Birth Bricks, Potter’s Wheels, and Exodus 1,16 (1) In Chapter 1 of the book of Exodus, the king of Egypt gives instructions to the two midwives, Shiprah and Puah, to kill the male Hebrew children as a means of controlling the growing population of Hebrews in Egypt. The Hebrew of this passage is not particularly difficult, with the exception of one term. Exod 1,16 reads: hyjw ayh tbAµaw wta ˆtmhw awh ˆbAµa µynbahAl[ ˆtyarw twyrb[hAta ˆkdlyb rmayw The problematic word is ’obnayim. This word is a virtual hapax, and commentators have argued for numerous translations of ’obnayim. The only other attestation of this word in Biblical Hebrew is in Jer 18,3. There, however, the context of the use of the term is not childbirth, but ceramic production. Despite the Jeremiah passage, the best interpretation of this term understands it as a reference to some kind of birthing equipment, most likely a birthing brick. This reading is widely held, although other suggestions are frequently offered. That this term is best understood as birth brick, however, is apparent based on linguistic evidence, based on Mesopotamian and Hittite analogy, based on well documented Egyptian practices, and based on the actual discovery of a birth brick uncovered in the recent Yale-Pennsylvania expeditions at Middle Kingdom Abydos. Furthermore, given the strong evidence for reading ‘obnayim explicitly as birth brick(s), Kilmer’s suggestion that the brick acted as a symbol for the construction life can be supported and extended to demonstrate that child birth and clay production activities were, at least semiotically, related. 1. Previous Translation Attempts of ’obnayim Most modern translations of ’obnayim in Exodus 1,16 reflect the belief that this must be some kind of birth equipment. Both the JPS and the NRSV take the word as “birthing stool”. The JPS provides a (1) A modified form of this paper was read at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Atlanta, 2004 in the Egyptology and Ancient Israel section, although the idea for the paper itself arose in a seminar on Exodus led by Jeffrey Tigay. Thanks are due to Matthew Rutz, Jeffrey Tigay, Joseph Wegner, Theresa Musacchio, and Nicholas Picardo for various comments, suggestions, bibliography, and corrections.