Exodus Chapter 1, Verse 16
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16: And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew
women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye
shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.
16: And he said, When ye do the office of midwives to the Hebrew women, and they are about to be delivered, if it be a male, kill it; but if a female, save it.
ויּאמר in Ex 1:16 resumes the address introduced by ויאמר in Ex 1:15. The expression על־האבנים, of which such various renderings have been given, is used in Jer 18:3 to denote the revolving table of a potter, i.e., the two round discs between which a potter forms his earthenware vessels by turning, and appears to be transferred here to the vagina out of which the child twists itself, as it were like the vessel about to be formed out of the potter's discs. Knobel has at length decided in favour of this explanation, at which the Targumists hint with their מתברא. When the midwives were called in to assist at a birth, they were to look carefully at the vagina; and if the child were a boy, they were to destroy it as it came out of the womb. וחיה for חייה rof ו from חיי, see Gen 3:22. The w takes kametz before the major pause, as in Gen 44:9 (cf. Ewald, §243a).
