Exodus 1:14-16
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
14 making life bitter for them with hard labor, at mortar[a] and brick and all kinds of field work—cruelly oppressed in all their labor.
Command to the Midwives. 15 The king of Egypt told the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was called Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 “When you act as midwives for the Hebrew women, look on the birthstool:[b] if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she may live.”
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- 1:14 Mortar: either the wet clay with which the bricks were made, as in Na 3:14, or the cement used between the bricks in building, as in Gn 11:3.
- 1:16 Birthstool: apparently a pair of stones on which the mother is seated for childbirth opposite the midwife. The Hebrew word elsewhere is used to refer to the stones of a potter’s wheel.
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