Jillian D. Nelson, PhD

Tag: Old Testament

Mothers of the Children of Israel (6)
Rachel’s Long-Awaited Sons

The matriarchs hold a special place in the Hebrew canon and society. They are so much more than “Jacob’s wives” or “the mothers of the Children of Israel.” In this post, we will look at the naming speeches for Rachel’s sons and draw conclusions regarding what they tell us about a family’s complicated dynamic.The naming speeches in this passage come to a triumphant end with the birth of Joseph. “Then God remembered Rachel, and God heeded her and opened her womb. She conceived and bore a son, and said, ‘God has taken away my reproach’; and she named him Joseph, saying, ‘May the Lord add to me another son!’”

Joseph

The barren Rachel is finally remembered by God and given a child. As with Leah, God is an active participant. It is God who opens Rachel’s womb; it is not the work of the mandrakes nor is it a reward for giving Jacob Bilhah (as Leah assumed in the naming of Issachar). Rachel’s response is to say that God has taken away her reproach. She may have felt vindicated by God with the birth of Bilhah’s son Dan, but it is only in the birth of Joseph, which means “addition,” that removes her reproach. She ends by asking the Lord for another son. She now recognizes that the solution to her infertility lies in the realm of the divine. God is a God who remembers the afflicted and works for their benefit.

Ben-oni / /Benjamin

The final naming comes in Genesis 35:16-21.

They journeyed from Bethel; and when they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel was in childbirth, and she had hard labor. When she was in her hard labor, the midwife said to her, “Do not be afraid; for now you will have another son.” As her soul was departing (for she died), she named him Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin. So Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). And Jacob set up a pillar at her grave; it is the pillar of Rachel’s tomb, which is there to this day. Israel journeyed on, and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder

In this passage, Rachel names her son, but Jacob inexplicably renames him. Wilda Gafney puts it this way, “The name Rachel chooses for her second son, Ben-oni, ‘son of my sorrow,’ is not honored by Jacob. He renames the boy Ben-yamin, Benjamin, ‘right-hand son.’” There is no accompanying birth-speech, except perhaps that of her midwive reassuring her that she is having a boy. It is a tragic end to a complicated story.

An Epitaph for Rachel

Lament and blessing characterize the portrayal of Rachel in the Scriptures: a pawn of her father, in conflict with her sister, loved by a man she does not say she loves, ashamed of her infertility, and finally a mother granted fertility by God, dead before seeing her children grown and married, her deathbed wishes disregarded.¹
Wilda Gafney

A Summary of Sibling Rivalry

Leah and Rachel are sisters who are locked in a competition with one another. The thing the women didn’t seem to realize is that they are fighting for different things.

Leah is seeking the favor of Jacob. She desires for him to love her, and this desire comes through in the way she names her children. Her first and last children are both announced with the hope that Jacob will become attached to her, will love her, will favor her. Any jealousy she may feel towards Rachel has nothing to do with their social status, but with their status in the home.

Rachel, on the other hand desires children. She desires a status in society comparable to the status she holds with Jacob. She is favored, and even her barrenness cannot persuade Jacob to reject her. A child, specifically a son, is the one thing she wants and the one thing she cannot have. Despite all her attempts to manipulate her situation and become a mother, she remains barren while Leah mothers seven children until finally God opens her woman allowing her to conceive.

And yet, it is that very gift of children that will kill her; the giving of life takes her life. A darkly ironic moment in a very complex story.

The Sisters Beyond Their Children

The conflict inherent in the nature of the Leah-Jacob-Rachel love triangle seems almost difficult to overcome. However, reader, do not give up hope! ‘

Later we see Leah and Rachel working together for the sake of Jacob in Genesis 31:1-16. Jacob describes to Leah and Rachel the work he has done for Laban, how the Lord has given all of Laban’s flock over to Jacob, and how Laban has looked less favorably upon Jacob because of this.

He then tells them that God has told him to return to his birth land. Leah and Rachel agree that they too are perceived as foreigners in their father’s home and have lost their inheritance. It is better for them to remain with Jacob and do as the Lord has commanded Jacob.

