Commanding them: When you shall do the office of midwives to the Hebrew women, and the time of delivery is come: if it be a man child, kill it: if a woman, keep it alive.
Rashi
בילדכן WHEN YE DO THE OFFICE OF A MIDWIFE — This word (the Piel) has the same force as בהולידכן (the Hiphil): when you assist them to give birth.
על האבנים UPON THE STOOLS — the seat for the woman in the act of childbirth; in another passage (Isaiah 37:3) Scripture terms it מַשְׁבֵּר. Similar is, (Jeremiah 18:3) “He was at work on the אבנים" — the place of the vessels of (being produced by) the craftsmanship of the potter.
אם בן הוא וגו IF IT BE A SON etc. — He was particular only about the male children because his astrologers had told him that there was to be born to a Hebrew woman a son who would become their deliverer (Exodus Rabbah 1:18).
וחיה has the same meaning as ותחיה THEN SHE SHALL LIVE.
Hebrew and Aramaic words are the commentator’s citations of the sacred text; the English translation that follows each is the translator’s.
Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.