry
✦ The same verse in five languages
וַתִּירֶ֤אןָ הַֽמְיַלְּדֹת֙ אֶת־הָ֣אֱלֹהִ֔ים וְלֹ֣א עָשׂ֔וּ כַּאֲשֶׁ֛ר דִּבֶּ֥ר אֲלֵיהֶ֖ן מֶ֣לֶךְ מִצְרָ֑יִם וַתְּחַיֶּ֖יןָ אֶת־הַיְלָדִֽים׃
ἐφοβήθησαν δὲ αἱ μαῖαι τὸν θεόν, καὶ οὐκ συνέταξεν αὐταῖς ὁ βασιλεὺς Αἰγύπτου, καὶ ἐζωογόνουν τὰ ἄρσενα.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Timuerunt autem obstetrices Deum, et non fecerunt juxta præceptum regis Ægypti, sed conservabant mares.
Pero las parteras temían a Dios, y no hicieron lo que el rey de Egipto les ordenó, sino que dejaron vivir a los niños.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Mas las parteras temieron á Dios, y no hicieron como les mandó el rey de Egipto, sino que reservaban la vida á los niños.
The midwives, however, feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had instructed; they let the boys live.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse states that the midwives feared Elohim ("God", H0430) and therefore disobeyed the order given by the king of Egypt, choosing instead to keep the male children alive. The sentence structure sets divine fear against royal command as the motivating cause for the midwives' action.
Key words
- ti.Re.na ("they feared", H3372) — qal narrative form, feminine plural; marks the sequential opening action of the verse, performed by the midwives.
- m.ya.le.Dot ("midwives", H3205) — piel participle, feminine plural, literally "those who cause to bear"; the intensive piel stem denotes their professional function of assisting birth.
- 'E.lo.Him ("God", H0430) — masculine plural noun, here the object of fear rather than of worship language; grammatically plural but referring to a singular referent, marked by the definite article ha (H9009).
- te.chai.Yei.na ("they let live", H2421) — piel narrative, feminine plural; the piel stem gives a causative sense, "they caused [them] to live," stronger than a simple statement of non-killing.
- y.la.Dim ("[male] children", H3206) — masculine plural noun with definite article; the general term for "children/young ones" here contextually refers to the male infants targeted earlier in the narrative.
What the text says
The verse is built as two coordinated narrative clauses joined by va ("and", H9001): first "they feared ha-Elohim" (H0430), then "they did not do as the king of Egypt had spoken to them," and finally "they caused the children to live" (techayeina, H2421). The construct phrase Melekh Mitzrayim ("king of Egypt", H4428/H4714) identifies the human authority whose dibber ("had spoken", H1696, piel perfect) is explicitly contrasted with the midwives' fear of Elohim. The perfect verb asu ("they did", H6213) negated by lo' ("not", H3808) marks completed non-compliance, while the final verb techayeina uses the piel stem, giving an active, causative nuance — not merely refraining from killing, but positively preserving life. The double narrative va- chain (H9001) presents the fear of God, the refusal to obey, and the preservation of the children as a single continuous sequence of action.
Differences between versions
The LXX restructures the second clause: instead of "they [midwives] did not do as the king had spoken to them" (subject = midwives), it reads "the king of Egypt did not command them" (συνέταξεν, subject = king), shifting the grammatical subject of the negated verb. Both the LXX (τὰ ἄρσενα, "the males") and the Vulgate (mares, "males") render the Hebrew yeladim ("[male] children", H3206) with an explicit gender term, whereas the Hebrew noun itself is not gender-marked by its form alone.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.