In this scene, there is no rivalry, no in fighting. For their own sakes, and for the sake of their children, they join Jacob to flee from Laban. Perhaps, despite all odds, there is hope that peace can happen in the midst of conflict. But that is a discussion for another day.
1. Wilda C. Gafney, Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, 2017), 61-62.
Other posts in this series

Leah and Rachel Meet Jacob

Leah’s Loveless Marriage

Leah’s First Four Sons

Bilhah and Zilpah: The Enslaved Matriarchs

Mandrakes and Three More Children for Leah
April 4, 2022
Mothers of the Children of Israel (5)

Mandrakes and Three More Children for Leah

The matriarchs hold a special place in the Hebrew canon and society. They are so much more than “Jacob’s wives” or “the mothers of the Children of Israel.” To this point, we have discussed when Rachel and Leah met Jacob, Leah’s loveless marriage and her first four children, and the enslaved matriarchs Zilpah and Bilhah. Now, we will discuss a bit about Rachel and Leah’s relationship and the birth of three more children for Leah, the result of the exchange of mandrakes for sex.

An Exchange of Mandrakes

Genesis 30:14-15 is the first to have a dialogue between Leah and Rachel.

“In the days of wheat harvest Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, ‘Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.’ But she said to her, ‘Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son’s mandrakes also?’ Rachel said, ‘Then he may lie with you tonight for your son’s mandrakes.’”

In many ancient cultures, mandrakes were considered an aphrodisiac. This would explain Rachel’s desire for the “love-apples,” as they were sometimes called. After Reuben, Leah’s eldest, came in from the field with mandrakes, he delivered them to his mother. This brief scene sets the reader up for the first dialogue between Leah and Rachel, and the first time Leah even acknowledges Rachel in the text.

Rachel requested that Leah give her some of Reuben’s mandrakes. Rachel approached Leah in a polite fashion; she even said please. Leah, however, was not so pleasant. She sharply replied, “Is it a small matter for you to take my husband? And would you take my sons mandrakes also?” (30:15). Jeansonne notes, “This statement indicates that as the second but more beloved wife, Rachel has usurped Leah’s position of privilege as first wife and firstborn. It also indicates that at some point in the marriage Rachel has obtained sexual monopoly of Jacob.”¹

Rachel responded by using Jacob as a bargaining tool. She offers to exchange one night with Jacob for Reuben’s mandrakes. And Leah agreed. Rachel’s response indicates three things.

1. Rachel had more control over Jacob’s sexual activity than Leah, and perhaps even Jacob.
2. Leah did not have the same type of access to her husband as Rachel.
3. Rachel is in control of the entire situation. She knew what to offer in order to get what she wanted.

Rachel wanted children, and the mandrakes could be a means to that end. Leah wanted Jacob, and the giving up of the mandrakes was the means to that end.

Leah’s Hired Husband

The interesting twist in the story comes in 30:16.

“When Jacob came in from the field in the evening, then Leah went out to meet him and said, ‘You must come in to me tonight, for I have surely hired you with my son’s mandrakes.’”

Jacob is passive and objectified. In the same way that the sisters were objectified by Laban in 29:21-25 on the wedding night, so Jacob is powerless. He is completely silent and simply does as he is told. The next verse explains just how productive that one night was: “…she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.”

Issachar

This fifth child, Issachar, is born. The speech, “God has given me my hire because I gave my maid to my husband” is a direct response to Leah’s the giving of Zilpah to Jacob, and the “hiring” of Jacob for the night.

Leah seems to be gloating. She acknowledges the favor of God in her pregnancy because she gave her maid to Jacob, but Rachel also gave her maid to Jacob and is yet without children.

Zebulun

Leah’s one night with Jacob clearly does not stop there. After the birth of Issachar, we are told that Leah conceived again. The text says she bears Jacob a sixth son: “God has endowed me with a good gift; now my husband will dwell with me, because I have borne him six sons.”

It is interesting that, after giving Zilpah to Jacob as a wife and naming her children for her in a way that suggests adoption, her naming speech mentions only her six sons.

The naming of Zebulun is also reminiscent of the namings of Reuben and Levi. In all three she hopes that the child will cause her husband to cling to her in a way that he hasn’t yet. After all three, the reader is left assuming that Jacob has not changed.

