Shiphrah: Bible

by Mayer I. Gruber

Article

Shiphrah (more commonly spelled "Shifra") is one of the two named midwives (the other being Puah) who serve the Hebrew women in Egypt and who contravene Pharaoh’s order to kill at birth all Hebrew males. The feminine proper name Shiphrah is also attested as the name of an Asiatic slave woman in an eighteenth-century B.C.E. papyrus from Egypt.

Bibliography

Albright, W. F. “Northwest-Semitic Names in a List of Egyptian Slaves from the Eighteenth Century bc.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 74 (1954): 222–233.

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How to cite this page

Gruber, Mayer I.. "Shiphrah: Bible." Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. 20 March 2009. Jewish Women's Archive. (Viewed on November 2, 2024) <http://qa.jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/shiphrah-bible>.