Nadene Goldfoot
I've been binging on England's "Call the Midwife." I love that series, love the soothing music declaring its beginning. I've seen so many babies born on this TV program that I've seen it all. Next step is to actually be involved in a birth. We're all so lucky to be here. There's so many things that can go wrong in a birth.
Being American, I went to the hospital in 1953 and 54 for my children's birth and didn't go through any such natural birthings. I don't remember such pain and screaming of natural childbirth in my hospital experience. Yet it was natural enough for me.
Rachel was the love of Jacob's life. She's why Jacob stayed with her father and worked for 7 years, then working another 7 more years to be able to marry her. She was the young beauty that won Jacob's heart. Her sister, Leah, was known to have bad eyes. Rachel must have been very young, maybe 13 to 15 when Jacob first noticed her among the children of Laban and Adinahand as he waited 7years and then thought it was she behind the veil and it turned out to be Leah. Local custom was that the oldest daughter is to marry first. He had to wait another 7 years to marry Rachel.
They married 7 years after Leah and Jacob's wedding and Rachel became pregnant with Joseph. Joseph was Jacob's much loved 11th son, the youngest, but the 1st for Rachel, and so he made Joseph a very special multi-colored robe. He treated him as a special son, so much so that Joseph's older brothers became so jealous that they sold him at the first opportunity to a passing camel caravan traveling to Egypt. Jacob was told by his son that he had perished. Jacob was insoluble. The history of Joseph is thought to have been dated during the Hyksos domination of Egypt from the 18th to 16th century BCE. Joseph did so well in Egypt that the pharaoh gave him grazing land in Goshen, which brought Jacob and his family to be in Egypt to live there and multiply, scaring the pharaoh eventually with their numbers. Evidently the midwives were excellent. But then, with the pharaoh worrying about how many Israelites were in Goshen, the midwives were asked to do something against their position of midwife.
We do have the report of midwives lying to the pharaoh who told them to kill the new-born sons of the slaves. Pharaoh enslaves the Israelites, b) Exodus 1:15-21, Pharaoh commands midwives to kill Hebrew boys at birth, and c) Exodus 1:22-2:10, Pharaoh commands all Egyptians to throw Hebrew boys into the Nile River. Pharaoh sees no threat from Israelite females, yet it is females (the midwives) who are the very ones who begin Pharaoh’s undoing. The midwives’ vocation is to preserve and protect life. Pharaoh demands that they deny their vocation and kill. In the Bible’s first act of civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance for the sake of justice, the midwives refuse to obey Pharaoh’s deathly command. They lie to the authorities, breaking the law for the sake of justice and life. They explain to Pharaoh with their fingers crossed and a wink in their eye, the Hebrew women just give birth too quickly before we can get there!
In his attempt to curb the growth of the Hebrew population, Pharaoh commands the midwives, namely Puah and Shiphrah, to kill at birth every boy, but to let the girls live. When the midwives are called to account for their failure to carry out the royal edict, they explain that the Hebrew women are “vigorous” (from the word hayyot; Exod 1:19). This term is related to the word for “animal” and may suggest that Hebrew women gave birth with ease.
The midwives succeed in saving the lives of both Hebrew boys and girls. In the process, they protect the birth of one special child named Moses, the eventual leader of Israel who would overthrow Pharaoh and lead Israel to freedom.
Jacob had his 12th son, Benjamin, by Rachel, but she died in childbirth. Accordingly, it had to be a hard situation, like some I've seen with the Midwives. It would have taken a long time before the child came, and she must have lost a lot of blood. Was it a breach birth when the baby comes out feet first? That's hard to deliver and why experts are needed.
Benjamin was lucky to have been born alive. The midwives had to really work at it with his birth. They could not save Rachel, however. Not much improvement had happened in such cases by the 1940s and 1950s in England for breach births. They did introduce a little gas with a mask over the mother's face, finally.
Having midwives in England is as close as one can be with Rachel's birthing and her 3 midwives. She was in her own home and bed with caring women. After all, the biblical midwives took turns being midwife or mother. Next time, it could be one of them going through such a disastrous birthing. With each of their birthings, they learned.
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Leah was made for giving birth. She gave Jacob 6 sons, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun, and a daughter, Dinah. Rachel gave him 2 sons, Joseph and Benjamin, Bilhah gave him Dan and Naphtali. Zilpah, Leah's handmaid, gave him Gad and Asher. That adds up to the 12 sons who became the origin of the 12 Tribes of Jacob.
She lived at Haran in Aram-Naharaim. Who were her midwives? Possibly Leah and the handmaids of both sisters; Zilpah and Bilhah were the midwives. This took place near Bethlehem. Up to then, the women were most likely skilled in normal-type births. The women would have raised Benjamin. Bilhah was Rachel's handmaid. She became the mother by Jacob of Dan and Naphtali. It was when Rachel thought she was barren after Joseph's birth that she had given Bilhah to Jacob to conceive more children.
As Joseph played an important part in the history of the Israelites, so did Benjamin. From him came the tribe of Benjamin. His tribe occupied territory between Ephraim and Judah which included Jerusalem. On one occasion, it was almost exterminated in a war with the other tribes as told in (Judg. 19-21). Saul, the 1st king of Israel, was a Benjamite. The territory was a bone of contention between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah after the division of the kingdom when Solomon died in 920 BCE, and eventually, was partitioned between the two.
In most societies, mothers nurse their babies for the first 2 years. Who nursed Benjamin? Hopefully, one of the midwives were still lactating and could nurse him, but otherwise, they may have turned to goats milk. They didn't have baby bottles made of glass, either. They would have had to use some sort of sheepskin devise like they have to hold wine, perhaps.
Rachel gave her life in order to bring about Benjamin's birth. Being pregnant was no guarantee of living afterward. The women all took their chances in wanting to be mothers, more so than they do today. Also, it was the day and age of children being the most important possession a man could have. They had great value, socially and economically for both parents.
1st midwife- Shiphrah: 2nd midwife- Puah: Exod. 1:15) Pharaoh said that when you deliver the Hebrew women and you see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you are to kill him"...instead they caused the boys to live.
Perhaps it was Puah and Shiphrah who created the Jewish saying of L'Chaim! To Life! Puah is also identified by the rabbis with Mirium.
Resource:
edited 3/2/2023
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_the_Midwife
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-21/commentary-on-exodus-18-22-21-10-3
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