Dinah

As a sort of encore performance, Leah delivers a baby girl. Dinah has no naming speech. Her birth announcement is sort of an afterthought.

An Epitaph for Leah

From this point on in Genesis, Leah virtually disappears, with her death being reported at 49:31. She is absent from the narrative recounting the rape of her daughter Dinah and Rachel’s death scene, though Jacob requests to be buried with Leah, not Rachel, in 49:29-33. Gafney writes:

Leah the loveless matriarch is a heartbreaking character…There is no happy ending for Leah; she is not fulfilled as a person or as a woman in motherhood. She is not the last woman to go to her grave longing for the love of a man who does not love her but is willing to sleep with her. Pious women readers/hearers may not choose to be Leah, but I suspect Leah’s story canonized her lovelessness as well as her fruitfulness because it rang true to human experience. Leah offers a cautionary tale to women looking for fulfillment in someone else’s love: you cannot make someone love you.^[2]

1. Sharon Pace Jeansonne. The Women of Genesis: From Sarah to Potiphar’s Wife, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), 77.

2. Wilda C. Gafney, Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, 2017), 66-67.

Other posts in this series

Leah and Rachel Meet Jacob

Leah’s Loveless Marriage

Leah’s First Four Sons

Bilhah and Zilpah: The Enslaved Matriarchs

Rachel’s Long-Awaited Sons

April 3, 2022
The Mothers of the Children of Israel (4)
Bilhah and Zilpah: the Enslaved Matriarchs

The matriarchs hold a special place in the Hebrew canon and society. They are so much more than “Jacob’s wives” or “the mothers of the Children of Israel.”  This post introduces Bilhah and Zilpah as mothers for Jacob’s children and examines the ways that their enslaved bodies are used for procreation at the will of their mistresses, Rachel and Leah.

Who are Bilhah and Zilpah?

The readers are first introduced to Bilhah and Zilpah at Genesis 29:24 and 29.  Laban gives Bilhah to Rachel as her slave, and Zilpah to Leah.  They are not mentioned again until they are given to Jacob as wives in 30:4 and 9.  Each time we meet the women, they are passive characters with no voice of their own being gifted and re-gifted at will.

Most translations soften the language to refer to these women as maid-servants.  But, I wholeheartedly agree with Wil Gafney that that language is misleading at best.  She writes,

I choose the translation ‘slave’ rather than ‘servant’ … to emphasize that these persons were bought and sold, used for sex, impregnated, and completely subjugated to the power of those called their mistresses and masters. ‘Servitude’ suggests employment, which is not the case for slaves in the biblical corpus.¹

Bilhah and Zilpah are mothers of two sons each. Bilhah is given to Jacob by Rachel after Rachel realizes that she cannot conceive. Zilpah is given by Leah after she realizes that she has stopped bearing children.

Though Bilhah and Zilpah are commonly understood to be concubines of Jacob, the text calls them wives.  The word is ishah and is always translated as wife when describing Rachel and Leah.  The word for concubine is pilagesh and it does not appear in this section of the text.

Bilhah and Zilpah should be understood as having the same rights as Leah and Rachel since the same word describes all four women in their relationship to Jacob.  If it is Jacob’s emotional availability to these women that determines whether they were concubines or wives, then Leah is as much a concubine for Jacob as either of these women since Jacob’s preference lies with Rachel.

Unlike Leah’s pregnancies, the active participation of God is absent.  There is no divine intervention on Bilhah or Zilpah’s behalf.  Bilhah, by Rachel’s orchestration, conceives first.  The text is clear that all four of Bilhah and Zilpah’s children are born to Jacob, not to Rachel or Leah. Still, Leah and Rachel name these four sons also.

Infertility Threatens Rachel’s Security

Genesis 30:1 says, “Now when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she became jealous of her sister…”   After watching her sister give Jacob son after son, Rachel finally confronts Jacob, demanding children, lest she die.

It is darkly ironic that she views her barrenness as deadly, when she ultimately dies giving birth to Benjamin in 35:16-18, a harrowing reminder of the fragility of life and the dangers of childbirth in the ancient world and, even today.

