Passage: Exodus 1 (ESV Bible Online).

So what were “the midwives”?  A nun-like order of unmarried women?  I’m assuming that Shiphrah and Puah were not the only two but were over many others serving the numerous Hebrews (or else serving all Egypt including the Hebrews).  When God gave the midwives families, does this only refer to the two?  I don’t see how.

Seems like the entire order got reorganized.  I can’t help but wonder if this was some sort of Lutheran-like reformation of the midwife system.  The midwifes at some point got to have a normal family life as wives and mothers.

It seems fairly likely that Pharaoh’s motive in killing sons but not daughters was to force the intermarriage of the Hebrews women with Egyptian men so that the Hebrews lost their separate identity.  In which case, God’s reward fits the act.  The midwives’ saved the future husbands of the future Hebrew women and God gave them their own husbands in return.  They spared the Hebrew babies and got to have their own.