Women of the Bible Jacob’s Women: Rachel, Leah, Zilpah, Bilhah Dinah Pastor Ritva Williams March 2016 RECAP • origins in Ur (southern Iraq), migrate to Haran (northern Iraq), then Canaan. • semi-nomadic pastoralists herding sheep and goats, often living close to settlements/cities. • practice endogamy = marriage within the family/clan/tribe, thus Sarah was Abraham’s 1/2 sister; Rebekah was Isaac’s 1st cousin once removed. • use of slaves as surrogates by infertile wives, e.g. Hagar who is the mother of Abraham’s 1st born son. • practice of sexual hospitality, e.g. Sarah is twice passed off as Abraham’s sister & taken into the harems of kings (Egypt & Gerar); Isaac similarly tries to pass Rebekah off as his sister during a famine that sends them to seek refuge in Gerar, but they are caught (Genesis 26). • Rebekah schemes to promote her favorite son, Jacob. Together they successfully deceive Isaac into giving Jacob, Esau’s blessing and birthright. Rebekah urges Jacob to flee from his brother’s wrath by going to her brother Laban in Haran. READ GENESIS 27:26-28:9 The pattern of endogamous marriages continues as Jacob is sent to Haran to marry one of the daughters of his mother’s brother, i.e. a first cousin. His brother Esau, already had two wives: Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath, the daughter of Elon the Hittite (Genesis 26:34-35). The Hittites were descendants of Heth, the second son of Canaan, the son of Ham (Genesis 10:15-20), i.e. a tribal group living in the region from Sidon south to Gaza and eastward to Sodom and Gomorrah. Hence, Esau’s marriages were exogamous (outside his family/clan/tribe). Why does he now seek an endogamous marriage with Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, his father’s 1/2 brother. What is his motive?

1 READ GENESIS 29:1-14 • How is Jacob’s first meeting with Rachel similar to and/or different from Abraham’s servant’s first encounter with Rebekah? READ GENESIS 29:15-30:24 • What goes wrong in Jacob & Rachel’s love story? How does this create dysfunction in Jacob’s family? • Why do you think stories of these dysfunctional families are included in the Bible? (Check out the Holiness Code in Leviticus 18: 9, 11, 18). READ GENESIS 31:1-55 • What role do Rachel and Leah play in the disagreements between Jacob and Laban? • The “household gods” (teraphim) were small figurines of female shapes, perhaps ancestral spirits or other divine beings. Possession of them seems to have been associated with inheritance and especially with leadership of the family/clan, i.e. the right to assume the role of the paterfamilias.

2 READ GENESIS 33:18-34:31 • What do we learn about the role and status of women in ancient Canaan? • Are there any heroes in this incident? Who are the victims? Who is blameworthy and why? • Why is this incident recorded? What are we supposed to learn from it? • Dinah’s fate: according an ancient rabbinic tradition (Pirke Rabbi Eliezer haGadol) Dinah gave birth to a daughter, Asenath. Jacob’s sons wanted to kill the infant, but Jacob took the child, hung a gold medallion around her neck with the inscription qodesh l’yhwh (“holy to God”) on it, and had her taken to Egypt, where she was adopted by an Egyptian official named Potiphera. Asenath was the Egyptian woman who became the wife of Joseph and bore him two sons Manasseh and Ephraim. It was because of this union that the tribe of Joseph received a double portion in the distribution of land in Israel. (www.jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/asenath-midrash-and-aggadah) READ GENESIS 35:1-21 • What is the aftermath of the Dinah incident? • Why do you think Jacob insists on burying the “foreign gods” (teraphim) that are among them?

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