Women's Rights
in
Old Testament Times

by
James R. Baker

Signature Books; Salt Lake City
© 1992 by Signature Books.

Table of Contents:

Preface
1. Twelve Ancinet Legan Documents
2. The Law of the Keeper
3. Rachel's Household
4. Metronymic Marriage
5. Sarai/Sarah's Household
6. Rebekah's Household
7. Potiphar's Wife
8. David's Household
9. The Inheritance Rights of Wives
10. The Daughters of Zelophehad
11. Miscellaneous Cases
Author

V.

Sarai/Sarah's Household

Sarai

Who was Sarai? We know she was the wife of Abraham. But she was also represented to Pharaoh as Abraham's sister. To Abimelech Abraham said, “And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife” (Gen. 20:12). This riddle would suggest that Terah had more than one wife by whom he had children and Abraham married a half-sister—unheard of among the common people of Mesopotamia. The only ones who married their sisters were the Pharaohs of Egypt—and this because gods, which the Pharaohs were esteemed to be, could only marry goddesses.

Perhaps Josephus holds the key to this mystery. According to him, Sarai, or Sarah,¹ was born to Haran, the brother of Abram in a city of the Chaldeans called Ur.² This would make her Abram's niece. According to the account in Genesis 11:28-29, Haran died before the marriage of Abram and Sarai. If in this interval Terah adopted Sarai, a common practice at the time, then Sarai would have been Abram's legal sister at the time of her marriage and yet not proscribed from marriage because her blood relationship was niece. Further evidence that this might be the case is the fact that Nahor, Abraham's other brother, married Milcah, another daughter of Haran and according to Josephus a sister to Sarai.

Sarai and Abram moved from Ur to Haran, situated in southern Turkey just north of the Syrian border. Here her husband received his first biblically recorded revelation from God. He was told to leave Haran and go to a land which God would show him. He would become a great nation, and through him all nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12:1-3). The revelation that Abram would become a great nation must have been a great surprise to Sarai, for at sixty-five she had not been able to conceive.

Sarai and Abram left for Canaan accompanied by Lot. If Sarai was the daughter of Haran, then Lot was Sarai's brother. They traveled to the promised land of Canaan only to find it ravaged by drought. Abram built an altar at Shechem, where the Lord again appeared and confirmed that the land was his (Gen. 12:6-7). Later at Bethel Abram again called upon God (v. 8). We do not know what occurred, but subsequently Abram left Canaan and traveled to Egypt, presumably at divine direction.

The Egyptian episode is puzzling. In Egypt Abram presented himself and Sarai as brother and sister rather than as husband and wife (Gen. 12:12-13). There is no evidence that the Egyptians were in the habit of killing husbands to obtain their wives, nor was this happening in any other contemporary civilization. Abram was forewarned that he would run into trouble in Egypt, for he was able to prophetically assure Sarai, “Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee” (v. 13).

Sarai's beauty impressed “the Egyptians,” specifically “the princes also of Pharaoh” who “commended her before Pharaoh.” It is not clear whether Pharaoh saw her before making the decision to have her “taken into Pharaoh's house,” meaning his harem (Gen. 13:14-15). To Abram he paid a magnificent bride-price of “sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels” (12:16). Presumably here Sarai also received her maidservant Hagar. Then evidently before Sarai could be violated, an outbreak of “great plagues” on “Pharaoh and his house” somehow revealed to Pharaoh that she was Abram's wife (vv. 17-18).

Pharaoh protested with some justification to Abram, “Why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?” But he sent Abram away with “all that he had” (Gen. 12:20), allowing him to keep the bride-price as well. This is puzzling, as Abram had received the bride-price under fraudulent pretenses and should have returned it.

There are two possible reasons why. First, Pharaoh's priests may have told him that Abram's God was afflicting him and his people because of his lust for Sarai. Adultery under Egyptian law—even unintended adultery—was “the great sin”³ and carried the death penalty.⁴ Pharaoh may have allowed Abram to retain the bride-price as his penance. Middle Assyrian law provides a precedent for mistaken involvement with a married woman. According to tablet A 22, if a man took a woman with him on a journey and was not aware that she was married, he had to pay a major fine to her husband and possibly forfeit his life if he had had relations with her.⁵

A second reason Abram was allowed to keep his property may have been as compensation for teaching Egyptian scholars and priests arithmetic and astronomy, thus being accepted as a man of great sagacity.⁶

Abram had a trusted servant whose name according to the scriptural account was Eliezer of Damascus, a houseborn slave. At some time prior to Sarai's seventy-fifth year, she acquiesced to the adoption of Eliezer. The scriptural narrative does not mention Eliezer's adoption or a contract, but Abram spoke of him as his “heir” (Gen. 15:3).

It is improbable that Abram would have used this term carelessly, especially in such a setting. Although we do not know what Abram's legal understanding was, it seems unlikely that a slave could have been referred to as an heir unless he had been so designated by contract.⁷ If Eliezer had not been adopted, Abram would have referred to his brothers or his nephews such as Lot as his heirs.

It was not uncommon in most ancient Near East jurisdictions for a childless couple to adopt a son.⁸ In my view Sarai agreed to the adoption of Eliezer because it was a more acceptable option to her than providing her husband with a second wife.⁹ But an adopted son always ran the risk of being replaced by a biological son, although only rarely was an adopted son disinherited completely.¹⁰

After Abram was told by God that he had erred in assuming he could make Eliezer his heir, he was further informed, “(B)ut he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir” (Gen. 15:4). Then Sarai, still barren, could see no other way to provide her husband with an heir of his body except to present her slave Hagar to him to be his second wife.¹¹ Marriage contracts granting a woman the right to provide her husband with a slave to bear children were not without precedent in Old Babylon. The husband still had the final say as to whether he would accept the maid from his wife, but if the contract was clear on the matter, the choice of which maid was not his.¹²

Slavery was widely practiced anciently. Freemen or freewomen could own male or female slaves without any known limitations. Existing documents show that women owned male slaves, although biblical legislation and contemporary legal codes deal only with male ownership of slaves of both sexes.¹³ Numerous marriage contracts, bills of sale, and court records indicate that it was common for women to own female slaves from the earliest times. If a wife was barren, she could acquire a child by having her husband impregnate her slave. If she did not have a slave, her husband had the right to marry a second wife.¹⁴

In one Old Babylonian contract, a husband and wife together purchased a slave named Shamash-nuri for five shekels of silver. To the husband she was a wife (slave-wife); to the wife she was a slave. If Shamash-nuri “despised” her mistress, she could be shaved and sold as a slave.¹⁵ Being a slave-wife was a legal status. If she became a concubine, it meant that she had gained her freedom.¹⁶ The slave-wife could be manumitted voluntarily by her owner(s). In the case of divorce or upon her husband's death, she became automatically free.¹⁷ Thus in this one case, a slave's right to freedom overrode the wife's property right. The husband and the chief wife together could offer voluntary manumission at any time.¹⁸

Sarai took the initiative in the matter of Hagar. Possibly her marriage contract obligated her to do so. Upon the birth of Ishmael, Eliezer dropped from primary heir to secondary heir, because if a chief wife had no son, a son from a concubine or slave-wife was the heir.¹⁹ At Ishmael's birth then, Ishmael became the primary heir apparent. When Isaac was born, Isaac became the primary heir, and Ishmael was relegated to the position of secondary heir, inheriting only if Isaac died before him and had no children.

