Sarah, Hagar
and the laws of Inheritance
Genesis Chapter 21 opens with the birth of Isaac to
Sarah.
She had long been barren and some 15 years before had
instructed her husband Abraham to consort with her handmaiden slave, Hagar, so
a child and heir could be born to him[i]
(Genesis 16: 1-4). That offspring was Ishmael.
Now the relationship between Sarah, the wife, and
Hagar, now also a ‘wife’ " לוֹ לְאִשָּׁה " (Gen 16:3) became and remained tense.
Sarah complains to Abraham and blames him for the pregnant
Hagar’s ‘impudence’:
|
ה וַתֹּאמֶר שָׂרַי אֶל-אַבְרָם, חֲמָסִי עָלֶיךָ--אָנֹכִי נָתַתִּי
שִׁפְחָתִי בְּחֵיקֶךָ, וַתֵּרֶא כִּי הָרָתָה וָאֵקַל בְּעֵינֶיהָ; יִשְׁפֹּט
יְהוָה, בֵּינִי וּבֵינֶיךָ. |
5 And Sarai said unto Abram:
'My wrong be upon thee: I gave my
handmaid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was
despised in her eyes: the LORD judge between me and thee.' |
https://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0116.htm
Abraham, to
placate his wife and still maintain hope of an heir from Hagar, returns Hagar
to Sarah’s ‘control’ (Genesis 16: 6).
Very soon thereafter – literally in the same verse 6 –
Hagar flees because of Sarah’s abusiveness.
Hagar stops at a water hole in the wilderness and
there she meets someone -- an angel -- who encourages her to return and submit
to any ill- treatment by Sarah:
as he promises her son would become a great
warrior and the ancestor of a great
and numerous people. (Gen.16: 5-14).
Fortunately, Hagar returns and soon Ishmael is born.
Now the Biblical text in its rapid progression glosses
over and omits some obvious and important scenes as if it wishes the reader to
also overlook them:
·
Confrontation of Abraham with Sarah:
1.
How did Abraham react to the news of
Hagar’s flight and what did he say
to Sarah? Did he angrily blame her for her abuses that
triggered the flight? Did he break down
and weep as Hagar was his last chance to have a child and a male heir; and now this
all has vanished – due to Sarah?
2.
How did Sarah react to the
flight? Now that Hagar is gone and
Abraham surely traumatized, what would she say to him? Would
she recognize her self-absorption and her excessive treatment of Hagar? Would she now realize that her actions could
have led to a miscarriage – to Abraham’s dismay?
3.
And in this moment of clarity, did she
realize that her personal relationship with her husband may have become
irrevocably and permanently damaged?
Fortunately
Hagar did return.
Consequently:
1.
Did Sarah change her ways and act
kindly to Hagar?
2.
Did Abraham keep a closer eye on
Hagar and Sarah?
3.
Did he leave Hagar under Sarah’s
control?
The
Bible simply jumps to the successful outcome of the pregnancy and birth of a
son to Abraham – a son whom Abraham names Ishmael, i.e., “God has heard my plea”[ii].
Gen.
16:15
|
וַתֵּלֶד הָגָר לְאַבְרָם, בֵּן; וַיִּקְרָא אַבְרָם שֶׁם-בְּנוֹ אֲשֶׁר-יָלְדָה הָגָר,
יִשְׁמָעֵאל. |
15 And Hagar bore Abram a son;
and Abram called the
name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. |
It
is noteworthy that it is Abraham who names the boy and that two things are
missing:
1.
Everywhere else in the Chumash the wife is the one to name
the child and the father only announces it publically. This is true of
barren Rachael when her maidservant Bilhah gave birth to Jacob -- twice, and
similarly when Leah gave him her maidservant Zilpah to have more children and
two more sons were born. Rachel names Bilhah’s newborns Dan and Naphtali and
Leah similarly names Zillah’s sons Gad and Asher. (Gen. 30: 6, 8 and 11, 13)
2.
Moreover, in each case Rachel and
Leah verbalized their thankfulness: that they had been allowed to have children
through their maidservant surrogates. (Gen.30: 6, 8 and 11,13)
But
there is no such scene or recorded dialogue by Sarah in the Bible text.
Whatever
good intentions Sarah had when handing over Hagar to be impregnated by Abraham,
they soon vanished.
Sarah
began by saying (Gen. 16: 2) :
Barren
Rachel used almost identical wording and the same key phrase: אִבָּנֶה מִמֶּנָּה
- i.e., so that I may have offspring and build a
family and descendants through her (Gen. 30:3).
Rachel,
true to her word and intent, and so too with Leah, the sons of Bilhah: Dan and Naphtali, and Zilpah’s sons: Gad and
Asher, were fully embraced by Rachel and Leah and treated by all as equal offspring.