Jacob becomes angry with Rachel and asks her, quite sharply, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”  Jacob denies any responsibility for the situation and shifts the focus to God.

In Rachel’s day and age, it would have been understood as being the woman’s fault if no children were born into a marriage, and, since Jacob has already impregnated Leah four times by this point, there is no textual evidence to suggest that Jacob is sterile.  Still, It is quite significant that he does not assume Rachel to be at fault for infertility, believing instead that the power to produce children belongs solely to God.

Bilhah: Rachel’s Womb-Slave

Rachel, however, cannot be content with Jacob’s understanding of God as in control of Rachel’s fertility.  As with Sarah in Genesis 16:2, Rachel suggests using Bilhah, her slave woman (or womb-slave, as Wil Gafney aptly describes her), as a surrogate mother. Gafney reminds us, “Bilhah is first Laban’s slave and then Rachel’s; the only service she performs in the text is reproductive.”¹ In Genesis 30:3 she tells Jacob, “Go in to her [Bilhah] that she may bear on my knees, that through her I too may have children.”

And like Abraham, Jacob agrees.

It is uncertain what “bear on my knees” means.  Some believe it is a figurative expression meaning “I will raise her children,” suggesting some sort of ancient ritual indicating the adoption of the child.  Some view this as Rachel’s fertility wish, and I find this more compelling.

It is uncertain what “bear on my knees” means.  Some believe it is a figurative expression meaning “I will raise her children,” suggesting some sort of ancient ritual indicating the adoption of the child.  Some view this as Rachel’s fertility wish, and I find this more compelling.  Jeffrey Tigay describes “Birth on the knees” as more likely reflecting:

the position taken in antiquity by a woman during childbirth, straddling the knees of an attendant (another woman or at times her own husband) upon whose knees the emerging child was received…Perhaps Rachel attended Bilhah herself in order to cure, in a sympathetic-magical way, her own infertility…²

Whatever, it’s precise meaning, it is clear that Rachel is attempting to solve her personal and marital problem by use of her slave’s body.

Bilhah’s first son is Dan.  Rachel appears to claim him as her own in her speech, accrediting God with vindicating her by saying: “God has judged me and has also heard my voice and given me a son” (30:6; emphasis mine).

Bilhah’s second son is Naphtali.  It is in this naming speech that Rachel claims victory over Leah saying: “With mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister, and have prevailed” (30:8).  It seems likely that Rachel understood that she and her sister were “wrestling” for Jacob’s favor, with childbearing being the mechanism for obtaining that favor. Yet the text does not make that clear.

The text also does not reveal if Leah is aware of Rachel’s feelings of animosity at this point.  Nor does it explain how Rachel won in this fight with her sister.  If it is through children, then Leah is still in the lead, so to speak, and her children are biologically her own!  The speech concerning the birth of Naphtali raises many questions that don’t have answers apparent in the text.

Rachel’s first naming speeches, whatever new questions they may raise, indicate that her status with God and with her sister is, at least in her own estimation, in proper order: God has judged her and granted her a son; Leah is defeated.

Zilpah: Leah’s Womb-Slave

Zilpah is the next to become pregnant.  There is no reason for Leah to give Zilpah as a wife to Jacob other than that she has seen she has stopped bearing.  It is unclear whether she wishes Zilpah to have children for Jacob or for herself.  She does, however, name Zilpah’s children.

The first she names Gad, meaning fortune, exclaiming, “How fortunate!” (30:11).  When Asher (meaning “happy”) is born, Leah says “Happy am I forwomen will call me happy” (30:13).

In contrast to Rachel, Leah’s speeches are free from jealousy and strife, yet both women’s speeches acknowledge a sense of contentment and satisfaction, however short-lived it may be.