Unwisely, Hagar as soon as she became pregnant “despised” Sarai (Gen. 15:4). This was apparently a sufficiently common problem that the Code of Hammurabi (and the much earlier Laws of Ur-Nammu) had a provision for it. When a slave-wife upon conceiving or bearing children tried to elevate herself to the status of her mistress, her mistress could brand her with a slave mark and return her to the rank of slave.²⁰ She would no longer enjoy the special benefits and prestige of being the husband's consort and would be relegated to whatever lowly slave-tasks her mistress prescribed for her. There is no evidence Hagar would lose her right to be free upon the husband's death or in the event she was divorced—or cast out. If the misbehaving slave-wife had not conceived or borne children, her mistress could sell her.²¹

Sarai, angered by Hagar's behavior, suggested to Abram that he might share some blame (“My wrong be upon thee”; Gen. 15:5). Abram simply reminded her of the law: “Behold, thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee” (v. 6). Sarai was the chief wife, and the slave was her property.

The record says that Sarai “dealt hardly” with Hagar (Gen. 15:6). We do not know exactly what Sarai did. In addition to the branding and demotion (humiliation) allowed by the Code of Hammurabi, the Ur-Nammu code allowed an owner to scour the mouth of an insolent slave with a quart of salt.²² Other forms of corporal punishment such as flogging were available. Hagar fled into the wilderness, becoming a runaway slave. It seems unlikely that she could have eluded pursuit from trained hunters, so probably Sarai ordered that she be allowed to go.

The narrative continues: An angel found Hagar in the desert by a well, confirmed that she would bear a son and instructed her to “return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands” (Gen. 16:9). Hagar returned to camp and reconciled herself with Sarai, was reinstated as slave-wife, and bore the eighty-six-year-old Abram a son whom he named Ishmael. Hagar bore no further children, and it is reasonable to assume that Sarai withdrew her slave from any further connubial relations with Abram.

The laws of the time favored the inheritance of biological sons over adoptive sons whether by slave-wives, concubines, or harlots.²³ According to Middle Assyrian law dating from about four hundred years later and from the earlier Code of Lipit-Ishtar, if such a son was a man's only biological son, he would be his sole heir.²⁴

Was Ishmael, son of a slave-wife, Abram's firstborn? Chronologically speaking he was. But according to the Code of Hammurabi dating from about 1750 B.C.,²⁵ Abram had to acknowledge Ishmael as his heir for him to be considered firstborn. In many verses of Genesis, Ishmael is called the son of Abraham, and at least one historian interprets these passages to mean that Abraham had enfranchised Ishmael with heir status.²⁶ However, nowhere in the record does Abraham call Ishmael “my son” or “my child” in the legal vernacular necessary to raise Ishmael to the status of heir. Further, Code of Hammurabi section 170 cited above suggests that the father had the right to so designate sons born to him of “his female slave” and makes no mention of any rights the father had regarding his children by his wife's female slave.

The scriptural record though not specific allows us to hypothesize that Abraham wanted to acknowledge Ishmael as his heir but that Sarah prevented him, even though she had initially given Hagar to Abraham for the purpose of conceiving a child. Obviously she had changed her mind at some point. In the only scriptural passage in which Sarah's exact words are quoted about Ishmael, she calls him “the son of this bondwoman” (Gen. 21:10), hardly a term of endearment. The Lord uses the same term in speaking to Abraham about Ishmael (v. 13). Therefore, Ishmael never seems to have been elevated to the status of an heir.

In Sarai's eighty-ninth year, the Lord reminded Abram of the covenant made at Haran, that Abram's seed would be God's covenant people. At this subsequent visit, God established circumcision as the token of the covenant between God and Abraham. Abraham laughed, for God told him Sarah would have a son of her own (v. 16). But then he remembered that Ishmael might be designated her legal offspring and said, “O that Ishmael might live before thee!” (v. 18). But God again corrected him: Sarah truly would have a son, Abraham should call his name Isaac (“laughter”), and the covenant would continue through him (v. 21). The ninety-nine-year-old Abraham circumcised every male in the household, including himself and thirteen-year-old Ishmael that same day but apparently did not tell Sarah about the promised son.

Sarah must have suffered greatly over the years and felt mocked of God. On numerous occasions God had promised her husband that he would be the father of nations and yet she, his wife, after more than seventy years of marriage had borne him no son. Then about three months later, the Lord, in company of two others (Gen. 18:1-15), visited Abraham and again promised him a son by Sarah, who overheard and laughed, “After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?” (v. 12). The Lord turned to Abraham and asked him why Sarah laughed: “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (v. 14). Then the Lord promised to return in nine months when Sarah gave birth to her child.

Isaac was born at the appointed time and was circumcised on the eighth day. Commenting happily on his name, Sarah said, “God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me” (Gen. 21:6). It was indeed an astonishing joke: a woman giving birth at age eighty-nine or ninety (17:17).

Sarah had finally provided her husband with an heir. Isaac was the firstborn son of Abraham's chief wife and had full rights of heirship, taking precedence over an adoptive son or the son of a slave-wife. But about the time of Isaac's weaning, Sarah found Ishmael mocking Isaac (Gen. 21:9). Sarah demanded that Abraham expel Hagar and her son. As owner of the slave, Sarah still had control over Hagar and Ishmael. She had given her to Abraham—and she could take her away, compelling Abraham to divorce her (i.e., cast her out of his house). Abraham reluctantly (v. 11) divorced Hagar and sent her and her son away with nothing but bread and water.

Hagar

Hagar, apparently through no choice of her own, was the slave-wife of Abraham. There is no evidence that she was a reluctant wife. Through their son Ishmael, Abraham fathered the Arabs. Through Sarah's son Isaac, Abraham fathered the Hebrews. Through his wife Keturah, Abraham fathered the Midianites, the Kenites, and other nations. Hagar has the dubious distinction of being the only woman in the narratives to be divorced by her patriarch/husband.

Hagar was a tragic figure. She apparently first joined Abram's entourage in Egypt, where she is identified as “an handmaid [or slave], an Egyptian” (Gen. 16:1). This suggests that she was Pharaoh's personal gift to Sarai.

