Maia (μαία, G3219) means midwife — the woman who assists at birth. The word does not appear in the standard New Testament text but is found in some manuscripts and in the Septuagint (LXX) — Genesis 35:17; 38:28; Exodus 1:15–21. The Hebrew equivalent is meyyaledet (H3205, midwife). In Exodus, the midwives Shiphrah and Puah (meyyaledot) defy Pharaoh's decree to kill Hebrew male infants — one of Scripture's earliest acts of civil disobedience.
The midwives of Exodus 1 — Shiphrah and Puah — are among the most extraordinary moral heroes in all of Scripture. Their vocation was bringing life into the world, and when ordered to end life at birth, they feared God more than Pharaoh (Exodus 1:17,21). The text declares that 'God was kind to the midwives' and 'because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.' This is divine reward for civil disobedience rooted in the fear of God — not rebellion for self-interest but refusal on behalf of the most vulnerable. The midwife (maia) stands at the threshold of life, and in this story, her faithfulness becomes the hinge on which the entire Exodus narrative turns: one of those Hebrew boys she protected was Moses. The theology of maia is the theology of life-preserving courage in the face of death-ordering power.