Forgotten Women of the Torah

(17) And the descendants of Asher: Imnah, and Ishvah, and Ishvi, and Beriah, and Serah their sister; and the sons of Beriah: Heber, and Malchiel

(44) The descendants of Asher according to their families: of Imnah, the family of the Imnites; of Ishvi, the family of the Ishvites; of Beriah, the family of the Beriites. (45) Of the sons of Beriah: of Heber, the family of the Heberites; of Malchiel, the family of the Malchielites. (46) And the name of the daughter of Asher was Serah. (47) These are the families of the sons of Asher according to those that were numbered of them, fifty and three thousand and four hundred.

(24) And Joseph said unto his brothers: ‘I die; but God will surely remember you, and bring you up out of this land to the land which He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.’ (25) And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying: ‘God will surely remember you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.’ (26) So Joseph died, being a hundred and ten years old. And they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

(1) And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. (2) And the woman conceived, and bore a son; and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. (3) And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch; and she put the child therein, and laid it in the flags by the river’s brink. (4) And his sister stood afar off, to know what would be done to him. (5) And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe in the river; and her maidens walked along by the river-side; and she saw the ark among the flags, and sent her handmaid to fetch it. (6) And she opened it, and saw it, even the child; and behold a boy that wept. And she had compassion on him, and said: ‘This is one of the Hebrews’children.’ (7) Then said his sister to Pharaoh’s daughter: ‘Shall I go and call thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?’ (8) And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her: ‘Go.’ And the maiden went and called the child’s mother. (9) And Pharaoh’s daughter said unto her: ‘Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages.’ And the woman took the child, and nursed it. (10) And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses, and said: ‘Because I drew him out of the water.’

(15) And the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah; (16) and he said: ‘When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, ye shall look upon the birthstool: if it be a son, then ye shall kill him; but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.’ (17) But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men-children alive. (18) And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them: ‘Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men-children alive?’ (19) 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 midwife come unto them.’ (20) And God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty. (21) And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that He made them houses.

"And the king of Egypt said to the midwives..."Who are the midwives. Rav says a woman and her daughter in law - Yocheved and Elisheva bat Aminadav. And Rabi Shmuel bar Nachman says a woman and her daughter Yocheved and Miriam. That one of their names was Shifra - she beautified the baby when it would come out full of blood. Puah - that she squirted wine into the babies mouth after it came out of its mother....... In another midrashic account, she was called Puah because of her insolence which, in this depiction, was directed against her father Amram. When Pharaoh ordered the Israelite boys to be cast into the Nile, Amram said: “Shall an Israelite lie with his wife for nothing?” He immediately separated from Jochebed and divorced her. When the Israelites saw this action by Amram, who was the head of the Sanhedrin at the time, they also divorced their wives. Puah told her father: “Father, your decree is harsher than that of Pharaoh! He only decreed against the males, but you have decreed against both the males and the females. It is doubtful whether the decree of the wicked Pharaoh will come to pass, but you are righteous, and so your decree will be fulfilled.” Amram immediately took back his wife, and following his lead, all the other Israelite men did the same. Miriam was accordingly given the name of Puah, since she was insolent (hofi’ah panim) to her father

(1) And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two spies secretly, saying: ‘Go view the land, and Jericho.’ And they went, and came into the house of a harlot whose name was Rahab, and lay there.