Of all the types of slaves, what sort was Hagar? Most ancient Near Eastern legal documents describe slavery as an accepted institution.²⁷ Although no Egyptian legal code is extant, Egyptian documents, correspondence, and stories from earliest times on the subject of slavery are in accord with other contemporary legal systems.

Though there were differences in the laws about male and female slaves, the source of slavery was the same. The earliest slaves were prisoners of war, designated as booty. Later, most became slaves as the result of insolvency. Interest rates were not limited by law and ranged from 20-33 percent. A debtor could pledge his property, himself, his wife, his children, or any combination. If a debtor was unable to pay, the creditor could seize all secured collateral without reprieve and sell the debtors, individually or collectively.²⁸

There was also a brisk foreign slave trade.²⁹ Like captive slaves, they were permanent slaves in contrast to debtor slaves who had to be released after a time period. Houseborn slaves were those born into slavery in the household, either to paired slaves or to female slaves and family members such as the master or his sons. The mothers of such houseborn slaves were generally of foreign birth unless they had been sold into permanent slavery as children. The children were usually better treated and more trusted than purchased slaves and were considered sons or daughters of the household.³⁰

According to the Mosaic code, thieves who could not restore the stolen property plus a penalty, could be sold by the victims into slavery (Ex. 22:3). Other sources of slaves throughout the ancient Near East included sale of self, sale of minor children, and adoption of freeborn children.³¹ A man who could not find work or was heavily in debt and unable to extricate himself could sell first his children and then himself and his wife into slavery.³²

Because Hagar was Egyptian, she could be neither a captive slave³³ nor an imported slave, or she would have been freed in Egypt. Slaves sold for insolvency served for specified periods of time, such as three years under the Code of Hammurabi or six years under the Mosaic code.³⁴ Because Hagar was a slave owned by the royal family, she could not have been an adopted daughter. Therefore, she was either an Egyptian child sold by her parents into permanent slavery or a houseborn slave of Egyptian parentage.³⁵

If she was such a permanent slave, Hagar was a chattel that could be bought, sold, leased, exchanged, pledged, gifted, or inherited.³⁶ Permanent slaves were chattels or personal property, and no family records were kept for them.³⁷

It is not known whether Hagar's mistress had other slaves, but Abram owned many.³⁸ All these slaves were his property, and if he had chosen a handmaid from among his own slaves, he would have controlled title to the children. When Abram accepted Hagar, Sarai's maid, any children born of this coupling would be under Sarai's control.³⁹

However, not only ownership and control of personal property but also hierarchical authority was an issue in this situation. Sarai was chief wife or matriarch, but Abram was the patriarch and as such was the leader of the family or clan under his jurisdiction. As the patriarch he would be consulted on all important matters affecting the family, and all property of the family came under his control. Still he could not interfere with his wife's dowry or slaves.⁴⁰ Because of Abram's patriarchal authority, it was not improper for the Lord in speaking to Abram about his second wife to refer to Hagar as “thy bondwoman” (Gen. 21:12). In other instances, she is referred to as belonging to Sarai (16:1-6, 8, 9; 25:12). However, when Sarah comes the last time to demand that Hagar be cast out along with her son, she expresses no possessiveness for she calls Hagar “this bondwoman” twice (21:10) and asserts, “for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son” (21:10).

Although Hagar probably had no choice in the arrangement, she could look forward to her freedom upon divorce or upon Abraham's death, if Abraham's culture were governed by the contemporary laws of Old Babylon.⁴¹

We know little about the formalities of slave-wife marriages, but they required at minimum: (1) an arrangement provided by the chief wife where she asked her husband to take her maid to wife; (2) intent on the part of the three parties to obtain children by the arrangement to serve as possible heirs of the husband; and (3) consummation.

When Sarai offered Hagar to Abram, she took the initiative. There was no bride-price, no dowry, no bride-gift, and no contract, only intent and consummation, for Abram “went in unto Hagar, and she conceived” (Gen. 16:4). Her conception brought more grief than solace to all the parties.

When Hagar later fled into the wilderness, the angel who appeared to her addressed her as “Hagar, Sarai's maid.” In responding to his question about what she was doing, Hagar acknowledged that she was fleeing from “my mistress Sarai.” The angel instructed her to “return to thy mistress and submit thyself under her hands” (Gen. 16:8-9). Neither of them mentions Abram. Instead the issue is clearly Hagar's relationship to Sarai.

Although Hagar returned, reconciled herself to Sarai, and gave birth to Ishmael, Sarai did not accept Ishmael as her firstborn. Thus Ishmael remained legally and biologically the son of Hagar. Children shared their mother's status. Hagar was a secondary wife, so Ishmael was a secondary son, even though he was heir apparent. Ishmael would be Abram's primary heir if (1) Abram had no biological sons by Sarai; (2) if Sarai acknowledged Ishmael as her son, thereby elevating him from secondary to primary son status as her legal son; or (3) if after Sarah's death, Abraham did not marry another chief wife and have sons.

On the basis of Genesis 21:11, it could be argued that Abraham did acknowledge Ishmael, son of Hagar, as his son⁴² and therefore as an heir: “And the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight because of his son” (italics added). But Abraham did not have standing to enfranchise Ishmael. According to the contemporary code of Hammurabi (and the later Middle Assyrian law), if he had had sons by his own slave-wife, he could have enfranchised them,⁴³ but he had no jurisdiction over Ishmael as long as Sarah was alive. Only she could enfranchise Ishmael.

Slave-wives such as Hagar and their children were slaves until their masters died, they were divorced, or they were freed by an act of manumission. Manumitted slaves usually received a legal document verifying their freedom.⁴⁴

Hagar had no more children. Considering the ease with which she became pregnant, it is safe to assume that Sarah did not permit her to return to her husband's connubial bed after the birth of Ishmael. Hagar still would have taken great comfort in her status, for she had a son she assumed would be the sole heir of her wealthy and powerful husband. If Sarah died before Abraham, Hagar would be his concubine and senior wife unless he married another chief wife. If Abraham died before Sarah, Ishmael would be the heir and patriarch, and Hagar, his biological mother, would be free and would have a position of importance in the clan even though Ishmael would be the legal son of Sarah. All Hagar's future expectations were dashed when she heard that her eighty-nine-year-old mistress was pregnant. It must have been a tremendous shock and a source of considerable grief to her. Her world collapsed even more around her the day Sarah found Ishmael mocking Isaac (Gen. 21:9).

Was Abraham justified in divorcing Hagar? Jesus later said, “Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so” (Matt. 19:8). Was he referring to some ancient legal system that prohibited divorce? The oldest laws extant come from the ancient Near East. Was there a time when a Near Eastern legal system forbade divorce?

