Birth Bricks, Potter’s Wheels, and Exodus 1,16 317 brick’s use. Both are possible. The discovery of a birth brick in an actual living context in Middle Kingdom Egypt provides strong evidence that this kind of equipment was in general use in Egyptian birthing contexts. * ** Based on the variety of evidence from ancient Near Eastern sources regarding the use of birth bricks in delivery practices, it is most likely that the ’obnayim mentioned in Exodus 1,16 refers to some sort of birthing equipment, as opposed to a reference to genitalia. While the traditional translation has taken this equipment to be a birthing stool, this reflects later Greek and Roman practices, and in fact it seems more likely to refer to the bricks a child is placed on immediately following birth. There is some ambiguity in modern readings of Egyptian literature on this subject and these two pieces of equipment may not have been distinct from one another. The use of the preposition l[ indicates that the ’obnayim there more likely refers to the bricks the child is placed on immediately afterwards but does not rule out the possibility that the reference is to the actual bricks the mother would have knelt on. The fact that this equipment term is attested in both birth contexts and ceramic production contexts provides further evidence for Kilmer ’s suggestion that there was a conceptual link between these two spheres of human activity in the ancient Near East. This link was substantial enough to facilitate the borrowing of vocabulary from one activity’s equipment as referents for the equipment of another activity. Ceramic production and human reproduction were not such different activities in Near Eastern thought. This has long been recognized as explicit in mythological texts. Since this connection transfers to the level of mundane classification and naming of equipment, it points to a deeper level of cognitive connection. The role of the potter and the role of mother/midwife/doctor were closely connected. For Biblical exegesis then, references to ceramic production should not necessarily be taken as references to the mundane world. Nor should the connection between motherhood and creation be glossed over. University of Lethbridge Kevin MCGEOUGH Lethbridge AB (Canada)