When Lying is Blessed

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”

The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”

So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own. - Exodus 1:15-21

Did you see in that passage how God blessed the Hebrew midwives for lying? It’s plain as day - they lied to Pharaoh’s face. And God honored them.

Yesterday, Brenna Rubio talked about Immanuel Kant’s philosophical conundrum of ‘the murderer at the door.’ It says, when your neighbor is hiding in your house and someone who wants to kill them comes to your door and asks you if you if they are inside, how do you answer? As Brenna pointed out, the only honest answer is “No” because the question itself is a lie. The true question is, “Can I murder your neighbor?”

What are the circumstances when you might need to fudge the truth for the sake of a higher calling? When is it just self-protection? What makes lying justified?