And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.
21. He made them houses. The accuracy of Calvin’s criticism is undeniable, namely, — that as the Hebrew pronoun is of the masculine form, ordinary usage would forbid our considering this clause to be spoken of the midwives; and yet that the masculine and feminine pronominal affixes, distinguished respectively by a final ם or ן, are not used with such inflexible regularity as to preclude all debate.
The Egyptians' indignation at Israel's increase, notwithstanding the many hardships they put upon them, drove them at length to the most barbarous and inhuman methods of suppressing them, by the murder of their children. It was strange that they did not rather pick quarrels with the grown men, against whom they might perhaps find some occasion: to be thus bloody towards the infants, whom all...
Commenting on Exodus 1:15-22
And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God,.... And regarded his command, and not that of the king, though they risked his displeasure, and their lives: that he made them houses; which some understand of the Israelites making houses for them, being moved to it by the Lord, to preserve them from the insults of the Egyptians; others of Pharaoh building houses for...