The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”
The enmity of the seed of the serpent against the seed of the woman divests men of humanity itself and makes them forget all pity. Even confessed innocence is no defence against this old enmity; what blood so guiltless as that of a newborn child, yet it is shed like water and sucked with delight. Pharaoh and Herod proved themselves agents for that great red dragon, standing to devour God's people.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 1:15-22
And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women,.... Not so tender, weak, and feeble, nor so ignorant of midwifery, and needed not the assistance of midwives, as the Egyptian women: for they are lively; or midwives themselves, as Kimchi (k) says the word signifies; and so (l) Symmachus translates the words, "for they are midwives"; or are...
And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women [are] not as the Egyptian women; for they [are] lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them. (g) Their disobedience in this was lawful, but their deception is evil.