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The Problem of Bilhah and Zilpah

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The Problem of Bilhah and Zilpah ---------------------------------------------- 7.1 THE DILEMMA ---------------------------------------------- ------------------------- CHAPTER 7 ----------------------- LITERATURE IN SUPPORT OF LAW: THE PROBLEM OF BILHAH AND ZILPAH 7.1 THE DILEMMA The biblical narratives regarding Hagar, Bilhah and Zilpah, the slave-wives of Abraham and Jacob who bear children on behalf of Sarah, Rachel, and Leah, closely reflect the “surrogacy” contracts that are found in various eras and locations in the ancient Near East.1 These arrangements generally involved a slave woman provided to the husband by the wife, or bought by the couple, who was to bear children on behalf of the wife. Apparently typical of such arrangements was the rather ambiguous status of the “surrogate,” as is attested, for instance, in an OB contract (CT VIII 22b, UAZP 77) that refers to the purchase of a girl by a male, PN3, and female, PN4 (presumably husband and wife): PN1 mārat PN2 itti PN2 abīša PN3 u PN4 išāmūši ana PN3 aššat ana PN4 amat ūm PN1 ana PN4 bēltīša ul bēltī attī iqtabu ugallabši ana kaspim inaddišši PN1 is the daughter of PN2; from her father, PN2, PN3 and PN4 have bought her. To PN3 [husband] she is (in the status of ) a wife, to PN 4[wife] she is (in the status of ) a slave. On the day that PN1 says to PN4 her mistress: “You are not my mistress,” she (may) shave her and sell her. 1 For discussions of these contracts, see, e.g., A. K. Grayson and J. van Seters, “The Childless Wife in Assyria” (NA documents); Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law chap. 6, esp. 106 (OB documents); and Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “Patriarchal Family Relationships and Near Eastern Law,” Biblical Archeologist 44 (1981): 209-14 (OB documents). — 313 — ---------------------------- Chapter 7. LITERATURE IN SUPPORT OF LAW ---------------------------- The biblical accounts of Bilhah and Zilpah also reflect this ambiguity, as we will see below. Further, their status and the status of their offspring present an interesting dilemma with respect to the matrilineal principle. Under mishnaic law (mQidd. 3:12) these women would be deemed incapable of qiddushin, and their four offspring (Dan, Naali, Gad and Asher) would legally be slaves. We have noted the inconsistency in reaction to slave status in various legal sources. I suggest that postbiblical narratives of Bilhah and Zilpah in so-called literary sources—such as found in apocrypha, Targumim, aggadic midrash, and within some of the legal sources—show the same sort of inconsistency in their reactions to the status of these women. Thus, for instance, discomfort with the women’s slave origins is explicitly revealed in the Bavli and Targum references, as well as in certain later midrashim associated with the school of R. Moshe haDarshan; other references, however, seem indifferent to the question of their slave status. These competing traditions suggest that the mishnaic disapproval of slave- ee intermarriage, and the consequent effects on a child’s status, did not constitute a unanimous, linear tradition. 7.2 BIBLICAL REFERENCES TO BILHAH AND ZILPAH The biblical passages regarding the origins of these two “slave-wives” reveal them as women of apparently dubious ancestry and limited deeds; they are described simply as shefaḥot belonging to Lavan and given in turn to his daughters Rachel and Leah when each married Jacob (Gen. 29:24, 29). As a result of an apparent competition between the two daughters to bear children, each daughter donates her shifḥah to Jacob, in a repetition of Sarah’s donation of her shifḥah Hagar to Abraham (Gen. 16:2ff ). Bilhah gives birth to sons Dan and Naphtali, and Zilpah to sons Gad and Asher. A review of the relevant passages in Gen. 30:3-13 indicates the terseness of the narrative, which is careful to keep the two women marginal to the action: ותאמר הנה אמתי בלהה בא אליה ותלד על ברכי ואבנה גם אנכי ממנה. ותתן לו את בלהה שפחתה לאשה ויבא אליה יעקב. ותהר בלהה ותלד ליעקב בן. ותאמר רחל דנני אלהים וגם שמע בקלי ויתן לי בן על כן קראה שמו דן. ותהר עוד ותלד בלהה שפחת רחל בן שני ליעקב...ותקרא שמו נפתלי. ותרא לאה כי עמדה מלדת ותקח את זלפה שפחתה ותתן אתה ליעקב לאשה. — 314 — ---------------------- 7.2 BIBLICAL REFERENCES TO BILHAH AND ZILPAH ---------------------- ותלד זלפה שפחת לאה ליעקב בן...ותקרא את שמו גד. ותלד זלפה שפחת לאה בן שני ליעקב...ותקרא את שמו אשר. [Rachel said]: Here is my amah Bilhah; lie with her, and she shall give birth on my knees, and I will be built up from her. She gave him [Jacob] Bilhah her shifḥah as a wife, and Jacob lay with her. Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Rachel said: God has judged me, and also heard my voice and gave me a son; therefore she called his name Dan. [Bilhah] conceived again, and Bilhah the shifḥah of Rachel bore a second son to Jacob...and she [Rachel] called his name Naftali. Leah saw that she had left off giving birth; she took Zilpah her shifḥah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. Zilpah the shifḥah of Leah bore Jacob a son...and she [Leah] called his name Gad. Zilpah the shifḥah of Leah bore Jacob a second son...and [Leah] called his name Asher. Like Hagar, the women are variously described as amah, shifḥah, and ishah. Unlike Hagar, however, these two shefaḥot have no period of rebellion or speech of their own.2 They are little more than surrogate wombs, deliberately dissociated om the biological fact of motherhood: Rachel says (Gen. 30:3), “I will be built/have children through [Bilhah]” (the Hebrew ;((build) בנה son/child), and) בן can be taken as a play on the words אבנה it is Rachel and Leah who actually name the children borne by the other women. The inherent ambiguity of the surrogate is further reflected in the fact that some of the biblical chronologies do emphasize Bilhah and Zilpah as the mothers—for instance, Gen. 33:2 (Jacob’s meeting with Esau, albeit in a position of greater danger which may indicate lesser status), Gen. 35:25-6 (a listing of the sons of Jacob), and Gen. 46:18, 25 (describing the migration to Egypt). Yet in Ruth 4:11, it is only Rachel and Leah who are .(אשר בנו שתיהן את בית ישראל) ”said to have “built the house of Israel Further, though the Genesis 30 passage quoted above clearly describes Bilhah and Zilpah as “wives” of Jacob, this description is not maintained consistently. Genesis 32:23, for instance, expressly distinguishes between the two groups of women: 2 Bilhah in one instance is also called a pilegesh (Gen. 35:22). As I suggest in chapter 1, a) the word pilegesh should be translated as “consort” rather than “concubine,” and does not indicate a particular legal status; b) the word pilegesh may have been added to the account of the Bilhah-Reuven incident in Gen. 35:22, so as to avoid any suggestion that Bilhah was Jacob’s wife and thus that Reuven was guilty of incest; thus even within the biblical text itself there may have been an uncertainty regarding her status. — 315 — ---------------------------- Chapter 7. LITERATURE IN SUPPORT OF LAW ---------------------------- ...ויקח את שתי נשיו ואת שתי שפחתיו ואת אחד עשר ילדיו... ...and he [Jacob] took his two wives and his two shefaḥot and his eleven sons... Genesis 35:25 and 26 similarly refer to Bilhah and Zilpah as the shefaḥot of Rachel and Leah respectively, while 46:18 and 25 refer to Zilpah and Bilhah as being given by Lavan to Leah and Rachel. Further, Bilhah and Zilpah and their children are clearly placed closest to the danger at Jacob’s meeting with Esau (Gen. 33:1, 2, 6). Yet despite these indications of their subordinate rank, it is only Bilhah who is explicitly mentioned by name as a wife of Jacob in the genealogies of Chronicles (1Chr. 7:13). This “scheme” of surrogate and diverse motherhood may reflect, as has been suggested by scholars,3 an “awareness of unequal degrees of kinship” among the founding groups of Israel; yet there is nothing in the Bible to suggest that any of the tribes was regarded as of lower status than the rest. Genesis 37, recounting the situation leading up to Joseph’s abduction by his brothers, may suggest some ill-feeling on the part of the sons of evil talk), was reported by Joseph to) דבה רעה Bilhah and Zilpah, whose his father Jacob (v. 2).4 Yet their mothers are still referred to in this verse as the nashim (wives), of Joseph’s father.5 3 See, e.g., John Bright, A History of Israel (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1959), 142-4⒊ 4 Such ill-feeling was read into this story by the author of the apocryphal story “Joseph and Aseneth” (C. Burchard, “Joseph and Aseneth,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha [ed. J.H. Charlesworth; New York: Doubleday, 1985], 177-247). The story describes a plot against Joseph by the Pharaoh’s son, who attempts to enlist the aid of the sons of the “handmaids” (24:2): And his servants said to him into the ear, saying, “Behold, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, Leah’s and Rachel’s maidservants, Jacob’s wives, are hostile to Joseph and Aseneth and envy them….” The story continues at vv. 7-9: And Pharaoh’s son lied to them [the sons] and said, “… I heard Joseph your brother saying I will blot them out om the earth and all their offspring lest they share the inheritance with us, because they are children of maidservants….” 5 We may note also that in 1Chr.
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