THIS MIGHT SURPRISE YOU

Coogan and Chapman argue that two midwives for all the Hebrew women point to a few hundred families at most, not millions of people. Is that their argument?

The answer

Agree. Michael Coogan and Cynthia Chapman, in their Old Testament textbook, make this argument. Exodus 1:15 names two midwives for the Hebrew women, Shiphrah and Puah. In a culture where women married young and were often pregnant, the authors say, two midwives could serve at most several hundred women, and probably fewer. That is a far smaller group than the six hundred thousand men of Exodus 12:37 imply.

Why it’s interesting

Coogan and Chapman call the midwives a second biblical tradition, a separate memory of a much smaller group. It appears just a few chapters before the count of six hundred thousand men. A study Bible, the New Oxford Annotated Bible, calls the census numbers in Numbers difficult to interpret, and neither work puts a headcount on the people who left.

Open question

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