Exodus 1:16

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And he said, When you serve as a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then you shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.

Verse 15 Read Chapter 1 Verse 17

Ambrose of Milan

AD 397

Indeed, in regard to other Hebrew women you find it written that the Hebrew women give birth before the midwives arrive. This is so because the souls of the just do not wait upon branches of learning arranged according to kinds of knowledge, nor do they require assistance in parturition, but they bring forth their offspring spontaneously and anticipate the expected time.

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

Many lies indeed seem to be for someone’s safety or advantage, spoken not in malice but in kindness: such was that of those midwives in Exodus, who gave a false report to Pharaoh, to the end that the infants of the children of Israel might not be slain. But even these are praised not for the fact but for the disposition shown; since those who only lie in this way will attain in time to a freedom from all lying.

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

On the midwives’ lie, by which they deceived Pharaoh and kept him from killing the Israelite males when they were born: The midwives said that Hebrew women did not give birth as Egyptian women did. It is usual to ask whether such lies have been approved by divine authority. Scripture says that God favored the midwives. It is unclear whether God, in his mercy, pardoned the lie or judged that the lie itself deserved a reward. For the midwives did one thing by letting the infant boys live and another by lying to Pharaoh. In letting them live they performed a work of mercy; but they used that lie for their own ends, to keep Pharaoh from harming the infants. This act could be the occasion not for praise but for pardon. It does not seem to me that the authority to lie has been given to those of whom it is said, “And a lie has not been found in their mouths.” For if the lives of certain people, being far below the level of the saints’ lives, include these sins of lying, these people are livin... Read More

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George Leo Haydock

AD 1849

The time Hebrew, "and you shall see them upon the two stones. "Abenaim. Jeremias (xviii. 3,) uses the same expression, speaking of a potter hard at work. (Calmet) A woman, from whom nothing could be feared, to be reserved for service and for pleasure. (Menochius) We must not obey princes in their unjust commands. (Acts iv, and Matthew x. 28.) (Worthington)

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Methodius of Olympus

AD 311

Thus too it has been said that the Pharaoh of Egypt was a type of the devil, in that he cruelly ordered the males to be cast into the Nile and permitted the females to live. So too the devil, ruling over the great Egypt of the world “from Adam unto Moses,” made an effort to carry off and destroy the male and rational offspring of the soul in the flood of the passions, while he takes delight in seeing the carnal and sensual offspring increase and multiply.

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Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation - 2 Peter 1:20