“Stones” (Ex. 1:16)

In a brief Critical Note in the JBL (122/4: 731-33) argues that the “stones” in Exodus 1:16 are neither a birthing stool nor a reference to male genitals. The author, Scott Morschauser, suggests that the word means potter’s wheel (referring to Jer 18:3), and points to Egyptian evidence that the “potter’s wheel” was an image of gestation ?Ethe baby being on the “potter’s wheel” was being formed in the womb into a “vessel.” Hence, what Pharoah demands is not that the midwives kill newborns, but that they abort male children in the womb. Morchauser says that Egyptian medical texts include “recipes for determining the sex of an unborn child.” The Hebrew midwives’ excuses, on this reading, are that the women gave birth prematurely, before the midwives could do their prenatal exams. Thus, the Pharaoh launches a campaign of increasing violence against Israel: first forced labor; then forced abortion; finally, direct infanticide.