In the next post, we’ll examine the first reported conversation between Leah and Rachel as well as discuss the birth of two more sons and one daughter to Leah.
1. Wilda C. Gafney, Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, 2017), 58.
2. Wilda C. Gafney, Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, 2017), 57
3. Jeffrey Tigay, “Adoption,” in Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1972).
Other posts in this series

Leah and Rachel Meet Jacob

Leah’s Loveless Marriage

Leah’s First Four Sons

Mandrakes and Three More Children for Leah

Rachel’s Long-Awaited Sons
March 10, 2022
The Mothers of the Children of Israel (3)
Leah’s First Four Sons

The matriarchs hold a special place in the Hebrew canon and society. They are so much more than “Jacob’s wives” or “the mothers of the Children of Israel.” This post looks at the naming of Leah’s first four sons.

Reuben

Reuben is Leah’s and Jacob’s first-born. Genesis reports that Leah said “Because the Lord has looked on my affliction; surely now my husband will love me” (29:32). His name literally means “see, a son.”

Her speech here is two-fold. She first acknowledges the favor that God has shown her. God has indeed seen her affliction and allowed her to bring forth a son. She then concludes that since she has given Jacob his firstborn son, “surely now my husband will love me.” The narrator quickly moves on to the conception and birth of Leah’s next son, which, though not explicitly stating it, assumes the procreative role of Jacob.

Simeon

Leah’s naming of her and Jacob’s second son indicates that the birth of Reuben did not solve her problem as she thought it would: “Because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also” (29:33). Leah believes that God has heard that she is unloved, and has therefore given her Simeon also.

She does not mention Jacob in this speech, but he may be understood as the one that hates her (but, always remember, the text does not clarify that so we’re filling in the gaps). Perhaps she views Simeon as a means of making up for the fact that she is hated, or as a means (as she hoped with Reuben) of gaining Jacob’s love. The text is ambiguous at best.

Regardless of the way Leah interpreted the birth of Simeon, it was not enough to satisfy her longing for her husband, as is evident with the birth of her third child.

Levi

For the first time, Leah recognizes Jacob as a father, saying, “Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons” (29:34). She does not mention God in this speech, and it is the only one of her naming speeches for her biological children that she does not.

Levi’s name is connected with the word yillaweh, which literally means “he will be joined.” His name is almost a prayer, perhaps a talisman, that Jacob will love her. Leah is still not satisfied with her lot.

She has three children – and boys at that! – giving her a place in her society, but she does not have her husband’s love.

Judah

With the birth of her fourth child, Leah’s attitude seems to shift. Her first three sons encouraged her hope that Jacob would love her, but there is no mention of her relationship with Jacob in this speech. Leah simply says, “This time I will praise the Lord.”

Judah’s name has an “association with the term ‘odeh, literally ‘I will praise.”¹ There is no clear reason why her perspective changes with the birth of Judah. Perhaps she recognized that, despite being rejected by her husband, she was favored by God. Or she may have, only momentarily, felt as though Jacob’s attitude toward her had changed. Or she may have been grateful simply for having another son. Whatever her reasoning, Leah is resolved, if not content, to praise God.

Rachel, however, is another story altogether. Rachel’s maneuvers to have children are discussed in the next post of this series
1. Joan Ross-Burstall, “Leah and Rachel: A Tale of Two Sisters.” Word and World Vol. 14 Number 2 (1994), 170.
Other posts in this series

Leah and Rachel Meet Jacob

Leah’s Loveless Marriage

Bilhah and Zilpah: The Enslaved Matriarchs

Mandrakes and Three More Children for Leah

Rachel’s Long-Awaited Sons
March 7, 2022
Miriam, Leader of Israel (4)

Miriam in Biblical Memory and Legend

Part 3 of 4

Miriam was one of Israel’s first leaders and a prophetess for her people. Unlike most women in the Bible, Miriam receives a considerable amount of textual attention. This four-part series surveys some aspects of Miriam’s character and characterization in biblical stories, non-biblical texts, and legendary material.

Miriam in Biblical Memory

Miriam is accounted for in three genealogies and one epitaph of sorts. First, she is listed in Exodus 6:20 in the Septuagint (the name of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, abbreviated LXX). It reads “And Amram took Iochabed, the daughter of his father’s brother, for his own wife, and she bore him both Aaron and Moyses and Mariam, their sister.” In Numbers 26:59, she is again named alongside her brothers, “The name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed daughter of Levi, who was born to Levi in Egypt; and she bore to Amram: Aaron, Moses, and their sister Miriam.” A final biblical genealogy lists her with her brothers in 1 Chronicles 5:29 (6:3 in English Bibles), “The children of Amram: Aaron, Moses, and Miriam.”

