In Exodus 1:15, Pharoah commands two Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to kill every Hebrew male child among them coming out the womb. But neither of them did as Pharaoh commanded because they “feared God” (v.17).
When Pharaoh asked them why they had let the male children live, they responded, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and are delivered before the midwife comes to them” (v.19). The author then tells us that as a reward “God dealt well with the midwives” (v.20) and “because the midwives feared God he gave them families” (v.21).
“Wait a minute,” one might say, “how can God bless the midwives for lying to Pharaoh? Did God bless an act of lyingbecause they had a good intention? Or, perhaps, did their good intention make it not a lie in the first place?”
Let’s say for argument’s sake that the midwives’ response is in fact a lie. There’s nothing in the text that demands we say God is blessing them for what they say. The only clear thing that God blesses them for is “because they feared God.”
Now, God’s blessing of dealing “well with them” (v.20) is in some way connected to what they did. But the blessing doesn’t have to be for what they said. It could be for their good intention and not for their act. Given that God elsewhere forbids lying, and verse 21 speaks of an explicit motivation for their action (they feared God), it would be reasonable to conclude that God is blessing their good intention and not their act of lying.
But I don’t think this is in fact a lie. The midwives do not actually assert something to be true that they believe to be false. Notice what they say, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and are delivered before the midwife comes to them” (v.19).
This is a general statement about Hebrew women and their quick birthing, not a statement about the specific women that the two midwives assisted in giving birth. For the midwives to lie, they would have had to say something like, “The Hebrew women that we helped gave birth before we came to them.” That would be an act of communication that asserts something to be true when believed to be false. But that’s not what they say.
The act of the midwives, therefore, is not a lie. It is an act ofmental reservation. They make a general statement about midwives and Pharaoh erringly takes it as a statement about what they experienced.
On this reading, God not only blesses them for their good intention and their fear of God, but also for their cleverness in justly misleading Pharaoh away from punishing them.
So, this is not evidence that God blesses a lie when there’s good intention. Nor does it show that good intention can make a lie not a lie. God’s simply in favor of good ol’ fashioned wit.
***This article was originally published as a Catholic Answers Indulgence, October 5, 2023.