But what we wanted to say was, that she was a faithless wife, a reckless lover, a revengeful and unforgiving woman, since Joseph was left to languish in captivity for two long years, without any effort on her part, as far as we can learn or infer, to accomplish his release.
At this period in the history of the Jews a new king arose in Egypt, and fearing the great number of the Jews, he "set over them task-masters, to afflict them with their burdens;" "but the more they afflicted them the more they multiplied and grew."
Then the king, in the usual arrogance of power, ignorantly supposing that women were obedient and never dreaming they would dare to disregard the commands of royalty, spoke to the Hebrew midwives, and in the easy, off-hand manner that kings had in those days, told them to kill all the boy babies that came to the Jews, but to save the girl babies alive.
And did they do it? Not at all! They simply looked at each other, laughed at the king, and utterly ignored his commands, and then when majesty in dread power called them to account, with a shrewdness characteristic of the females of the Old Testament they invented a plausible excuse, baffled the king, shielded the Jews and saved themselves.