The oldest written law, the Code of Ur-Nammu dating from the twenty-fourth century B.C., allowed divorce but, like all the codes until the time of Hammurabi, made divorce a male privilege and did not formally recognize cases or grounds for divorce initiated by the wife. The Code of Ur-Nammu required that a husband initiating a divorce pay his wife one mina (sixty shekels) of silver. This was an expensive penalty (about six years salary for a common shepherd) to discourage divorce.⁴⁵

Sumerian laws, incomplete as they are, do not mention divorce, although a twentieth-century B.C. Sumerian divorce settlement recorded in the city of Ur gave the wife ten shekels of silver, and she relinquished any other claims she had against her husband.⁴⁶

The next oldest code, the Laws of Eshnunna dating from about the twentieth century, contained an even more rigorous penalty against divorce. If a husband wished to divorce his wife who had borne him children, he was cast out of his home and lost all his possessions.⁴⁷

The Code of Lipit-Ishtar, dating from about the nineteenth century B.C., is unclear. No statute speaks specifically of divorce. Section 28 refers to a husband who “has turned his face away from his first wife,” but this does not appear to be a divorce. It seems to be a change in the original intent of their marriage. The context makes it apparent that the wife has and will remain in his house and that he must continue to support her, in his home if she wishes, if he remarries.⁴⁸

Hammurabi in the eighteenth century B.C. reinstated some of the severity of the Laws of Eshnunna by requiring the husband upon divorce to return his wife's dowry in full and give her one-half of his estate if she had borne sons.⁴⁹ If she were childless or perhaps had only daughters, he had to return her dowry and pay a cash penalty equal to his original bride-price.⁵⁰

A court case recorded at Larsa during the reign of Rim-Sin, a monarch Hammurabi defeated, requires the divorcing husband to provide his wife with “a food and clothing allowance”—the equivalent of modern alimony.⁵¹

Hammurabi's code is also the first to address the question of a wife seeking a divorce. If she was deemed innocent of fault, she was free to take her dowry and leave. If she was at fault, however, she would be drowned, a severe penalty against women that had no counterpart in the divorce laws for men.⁵²

Old Babylonian marriage contracts dating from about the nineteenth to the seventeenth centuries B.C. follow a fairly standard format, but the divorce penalty is variable. For example, a marriage contract from Nippur provided that if the husband wished to divorce his wife—a procedure requiring him to pronounce the words “You are not my wife”—he would have to return her nineteen-shekel dowry and pay her one-half mina of silver (thirty shekels) as her divorce-money.⁵³ The contract also provided that if she wished to divorce him by saying, “You are not my husband,” she would be required to forfeit her dowry and pay him a half mina of silver, but this was apparently a fine since the contract does not specify the sum as “divorce-money.”

In one unique marriage contract from this same region and period, if the wife wanted to divorce her husband, he could shave her and sell her as a slave. But she had a similar right. If he decided to divorce her, she could shave him, keep him as her slave, and require him to provide her with minimum amounts of wool and oil.⁵⁴

However, these two contracts, which offer significant protection to women in the case of divorce, were atypical. More typically the husband had to pay a cash penalty for divorcing his wife, but the wife risked paying with her life—being either drowned or thrown from a tower.⁵⁵

By the time of the Middle Assyrian Empire during approximately the fourteenth century B.C., laws offered women less protection. Here a husband was allowed to eject his wife from his home with or without money, as he chose.⁵⁶ Further if a husband abandoned a wife or disappeared without a trace, she had to wait a minimum of five years before she could remarry—and if she had sons who could support her, she could never remarry.⁵⁷

The Hittite law from about the thirteenth century B.C. near the time of Moses is damaged and incomplete. But the statutes available suggest that a husband could divorce his wife by selling her for twelve shekels of silver.⁵⁸ This price was below the price of a slave and may have applied only if she had been guilty of illicit behavior. This law also permits a wife to divorce her husband, but the statute is incomplete and the terms are missing. They suggest that the wife had to pay the husband something and that he got custody of the children.⁵⁹

The laws of Moses also permitted divorce. The key statute is found in Deuteronomy 24:1: “When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.” This is the first ancient code requiring the husband to find cause for the divorce. It is unfortunate that the cause is defined only as “some uncleanness,” a phrase that may have had more precise connotations in the past than it currently does.

The Hebrew for “some uncleanness” is erwat davar, variously translated as “shameful exposure (of genitals), indecency, improper behavior, an unclean or unseemly thing”.⁶⁰ The word thus seems to cover a broad range of behavior. Adultery has been universally accepted as “some uncleanness,” but what of lesser faults and blemishes? Isaiah said that the Lord had divorced Israel for iniquity (Isa. 50:1), which included perversion, idolatry, and adultery.⁶¹ Thus despite the vagueness of the term, the Mosaic code defines serious moral transgressions as “maximum” grounds for divorce but does not clearly communicate the “minimum” grounds.

The Old Testament, however, mentions two situations in which divorce was strictly prohibited. In the first case a bridegroom could accuse his bride of not being a virgin and arraign her before the elders of the city. If the wife's parents were able to prove her virginity by producing the bloodstained cloth from her matrimonial bed, then the husband had to pay the father a double bride-price of one hundred shekels of silver and was prohibited from ever divorcing her (Deut. 22:13-21).

The second case involved the rape of a virgin. If she was betrothed, the rapist was killed. If she was not betrothed, he was required to pay her father a fine equal to the bride-price of fifty shekels. He was then required to marry her unless her father refused (Ex. 22:17) and was not permitted ever to divorce her (Deut. 22:28-29).

The Middle Assyrian laws had an almost identical statute, which required the offended father to force the rapist's wife into prostitution.⁶² Families were responsible for the actions of their members: if a woman of one family suffered, a woman of the offending family had to suffer also.

An interesting legal statute is Exodus 21:7-11, which has generated less comment than it warrants. This statute permits a father to sell his daughter as a concubine (Exodus uses the term “wife”) to the master of the house or to one of his sons. Upon marriage she has all the legal rights of marriage, including maintenance, protection, and the right to bear children. If her husband were to marry a second wife, who would probably be a chief wife since the first was a concubine, he could not reduce the first's food, clothing, or duty of marriage. If he did so the concubine could divorce him. Under the Mosaic code then some women had legal rights of divorce for cause, but the cause appears to be limited to denial of support or conjugal relations.

