Potters Wheel
What is the Potters Wheel
אֹבֶן or o’ben is a potter’s wheel but is also an idiom for being pregnant, akin to saying a bun in the oven. You can be a baker with a bun in the oven or you can be a woman with one, they mean very different things.
Where is Potters Wheel Used
“O’ben” is used only twice, once in [Jeremiah 18:3] where God tells Jeremiah to go see the local potter at work, there Jeremiah sees the potter work and when something was wrong in the pot the potter would remake it on the wheel to be something different. God wanted it clear that he controlled nations like the potter and could end or raise up their development based on their actions.
The other time it is used is in [Exodus 1:16] which if properly translated states:
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And he said, when you assist as a midwife to the Hebrews to bear children and when you see them upon the potter’s wheel if it is a son then you shall put him to death, but if it is a daughter then she shall live.
–Exodus 1:16
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Why is Potters Wheel About Pregnancy
Summoning the “midwives” Shiphrah and Puah, the new Pharoah who “did not know Joseph” after trying to limit their numbers with hard labor shifted to culling the male children. He orders that when they observe them on the potters wheel if it is a male pregnancy to end it. This is clearer when you consider that they refuse to do this dark deed and when summoned back explain it to the Pharoah that “Hebrew women are vigorous; they give birth before the midwife gets to them“. This answer is sufficient to the Pharoah who didn’t harm the disobeying midwives.
If you view this through the lens of their orders were to kill the children as they came out of the mother (onto a birthing stool or sella parturientis in Greek that some translations apply the Greek concept to the Egyptian potters wheel) in full view of witnesses this would only work once and the ongoing practice would fail as Hebrew women spread the word that the services of the Egyptian midwives were in the pocket of the Pharoah. It would have been better to do what Pharoah does in the end and just have it enforced that all male children are thrown in the river to drown.
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How are you sure its about Pregnancy?
Egyptians had biases and cultures that differed from Hebrew. One of them was the ram-headed creator-god, Khnum who was an artisan that would mold and shape each human being in the womb upon his egyptian potters wheel granting the physical and psychological qualities that would define their individual nature, not least of which was sex.
The Hebrew women being healthy and full of חָיֶה [chayah], not in need of a medical midwife in the process deliver like wild animals without “civilized” help. This form used only in Exodus 1:19, Chayah often means not just life but wild animal live birthing. The midwives got out of a dangerous and immoral situation by slurring the Hebrew women as wild animals who give birth in the field and not a medical location where a miscarriage agent could be given to the mother. As the Jewish Midrash talks about Exodus 1:19.
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Rather, this is what they said to him: This nation is analogized to the beasts of the field, which do not require midwives. Judah is likened to a lion, …
God was good to the midwives; the people increased and they grew very mighty (Exodus 1:20).
“God was good to the midwives.” What was this good? The king of Egypt accepted their explanations and did not harm them.
-Midrash Shemot Rabbah.1.16
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The midwives got out of a dangerous and immoral situation by slurring the Hebrew women as wild animals who give birth in the field and not a medical location where a miscarriage agent like a egyptian “ḥr nḥp” vaginal plug could be given to the mother.
The Ebers Papyrus (dated around 1550 BC) covers a few options that would have existed such as Silphium, Rue, or Acacia gum dissolved in honey and inserted vaginally to prevent conception or taken orally to induce an abortion.
Read "Sadducees"
For more information see “Sadducees”.
Read "Nicolaitans"
For more information see “Nicolaitans”.
Read "Desires of the Messiah"
For more information see “Desires of the Messiah”.