Husbandman
One who plows and cultivates land.
Midwife
Those who help other women
give birth to their babies (Genesis 35:17). The task involved coaching the mother through
the delivery, cutting the umbilical cord, bathing the baby, and rubbing it
with salt in the belief that it promoted good health (Ezekiel 16:4).
Newborns were "swaddled" or wrapped snugly in cloth in a way that bound the baby's arms
to its body. If twins were born, the midwife marked the firstborn (Genesis 38:28). Midwives
were sometimes relatives or friends of the mother, but often professionals such as the
Hebrew midwives who refused to obey the Egyptian pharaoh's orders to kill all the boy
babies at birth (Exodus 1:15-22).
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