Early Jewish law dating from the third through the seventh centuries A.D. permitted a husband to divorce easily and return the wife's dowry to her. He was required to show cause, but causes could be as trivial as burning his supper or finding a more attractive woman.⁶³ More serious causes involved violations of religious ritual such as serving him untithed food or having sexual relations with him during her period. For these causes he could divorce her without returning her dowry.⁶⁴

No known ancient legal code denied men the right to divorce. With the exception of the Mosaic code and Jewish law, no ancient legal system required the husband to show cause for the divorce. On the other hand in the few instances where the wife was allowed to divorce, she was required to show cause such as abandonment or a relationship in which she has been grievously belittled by a cheating husband. If she could not show cause but was found instead to be belittling her husband, he was free to marry another woman and make his first wife a slave in his household.⁶⁵

The earliest codes prescribed severe economic penalties for husbands who cast out the mothers of their children, but later codes, altered by male jurists, moderated these penalties until men could divorce their wives with little or no obstacle.

What then was Jesus referring to when he said, “From the beginning it was not so”? Malachi, writing about the fifth century B.C., asserted, “For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away [divorce]” (Mal. 2:16). At this period, the Israelite practice had developed of men divorcing their wives simply to marry younger women.⁶⁶ Perhaps in saying “from the beginning,” Jesus was referring to Adam and Eve as an ideal marriage—a marriage in which God participated. Jesus would have us understand that if God is involved in a marriage, divorce has no place in it (Mark 9:10). The secular laws of divorce do not apply to those who are married and become “one flesh” in God.

What then of Abraham? The laws of his day permitted divorce without cause. But Abraham was prophet and patriarch. As God was involved in his life, he was also involved in his marriages. God confirmed Abraham's marriage to Sarah at least in their later years, if not before. By promising them a future son, God clearly assumed the continuation of their union.

When Hagar fled into the desert from the wrath of Sarai and was met there by the angel, she was told to return and submit to her mistress. Because the angel simultaneously ratified the marriage of Abraham and Hagar and the mistress/slave relationship between Sarah and Hagar by telling Hagar to return, God was also involved in this three-way marriage.

When Isaac was born and Ishmael mocked him, Sarah, as chief wife and matriarch, demanded that Abraham cast out Hagar and Ishmael. Abraham was reluctant to do so. God intervened: “Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called” (Gen. 21:11-12).

Probably the most comforting statement was God's assurance to Abraham, “Of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed” (Gen. 21:13). This ostensibly confirmed Sarah's stewardship over the slave-wife and her son, including her right to punish them. While God had earlier ratified Abraham's marriage to Hagar, he now ratified their divorce. Therefore their divorce was not of men but of God.

But there was prejudice at least against a man divorcing his concubine if she had borne him children or casting out the children of such a concubine. For example, a Nuzi marriage contract of the thirteenth century B.C. required the bride to provide a slave for her husband should she prove barren. The contract further stipulated that the wife could not send these children away.⁶⁷ This contract may have been both typical and traditional, or it may have reflected an individual case of a husband trying to prevent his wife from exercising her traditional prerogative of sending away the children of the slave-wife if she became dissatisfied with them.

Now what about Sarah? Was she justified in casting out Hagar? In an Old Assyrian marriage contract that probably predates Abraham, we find: “Laqipum took (in marriage) Hatale, the daughter of Enishru. In the country Laqipum shall not take (in marriage) another (woman), (but) in the city (of Ashshur) he may take (in marriage) a qadistum [hierodule]. If within 2 years she [Hatale] has not procured offspring for him, only she may buy a maid-servant and even later on, after she procures somehow an infant for him, she may sell her [the bearer of the child] where(soever) she pleases. If Laqipum divorces her, he will pay 5 minas of silver, and if Hatale divorces him, she will pay 5 minas of silver” (italics added).⁶⁸ As this contract shows, the wife had continuous and exclusive control over the slave-wife and her offspring and could sell the slave-wife even if the slave-wife had borne a child. The wife's authority extended over the child or children of the slave-wife, but if they too were sent away, the husband's recourse was to marry a second wife.⁶⁹

This custom was still practiced more than a millennium later and documented in a Neo-Assyrian marriage contract from the mid-first millennium B.C.: “If Subetu does not conceive (and) does not give birth, she may take a maidservant (and) as a substitute in her position she may place (her). She (Subetu) will (thereby) bring sons into being (and) the sons will be her (Subetu's) sons. If she loves (the maidservant) she may keep (her). If she hates (her) she may sell her.”⁷⁰ Where the wife provided her husband with a slave to bear children, she generally retained control over the slave. The contract also affirms that the children of the maidservant belonged to Subetu.

In the context of ancient law, assuming Sarah was applying such a consideration, she had three choices: (1) free Hagar and send her away (universal law); (2) put the mark of a slave on her and reduce her to servitude with the other slaves (Babylonian law); or (3) punish her (Sumerian Law).⁷¹ Perhaps because she was neither vengeful nor hardhearted, Sarah chose to free her, permitting Abraham to send her away.

Thus Abraham did not intervene. “And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away” (Gen. 21:14). Many statutes governing divorce from the time of Hammurabi and earlier, required cash settlements on the part of the husband. No statutes mandate the payment of settlement on the part of a wife who has her slave sent away, even where the slave bore children. Hagar brought nothing to the marriage, and Sarah required that she take nothing with her when she left. As for Ishmael, “God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer” (v. 20). Hagar and Ishmael settled in the wilderness of Paran (v. 21) in south-central Sinai. Hagar found an Egyptian wife for Ishmael, and his descendants became some of the great Arab nations.

Keturah

Little is known of Keturah. We do not even know when she married Abraham, though the positioning of her account seems to suggest it was after the death of Sarai. We do know she was fertile, where Sarai was not. Also she was much younger than Abraham. He was 147 when Sarai died, and he married Keturah when she was still young enough to bear six sons. Finally Keturah's marriage was not as a chief wife but as a concubine.⁷²

Presumably Sarai provided the primary reason for Abraham's marrying Keturah as a concubine. Sons of secondary wives—concubines and slave-wives—were not heirs of their fathers under any known ancient legal code,⁷³ although they were heirs of their mother's estates. Unfortunately, secondary wives rarely had meaningful estates.⁷⁴

If they were not declared sons during the father's lifetime, sons of slave-wives were freed upon his death. Such sons followed the status of their mothers—if she was free, so were they; if she remained a slave, so did they.⁷⁵

None of Keturah's sons became heirs. They were secondary sons and never elevated to the status of heirs. It was not necessary to grant the sons of Keturah freedom as in the case of Ishmael, because they were already free. Abraham gave them gifts or money with which to establish their financial independence. In so doing Abraham did more than the law required and yet kept his commitment with God and Sarah that Isaac would be his only heir (Gen. 21:12).⁷⁶

The sons of Keturah included Midian, the forebearer of Zipporah, wife of Moses.

Notes:

1. Prior to the birth of Isaac, Abraham's name was Abram and Sarai's name was Sarah. When God promised them a son, he changed their names presumably to reflect their new status. Abraham means “father of nations” and Sarai means “princess” (Gen. 17:5, 15).

