Even though they were slaves, the Children of Israel continued to have more children. Pharoah was scared of them because of their large population. Pharoah thought that the Children of Israel might join with his other enemies and try to overthrow him and his family as rulers of Egypt.

Because Pharoah was scared of the Hebrews, he decided to make things difficult for Hebrew mothers (all male, Hebrew babies were to be killed). He ordered the two head Hebrew midwives, Shifrah and Pu’ah, to cooperate with him. He commanded them to make life difficult for some of their own people – the Hebrew mothers. The midwives recognized that Pharoah was trying to use Israelites to hurt other Israelites. Instead of following Pharoahs orders, the midwives secretly took special care of the babies and mothers. If a woman did not have enough food, they went to the other Hebrews and arranged that there would be enough for both mother and child.