Her leadership is assumed in an epitaph found in Micah 6:4: “For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.” Pseudo-Philo 20:8 serves as an extra-biblical epitaph: “And these are the three things that God gave to his people on account of three persons; that is, the well of the water of Marah for Miriam and the pillar of cloud for Aaron and the manna for Moses. And when these came to their end, these three things were taken away from them.”

Miriam the Legend

Several legends developed around Miriam in various Jewish circles. There was a belief (reflected in the Pseudo-Philo passage above) that because of Miriam, a mysterious well accompanied the Hebrew people in the desert. Further, the height measurement of the altar, three cubits, was said to correspond to the three deliverers of Israel: Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.¹

Several traditions refer specifically to the death of Miriam. One legend says that upon her death Moses, Aaron, and the people wept. Additionally, “For six hours, Moses was ignorant of the disappearance of Miriam’s well with Miriam’s death.”² Miriam is the only woman listed whose death is considered atypical in Jewish tradition:

Beside the three Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, only Moses, Aaron, and Miriam breathed their last in this manner, through the kiss of the Shekinah. And these six, together with Benjamin, are the only ones whose corpses are not exposed to the ravages of the worms, and they neither corrupt nor decay.”³

When he [Moses] spoke of the remarkable death that awaited Aaron, Moses meant to allude to the fact that Aaron, like his sister Miriam and later Moses, was to die not through the Angel of Death, but by a kiss from God.⁴

Finally, she is, even in extended tradition, considered a prophet. One name (of four) for the mountain upon which Moses first saw the Promised Land is Nebo, “for upon it died three sinless nebi’im, “prophets,” Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.”⁵

Overall reflections

Miriam was a prophet and a cultic leader. Her leadership is presented without introduction or credentials, it is assumed. She is bold, clever, and capable of dealing with the (unmerited) repercussions of her actions. She is unafraid of approaching and challenging authority. She is caring, nurturing, and concerned for the well being of those entrusted to her. Further, Miriam is loved, deeply and profoundly, by brothers who are willing to take on God to ensure her healing. She is respected and admired by a community that will delay their journey to their Promised Land for her sake. She is remembered as a sinless prophet worthy of being named alongside Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

But the most striking thing about Miriam is simply that she is remembered. Her stories could easily have been ignored or recast. Instead, multiple traditions have developed and her legacy can be felt today.

Louis Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews, 1:648
2. Ginzberg, 1:737
3. Ginzberg, 1:411–412
4. Ginzberg 1:741
5. Ginzberg, 2:814

Other posts in this series

Miriam the Protector

Miriam the Prophet

Miriam the Community Leader

January 15, 2022
Miriam, Leader of Israel (3)

Miriam the Community Leader

Part 3 of 4

Miriam was one of Israel’s first leaders and a prophetess for her people. Unlike most women in the Bible, Miriam receives a considerable amount of textual attention. This four-part series surveys some aspects of Miriam’s character and characterization in biblical stories, non-biblical texts, and legendary material.

In a story that exemplifies the Israelite depedence upon Miriam the leader, Numbers 12 recounts a story of Miram and Aaron confronting Moses. Though the text gives Moses’ foreign wife as the reason for Miriam and Aaron’s confrontation, what they actually say in the text to Moses is entirely unrelated: “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” (12:3). God overhears the confrontation and makes it perfectly clear that God and Moses have a special relationship (12:6-8). Though angry with both Aaron and Miriam, God proceeds to punish only Miriam, afflicting her with leprosy (12:9-10). Deuteronomy 24:9 reminds us of this story in instruction concerning leprosy: “Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on your journey out of Egypt.”

After God punishes Miriam, Aaron immediately goes to her defense. Perhaps recognizing and acquiescing to Moses’ divinely established role as mediator, Aaron pleads to Moses to intervene for Miriam. Moses responds by crying out to God, “O God, please heal her!” (12:13). According to Baruch Levine, the verb for Moses’ plea (to cry out, tza’aq) “expresses the language of prayer, conveying an appeal to God by one in pain.” This indicates that Moses was not merely playing mediator and passing along Aaron’s request to God. Moses’ request was borne out of pain, possibly from seeing his sister suffering and the newly freed Hebrew people potentially losing a leader.