2. Josephus, “Antiquities of the Jews,” in Josephus: Complete Works, trans. William Whiston (1960; rprt. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1972), 32.

3. E. A. Speiser, Oriental and Biblical Studies: Collected Writings of E. A. Speiser, eds. J. J. Finkelstein and Moshe Greenburg (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1967), 76.

4. “The Story of Two Brothers,” in James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), 23-25.

5. Middle Assyrian Law A 22: “If in the case of a seignior's wife one not her father, nor her brother, nor her son, but another person, has caused her to take to the road, but he did not know that she was a seignior's wife, he shall (so) swear and he shall also pay two talents of lead to the woman's husband. If [he knew that she was a seignior's wife], he shall pay the damages [and swear], `I never lay with her.' However, if the [seignior's] wife [has declared], `He did lie with me,' when the man has paid the damages to the seignior, he shall go [to the] river, although he had no (such) agreement; if he has turned back from the river, they shall treat him as the woman's husband treated his wife”; ibid., 181.

6. Josephus, “Antiquities of the Jews,” 33. Mathematics as understood by the Old Babylonian/Sumerian scholars was at least as sophisticated as that known by the Greeks centuries later.

7. If Eliezer's adoption contract with Abraham was typical of the times, it would have addressed the possibility of a son being born to Abraham. Such contracts did not usually completely disinherit the adopted son. Yet if this Eliezer was the same trusted servant who was called more than fifty-three years later to go to Padanaram and obtain a wife for Isaac, he informed the family at Padanaram that “unto him [Isaac] hath he [Abraham] given all that he hath” (Gen. 24:36). Either Abraham's contract with Eliezer allowed him to remove the servant as heir in the event a son was born, or Abraham was able to send him away before this time with gifts as he did for his sons by Keturah. Or perhaps Eliezer died in the intervening years, rendering the problem moot.

8. Thomas E. McComiskey, “The Status of the Secondary Wife: Its Development in Ancient Near Eastern Law. A Study and Comprehensive Index,” Ph.D. diss., Brandeis University, 1965, 59.

9. In my opinion, one of the most heart-wrenching scenarios in the Old Testament is the story of Sarai. Her husband Abraham was a visionary man, and it seems each message from God included a promise that her husband would be the father of nations (Gen. 12:2). Sarai must have spent much time contemplating her options. Nothing would have been more on her mind.

10. “If the man, who has taken the infant in adoption to himself and has brought him up, has built him a house (and) afterwards gets sons and sets his face to expel the adopted child, that son shall not then go destitute; the father who has brought him up shall give him one-third of his inheritance out of his property when he goes; (but) he shall not give him any (portion) of field plantation or house.” Code of Hammurabi 191, in G. R. Driver and J. C. Miles, eds., The Babylonian Laws, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), 2:75. See also David Neiman, “Patriarchal Institutions,” Ph.D. diss., Dropsie College, 1955, 67.

11. The advantage for the wife of such an arrangement—assuming that the alternative was for the husband to acquire a second wife of equal status—was that the wife remained in control of the slave as long as her husband lived and, if she wished, of the slave's child. Although Hagar had no say, such an arrangement would also be to her advantage, for she became a legal wife (slave-wife) of Abram, though she continued as a slave to Sarai. This meant that she would automatically be free upon divorce or Abram's death. There was no bride-price, no dowry, no bride-gift, and no contract, only intent and consummation, for Abram “went in unto Hagar, and she conceived” (Gen. 16:4).

12. Driver and Miles, The Babylonian Laws, 1:305.

13. Reuven Yaron, Introduction to the Law of the Aramaic Papyri (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), 36.

14. Code of Hammurabi 145, 146, in Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 172.

15. Raymond Westbrook, “Old Babylonian Marriage Law,” Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1982, 134.

16. Louis M. Epstein, Marriage Laws in the Bible and Talmud (1942; rprt. New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1968), 50.

17. Gen. 21:14; Code of Hammurabi 171, in Driver and Miles, The Babylonian Laws, 2:67.

18. Yaron, Introduction to the Law, 38, 39.

19. “If a man has died (and) his veiled wife has no sons, the sons of concubines(?) (become his) sons; they shall take a share (of his property).” Middle Assyrian Law A 41, in G. R. Driver and J. C. Miles, eds., The Assyrian Laws (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1935), 411.

20. “If a man has married a priestess and she has given a slave-girl to her husband and she bears sons, (if) thereafter that slave-girl goes about making herself equal to her mistress, because she has borne sons her mistress shall not sell her; she may put the mark (of a slave) on her and may count her with the slave-girls.” Code of Hammurabi 146, in Driver and Miles, The Babylonian Laws, 2:57.

21. “If she has not borne sons, her mistress may sell her.” Code of Hammurabi 147, in ibid., 2:57.

22. “If a man's slave-woman, comparing herself to her mistress, speaks insolently to her, her mouth shall be scoured with 1 quart of salt.” Laws of Ur-Nammu 22, in Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 525.

23. “If a man's wife has not borne him children but a harlot (from) the public square has borne him children, he shall provide grain, oil and clothing for that harlot; the children which the harlot has borne him shall be his heirs, and as long as his wife lives, the harlot shall not live in the house with the wife.” Code of Lipit-Ishtar 27, in Francis Rue Steele, “The Code of Lipit-Ishtar,” American Journal of Archaeology 52 (1948): 442.

24. “If a man has died (and) his veiled wife has no sons, the sons of concubines (become his) sons; they shall take a share (of his property).” Middle Assyrian Law A 41, in Driver and Miles, The Assyrian Laws, 409.

25. “If the first wife of a man has borne him sons and his slave-girl has borne him sons, (and) the father in his life-time states to the sons whom the slave-girl has borne him `(You are) my sons', he shall count them with the sons of the first wife and the sons of the slave-girl shall take proportionate shares in the property of the paternal estate; an heir, (being) a son of the first wife, shall choose and take the first share at the division.” Code of Hammurabi 170, in Driver and Miles, The Babylonian Laws, 2: 65.

26. Gen. 21:11; Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “Patriarchal Family Relationships and Near Eastern Law,” The Biblical Archeologist 44 (Fall 1981): 213.

27. Isaac Mendelsohn, Slavery in the Ancient Near East: A Comparative Study of Slavery in Babylonia, Assyria, Syria, and Palestine from the Middle of the Third Millennium to the End of the First Millennium (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978), 1.

