I’m diving deep into the book of Exodus over the summer, and a few weeks back I came to the famous and diabolical scheme of Pharoah, who tried to recruit the midwives of the Hebrew women to murder the male children of Israel, in a heinous attempt to cull the population. Famously, the midwives refused to obey the command, and were later summoned to the court of the King to explain themselves…
And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive? And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.
(Exodus 1:18-19)
The midwives lied. I don’t think that point is debatable. You can argue it wasn’t an out-and-out lie, but more like an example of dissembling, but that’s splitting hairs. They were engaging in willful deception. They told Pharoah that the Hebrew women are too quick (lively) compared to Egyptian women, and delivered before they could get to them to kill the children. They lied.
And yet…
Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty.
(Exodus 1:20)
Does the deception of the midwives make lying okay? Moses says here that God “dealt well” with them. Did He treat them favorably in spite of their lie or because of it? If it’s the latter, we need to throw out everything else the Bible says about sin and God’s position on it. If it’s the former, we can attribute His favor toward these sinners exactly the way we attribute all of God’s favor toward every sinner. In fact, we have a word that describes “God’s favor toward sinners,” don’t we? It’s called “grace.”
Do I think their lying is excusable? No. If it was excusable, it wouldn’t need grace!
Instead, I think they should have told the truth and accepted the consequences, even if that meant dying. I think that’s in the spirit of “we must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:19). You don’t always get to have your cake and eat it too. If you’re going to choose God over man, you should do so with the understanding that “man” is going to retaliate. So be it; you chose God. Let man do what he wants. God will take vengeance, and God will be the judge.
That’s not what happened here, though. In this case, the midwives lied. That’s a sin. And yet, God forgave them and blessed them. Why? Because that’s what God does. He’s gracious like that. I wouldn’t go around sinning and just hoping God will randomly decide to be gracious with you, however. Serve the Lord and everything else will fall into place. In this case, the midwives feared God, and the Lord blessed them. That He blessed them in spite of their sin is the story of God and humanity in a nutshell.
~Matthew