Bible Name Meaning Tool — Search Any Name (KJV)

Shiphrah

Pronounced SHIF-ruh

girl

✓ In the King James Bible — Yes — Shiphrah appears in the King James Bible, including Exodus 1:15-16.

Meaning: "Beautiful; Fair"
Origin: Hebrew

Shiphrah means "beautiful" or "fair" in Hebrew. Along with Puah, she was one of the two Hebrew midwives who refused to carry out Pharaoh's genocidal command to kill Hebrew baby boys. Their moral courage predated and enabled the entire Exodus story. Shiphrah and Puah are remarkable because their names are preserved while the Pharaoh who commanded the atrocity remains unnamed in Scripture. This literary choice suggests that God values moral courage over political power — the midwives' names endure while the tyrant's is forgotten. Their civil disobedience represents one of the earliest recorded instances of women resisting state-sponsored violence. God rewarded their faithfulness by giving them their own families and by using their courage to preserve the nation through which the Messiah would come.

Spiritual meaning

Shiphrah — 'beautiful' — showed that true beauty is moral courage. Her refusal to obey an unjust order reveals that God remembers and rewards those who choose righteousness over compliance.

Related verses (KJV)

"And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah: And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women... if it be a son, then ye shall kill him."
Exodus 1:15-16 (KJV) →
"And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that he made them houses."
Exodus 1:21 (KJV) →

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Questions about biblical name meanings

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Type the name into the search box above. The tool returns the Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, or Latin root behind the name, its literal meaning, and the King James Version passages where it appears.

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