28. Ibid., 23, 26.

29. Ibid., 3.

30. Ibid., 57.

31. Adoption was a common business practice in most of the ancient codes. A parent could sell a son or a daughter to an adoptive parent. The selling parents received cash and also did not have to provide for that child from their own estate. The adopted son or daughter was essentially a slave until the adoptive parent died but then inherited a share or all of the estate. In this way adoptive parents could obtain cheap labor and security for their old age; the adopted slave would take care of them for life and give them a proper funeral to assist them in their life after death. Similarly, the adopted child had the advantage of an inheritance; ibid., 21.

32. Ibid., 15.

33. Hebrew law is unique in that no other code deals with the question of fair treatment for women captured in war. Like all soldiers, a Hebrew soldier had the right to take captives. If his captives included “a beautiful woman,” he could make her his concubine and could not sell her (she was free), though he could divorce her (Deut. 21:10-14). The King James Version uses the term “thy wife”; but lacking contract or bride-price, her status would be that of a concubine.

34. “If a man has become liable to arrest under a bond and has sold his wife his son or his daughter or gives (them) into servitude, for 3 years they shall do work in the house of him who has bought them or taken them in servitude; in the fourth year their release shall be granted.” Code of Hammurabi 117, in Driver and Miles, The Babylonian Laws, 2:47.

“And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.” Deut. 15:12.

35. Female slaves were the chattels or personal property of their owners. Unauthorized sexual use or rape of a slave was deemed a theft of property from the owner. If the owner was a woman, her husband had sexual rights only with her permission. If a female slave was a chattel of a male owner, he had full sexual rights and could extend those rights to anyone he chose, such as sons, friends, or guests. It was also common to pair her with a male slave. Any children born to a female slave had their mother's status, regardless of who fathered the child. The child became a slave of the estate or a household slave.

36. Mendelsohn, Slavery in the Ancient Near East, 34.

37. C. H. W. Johns, The Relations Between the Laws of Babylonia and The Laws of the Hebrew Peoples (London: Oxford University Press, 1914), 12.

38. Abraham pursued the captors of Lot and his family with 318 “trained servants, born in his own house” (Gen. 14:14). The Hebrew word for trained servant is “hanik.” This may mean “armed retainer”; R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr., and B. K. Waltke, eds. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), 301. Or “his tried and trusty men”; William Gesenius, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament ed. F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 335. Presumably the reference to being born in his own house leads Keil and Delitzsch to label these men slaves; see C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament in Ten Volumes (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1985), 1:205. We know that Abraham had many maidservants (Gen. 12:16) and, in addition to those born in his house, other slaves purchased with money (17:13).

39. Compare Code of Hammurabi 146-47, in Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 172, with Code of Hammurabi 170-71, in ibid., 173.

40. Driver and Miles, The Babylonian Laws, 1:272.

41. “However, if the father during his lifetime has never said `My children!' to the children whom the slave bore him, after the father has gone to (his) fate, the children of the slave may not share in the goods of the paternal estate along with the children of the first wife; freedom for the slave and her children shall be effected, with the children of the first wife having no claim at all against the children of the slave for service. . . .” Code of Hammurabi 171, in Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 173.

42. Frymer-Kensky, “Patriarchal Family Relationships,” 213.

43. “If a man has died (and) his veiled wife has no sons, the sons of concubines(?) (become his) sons; they shall take a share (of his property).” Middle Assyrian Law A 41, in Driver and Miles, The Assyrian Laws, 409; Code of Hammurabi 170-71, in Driver and Miles, The Babylonian Laws, 2:65.

44. Freed slaves were generally regarded as second-class citizens. In fact Jewish law about twenty centuries later would place them at the very bottom of hierarchal status, below bastards, temple slaves, and proselytes. See Horayoth 3.8, in Herbert Danby, trans., The Mishna (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 466.

45. “If a man divorces his primary wife, he must pay (her) one mina of silver.” Laws of Ur-Nammu 6, in Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 524.

46. “Final judgment: Lu-Utu, the son of Nig-Baba, divorced Geme-Enlil. Dugidu, an officer and official took oath that Geme-Enlil had taken her stand (and) said, `By the king! Give me 10 Shekels of silver (and) I will not enter claim against you,' (and) that she made him forfeit 10 shekels of silver.” Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 217.

47. “If a man divorces his wife after having made her bear children and takes [ano]ther wife, he shall be driven from his house and from whatever he owns and may go after him who will accept him.” Laws of Eshnunna 59, in ibid., 163.

48. “If a man has turned his face away from his first wife. . . . but she has not gone out of the [house]; his wife which he married as his favorite is a second wife; he shall continue to support his first wife.” Code of Lipit-Ishtar 28, in Steele, “The Code of Lipit-Ishtar,” 442.

49. “If a man sets his face to divorce a lay-sister who has borne him sons or a priestess who has provided him with sons, they shall render her dowry to her and shall give her a half-portion of field plantation or chattels and she shall bring up her sons”; Code of Hammurabi 137, in Driver and Miles, The Babylonian Laws, 2:55.

50. “If a man wishes to divorce his first wife who has not borne him sons, he shall give her money to the value of her bridal gift and shall make good to her the dowry which she has brought from her father's house and (so) divorce her.” Code of Hammurabi 138, in ibid.

51. Westbrook, “Old Babylonian Marriage Law,” 1:292.

52. “If a woman has hated her husband and states `Thou shalt not have (the natural use of) me,' the facts of her case shall be determined in her district and, if she has kept herself chaste and has no fault, while her husband is given to going about out (of doors) and so has greatly belittled her, that woman shall suffer no punishment; she may take her dowry and goes to her father's house.” Code of Hammurabi 142, in Driver and Miles, The Babylonian Laws, 2:57.

“If she has not kept herself chaste but is given to going about out (of doors), will waste her house (and) so belittle her husband, they shall cast that woman into the water.” Code of Hammurabi 143, in ibid.

53. Westbrook, “Old Babylonian Marriage Law,” 185.

54. Ibid., 182.

55. “And (if) Wara-Shamash says to his wives `You are not my wives', he shall pay 1 mina of silver. And (if) they say to their husband Warad-Shamash `You are not our husband', they will bind them and cast them into the river.” Ibid., 206, also 162, 165, 208, 227.

56. “If a man divorces his wife, if (it is) his will, he shall give her something; if (it is) not his will, he shall not give her anything; she shall go forth empty.” Middle Assyrian Law A 37, in Driver and Miles, The Assyrian Laws, 405.