God has Miriam quarantined from the camp for seven days (12:14-15a). The Israelite camp, however, “did not set out on the march until Miriam had been brought in again.” Not only do Aaron and Moses intercede for her healing, the people do not move forward without her. This indicates that the people relied on her as a leader in her own right. God may have it out for Miriam, but Aaron, Moses, and the Israelites are firmly on her side.

There is an extra-biblical tradition around this story that explains more clearly the conflict of Miriam and Aaron with Moses.* Zipporah (Moses’s wife) tells Miriam that since Moses was chosen to receive divine revelation, he has therefore abstained from sexual relations with her. However, neither Miriam nor Aaron, nor any of their “fathers” for that matter, were obligated to abstain because they were chosen for revelation. Miriam and Aaron decide that Moses must be doing this out of pride.

Like the biblical narrative, this story goes to extraordinary lengths to defend Moses’ position, God’s wrath is kindled against Aaron and Miriam, and Miriam takes the brunt of the punishment. Interestingly, Aaron and Moses’ defense of Miriam is extended. Aaron appeals to Moses by recalling all that Miriam has done as their co-leader. Moses does not need convincing because “Moses had determined, as soon as his sister became diseased, to intercede for her before God.” Moses draws a circle around himself and tells God that he will not move from it until God has healed Miriam. Further, if God will not heal Miriam, Moses says that he will do it himself. God agrees to heal Miriam, she is quarantined for a week, and, as in the biblical narrative, the Israelites wait for her return before moving forward.

In the fourth and final part of this series, we will look at Miriam in Biblical memory and the legendary material.

Other posts in this series

Miriam the Protector

Miriam the Prophet

Miriam in Biblical Memory and Legend

January 13, 2022
Miriam, Leader of Israel (2)

Miriam the Prophet

Part 2 of 4

Miriam was one of Israel’s first leaders and a prophetess for her people. Unlike most women in the Bible, Miriam receives a considerable amount of textual attention. This four-part series surveys some aspects of Miriam’s character and characterization in biblical stories, non-biblical texts, and legendary material.

After Miriam’s initial appearance in Exodus 2, she next appears in Exodus 15, after the Hebrew people have fled Egypt and crossed the Reed/Red Sea. In Exodus 15:20, Miriam, explicitly called a prophet, takes up a tambourine and leads the women in dancing, singing “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, horse and rider he has thrown into the sea!” Narratively, this is on the heels of Moses’ longer song of victory (15:1-18), scholars believe that Miriam’s song is perhaps the oldest portion of the Hebrew Bible (and that the longer song probably belonged to her as well!).

A text from caves at Qumran, part of the Dead Sea Scrolls, contains an expansion of Miriam’s song. The manuscript containing the song is named 4Q365, meaning it is the 365^th manuscript or fragment from the fourth cave (of eleven) at Qumran. The extended song of Miriam says:

…I will sing to YHWH for he has triumphed gloriously. Yah is my strength and might…You are great, delivering your people…The enemy’s hope has perished and his memory is forgotten…Your enemies perished in the mighty waters…Your people will exalt you to the heights, for you gave a covenant to our fathers…the one doing glorious things.

This song roots Miriam in a covenant relationship with YHWH, referring either to the Noahic covenant in Genesis 9 or the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 15. It may also refer anachronistically to the Mosaic covenant from Exodus 20.

Though the text explicitly names Miriam as a prophet, she does not act in ways many would understand as prophetic. That is to say, she does not foretell future events or speak on behalf of the divine to her people. Miriam’s activity here, however, is representative of a much broader understanding of prophetic activity in the ancient world.