57. “If a woman is still dwelling in her father's house or if her husband has made her to dwell apart and her husband has gone to the field(s) (and) has left her neither oil nor wool nor clothing nor food nor anything else and has had no provision(?) brought to her from the field(s), that woman shall remain faithful to her husband for five years (and) not go to dwell with an(other) husband. If she has sons (and) they hire themselves out and earn their own living, the woman shall respect her husband (and) shall not go to dwell with an(other) husband. If she has no sons, she shall respect her husband for five years; at the beginning of the sixth year she may go to dwell with the husband of her choice. Her husband on coming (back) shall not claim her; she is free for her later husband. If he has delayed beyond the term of five years (and) has not kept himself away of his own accord, (inasmuch as) either a brigand(?) has seized him and he has disappeared, or he has been seized as (if he were) a robber(?) and been delayed (in returning), on coming (back) he shall make a (formal) claim (and) give a woman equivalent to his wife; and (then) he shall take back his wife. Or, if the king has sent him to any other country (and) he has been delayed beyond the term of five years, his wife shall respect him and shall not go to dwell with an(other) husband. But, if she has gone to dwell with an(other) husband before the end of five years and has borne children, her husband on coming (back) shall take her herself and also her children, because she has not respected the marriage-contract but has been married(!).” Middle Assyrian Law A 36, in Driver and Miles, The Assyrian Laws, 403-405.

58. “If a man divorces a woman, and she . . . , he may sell her; whoever [buys her] shall give 12 shekels of silver.” Hittite Law 26B, in Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 190.

59. “If a woman send away a man, she shall give him . . . and . . . The man shall get his children.” Hittite Law 26A, in ibid.

60. Gesenius, A Hebrew and English Lexicon, 183, 789.

61. Harris, Archer, and Waltke, Theological Wordbook, 650.

62. “In the case of a seignior's [upper class freeman] daughter, a virgin who was living in her father's house, whose [father] had not been asked (for her in marriage), whose hymen had not been opened since she was not married, and no one had a claim against her father's house, if a seignior took the virgin by force and ravished her, either in the midst of the city or in the open country or at night in the street or in a granary or at a city festival, the father of the virgin shall take the wife of the virgin's ravisher and give her to be ravished; he shall not return her to her husband (but) take her; the father may give his daughter who was ravished to her ravisher in marriage. If he has no wife, the ravisher shall give the (extra) third in silver to her father as the value of a virgin (and) her ravisher shall marry her (and) not cast her off. If the father does not (so) wish, he shall receive the (extra) third for the virgin in silver (and) give his daughter to whom he wishes.” Middle Assyrian Law 55, in Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 185.

63. “The School of Shammai say: A man may not divorce his wife unless he has found unchastity in her, for it is written, Because he hath found in her indecency in anything. And the school of Hillel say: [He may divorce her] even if she spoiled a dish for him, for it is written, Because he hath found in her indecency in anything. R. Akiba says: Even if he found another fairer than she, for it is written, and it shall be if she find no favour in his eyes.” Gittin 9.10, in Danby, The Mishnah, 321.

64. “These are they that are put away without their Ketubah: a wife that transgresses the Law of Moses and Jewish custom. What [conduct transgresses] the Law of Moses? If she gives her husband untithed food, or has connexion with him in her uncleanness, or does not set apart Dough-offering, or utters a vow and does not fulfil it. And what [conduct transgresses] Jewish custom? If she goes out with her hair unbound, or spins in the street, or speaks with any man. Abba Saul says: Also if she curses his parents in his presence. R. Tarfon says: Also [if she is] a scolding woman. And who is a scolding woman? Whosoever speaks inside her house so that her neighbours hear her voice.” Ketuboth 7.6, in ibid., 255.

65. Code of Hammurabi 141: “If a married lady who is dwelling in a man's house sets her face to go out (of doors) and persists in behaving herself foolishly wasting her house (and) belittling her husband, they shall convict her and, if her husband then states that he will divorce her, he may divorce her; nothing shall be given to her (as) her divorce-money (on) her journey. If her husband states that he will not divorce her, her husband may marry another woman; that woman shall dwell as a slave-girl in the house of her husband.” Driver and Miles, The Babylonian Laws, 2:55-57.

66. Adam Clarke, The Holy Bible Containing the Old And New Testaments with a Commentary and Critical Notes (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1830), 802n14.

67. Cyrus H. Gordon, “Biblical Customs and the Nuzu Tablets,” The Biblical Archeologist 3 (Feb. 1940): 3.

68. Julius Lewy, “On Some Institutions of the Old Assyrian Empire,” Hebrew Union College Annual 27 (1956), 9-10; italics added.

69. Driver and Miles, The Babylonian Laws, 1:304.

70. A. K. Grayson and J. Van Seters, “The Childless Wife in Assyria and the Stories in Genesis,” Orientalia 44 (1975): 485.

71. Laws of Ur-Nammu 22, in Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 525.

72. Gen. 25:6. In verse 1, Keturah is referred to as a “wife.” A concubine is a wife in every legal sense, except her status is below that of a chief wife. In verse 6, the word concubine is in the plural, perhaps including Hagar or suggesting that Abraham married at least two women after Sarai died although we know of no offspring other than those of Keturah.

73. “If a man married a wife and she bore him children and those children are living, and a slave also bore children for her master (but) the father granted freedom to the slave and her children, the children of the slave shall not divide the estate with the children of their (former) master.” Code of Lipit-Ishtar 25, in Steele, “Code of Lipit-Ishtar,” 441; see also Code of Hammurabi 171, in Driver and Miles, The Babylonian Laws, 2:67.

74. A man could also have sons by his own female slave—rather than a slave presented to him by his barren wife for the purpose of bearing children, who would be a slave-wife. While these sons were not automatically heirs, the codes favored their elevation to full sonship and so made it easy for them to become heirs. All the father had to do was declare sons of his female slaves or sons of his concubines “my sons” during his lifetime. Then they became full heirs. Code of Hammurabi 170, in Driver and Miles, The Babylonian Laws, 2:65.

75. Middle Assyrian laws dating from about 1400 B.C. added one clause in favor of sons of concubines and female slaves: if the father made no declaration during his lifetime and the first wife had no sons, the sons of the slave (concubine in the text) became his heirs (Middle Assyrian Law A 41, in Driver and Miles, The Assyrian Laws, 409). The sons of concubines and the sons of slave-wives that the wife provided to the husband were under her direction. If she accepted them as her own, they were heirs of her husband. If she did not receive them as her legal sons, they were not heirs and were accorded the same status as their mothers, i.e., they were secondary sons and obtained their freedom and nothing more, unless their mothers happened to have some assets. If that was the case, they were heirs of whatever estate she might have.

76. Abraham was father to four classes of sons. His oldest son was Eliezer, a servant or slave who became his son by adoption but who was not biologically related to him. Next came Ishmael, his biological son by his slave-wife Hagar, who could have been also the “firstborn” son of his chief wife, Sarai, if Sarai had so designated him. She did not. Abraham's only son by his chief wife was Isaac. After Sarai died, Abraham had six sons by his concubine Keturah. Isaac clearly had the rights of the firstborn, and the others had lesser status determined by contract or the station of their mothers.