Wil Gafney, in Daughters of Miriam (41), reviews the activities of biblical characters who are undisputedly considered prophets in the Hebrew Bible. Gafney’s analysis demonstrates that prophetic activity took a variety of forms:

*intercessory prayer
*resolving disputes
*dancing
*drumming
*singing
*giving and interpreting laws
*working wonders

*delivering oracles on behalf of YHWH(sometimes in ecstasy, sometimes demonstratively)
*mustering troops and fighting battles
*archiving their oracles in writing
*experiencing visions

Thus, Miriam leading the liberated Hebrew women in song immediately after their escape from Egypt is decidedly prophetic.

Pseudo-Philo’s Latin Antiquities is a reworking of the biblical narratives from Adam to the death of King Saul. This text, compiled sometime in the mid-first to mid-second century CE, contains expansions, omissions, paraphrases, and summaries of canonical material. In this version of the Exodus 2 story, Miriam prophesies over Moses. The text reads as follows:

And the spirit of God came upon Miriam one night, and she saw a dream and told it to her parents in the morning, saying, “I have seen this night, and behold a man in linen garment stood and said to me, ‘Go and say to your parent, “behold he who will be born from you will be cast forth into the water; likewise through him the water will be dried up. And I will work signs through him and save my people, and he will exercise leadership always.”’” And when Miriam told of her dream, her parents did not believe her.

As with the Biblical text, Miriam is a prophet without explanation, qualification, or credentials. In the third part of this series, I’ll examine Miriam’s role as a community leader.

Other posts in this series

Miriam the Protector

Miriam the Community Leader

Miriam in Biblical Memory and Legend

January 11, 2022
Miriam, Leader of Israel (1)
Miriam the Protector

Part 1 of 4

Miriam was one of Israel’s first leaders and a prophetess for her people. Unlike most women in the Bible, Miriam receives a considerable amount of textual attention. This four-part series surveys some aspects of Miriam’s character and characterization in biblical stories, non-biblical texts, and legendary material.

Miriam’s first appearance is in Exodus 2 although she is not identified by name. In Womanist Midrash, Wilda Gafney suggests that perhaps the reason she is unnamed is because of her noteriety. Regardless of the historical reasons for the young girl’s namelessness, scholars almost universally agree that this daughter is Miriam.

In the Exodus story, the unnamed Pharaoh determined that there are too many Hebrew slaves and worried that they might side with an enemy in the event of a war. He decided to treat the slaves even more ruthlessly and oppressively than before. Yet the Hebrews still multiplied their population. Pharaoh then decided that every male child born to kill every male Hebrew child. To achieve this, he assigned two Hebrew midwives to the task, Puah and Shiphrah. These midwives did not kill the children so Pharaoh took his infanticidal policy to the Egyptian people telling them, “Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live” (1:22).

Moses’ mother, named Jochobed [Exodus 6:20 and Numbers 26:59], managed to hide Moses for three months. She then devised a plan that technically follows the Pharaoh’s command but does not kill her son. Placing Moses in a papyrus basket, she set him among the reeds on the bank of the river. Miriam, then, stood watch to see what would happen to her brother.*

The Pharaoh’s daughter, also unnamed, saw Moses and took pity on him, noting that he must be one of the Hebrew children. Miriam then stepped forward and asked the princess if she should secure a wetnurse for the child. Critically, Miriam asked this before the princess made any mention of adopting the child. The princess agreed and Miriam secured her mother as Moses’ wetnurse. Presumably Jochobed would have worked within the royal household though not necessarily under the princess’ supervision. After Moses was weaned, he is returned to the Pharaoh’s daughter and she raised him as her son.

By securing a wetnurse, Miriam secures survival for her brother and, ultimately, for her people. She does not wait for the Pharaoh’s daughter to speak before she boldly steps forward and negotiates her brother’s life, adoption, and care with a woman who could have had her killed alongside her brother. Jubilees extends this protector characterization by showing her to be a constant guardian for Moses while he is most vulnerable before negotiating his adoption into the Pharaoh’s household.

*The book of Jubilees (c. 160-140 BCE), a recasting of the familiar canonical texts, adds a curious detail. Jubilees 47:4 says that Moses was in the basket for 7 days, his mother would nurse him by night, and Miriam would protect him from the birds during the day.
Other posts in this series

Miriam the Prophet

Miriam the Community Leader

Miriam in Biblical Memory and Legend
January 9, 2022