That
is why these surrogate 4 sons, when added to the 6 sons of Leah and 2 of Rachel,
resulted in the 12 sons of Jacob/Israel and the 12 equal tribes.
But
that was not how it worked out with Sarah.
Ishmael was solely Abraham’s son.
Skip forward some 15 years. Sarah has finally,
miraculously -- at age 90 – given birth to a boy, who for various reasons is
named Isaac, יִצְחָק (Genesis
21:2-3).
Then, some 2 years later, at a celebration to
commemorate the ‘weaning’ of Isaac – i.e., he was no longer considered an
infant (and any normal breast-feedings ends)[iii]
– Sarah sees Ishmael, now age 16, ‘making sport’ מְצַחֵק. She immediately
orders Abraham to expel both Hagar and Ishmael, and with sorrow in his heart
– and only after God sends him a message “Listen to Sarah …” (Gen. 21:12) -- does
Abraham do so.
The story
of Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael now comes to a close.
The Text’s
viewpoint and language
Throughout,
it is Sarah who dominates and takes centre stage as the text focuses on her
perspective and her feelings.
The only
time any sympathy or support is show for Hagar is at the water hole by a stranger – an angel of God.
As for
Abraham, he is on the defensive throughout, submitting twice to Sarah’s demands
– endorsed by God -- against his own wishes: first for a child/son from the
pregnant Hagar, and finally, probably even more painfully, having to expel both
Ishmael, the son he raised for 16 years and probably for Hagar as well.
She was,
after all, his wife and just as with Bilhah and Zilpah who bore Jacob two (2)
sons each over time– and as implied in Torah law (Exod. 21:10) -- Abraham owed Hagar food, clothing and marital relations.
As for any
repercussions from the exile of Ishmael and Hagar on the relationship between
Abraham and Sarah, the Bible again is silent.
Finally,
it is noteworthy that Gen. 21:9-15: from the moment Sarah got upset at Ishmael
to the expulsion, Ishmael is never mentioned by name though he is the focus of
all these verses. And his mother, Hagar,
is named only once though the text also refers to her numerous times.
https://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0121.htm
In a mere
4 verses, Hagar is referred to 6 times and Ishmael also 6 times:
always together, and, in all but the very last, in the bland and impersonal
variations of הָאָמָה הַזֹּאת, וְאֶת-בְּנָהּ = female slave and her son.
This is
how the Bible narrator refers to them; how Sarah refers to them when she speaks; and even
God does so when He reaches out to
Abraham.
Only the
last verse, when the narrator speaks on behalf of Abraham, is Hagar named; and while avoiding the painful use of the name ‘Ishmael’ – “God has heard my
plea”, Ishmael is still called “the child” הַיֶּלֶד.
In the
eyes of a good parent, an offspring: whether age 17 or 30 or 40, is always
‘my child’.
So even in the wording and language used by the Bible, it is Sarah’s
mindset we hear.
But in fairness to the Bible (Gen. 21:15-21) it does not end with the
exile. Hagar and Ishmael get lost in the
wilderness and run out of life-sustaining water. Then, suddenly, a voice from the sky tells
her God has heard the crying of the dehydrated Ishmael and that there is a
water pool nearby.
After Hagar refills her canteen, they move on and
settle somewhere in the wilderness where Ishmael becomes a great hunter and
leader.
Then, on Abraham’s death, at age 175, Ishmael
reappears to participate alongside Isaac in Abraham’s funeral (Genesis ch. 25):
https://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0125.htm
Abraham was buried some 72 years after Hagar and
Ishmael were expelled.
Whether Ishmael, during those intervening years, ever
communicated or visited his father -- especially after Sarah’s death at age
127, i.e., just some 24 years after the
expulsion -- is unknown. But his return
and participation in Abraham’s funeral is noted by the Bible as a sign of a
‘good son’. (Gen. 25: 9).
In fact, the Bible immediately after Abraham’s death follows
up with a quick summary of Ishmael’s life (Gen. 25: 12-17). He produced 12 sons
who became great chieftains, and notes that Ishmael died at the ripe old age of
137 and without any long illness or pain:
וַיִּגְוַע
.
This, as noted in an earlier blog, is
the most peaceful and desirable method of dying: reserved in the Bible for the
righteous and those God favours.
Abraham died this way --
וַיִּגְוַע
-- in the preceding verse 8. So do Isaac (Gen. 35:29), Jacob (Gen. 49:33)
and Aaron (Num. 20:29)[iv]
The Perspective of an ancient observer and
lawyer
Now, it is easy to understand the story
of Sarah and Hagar and Ishmael at an emotional and interpersonal level as this
is how the Bible casts the account and rivalry.
But there is far more going on: something
that anyone in ancient times would have recognized. Especially a lawyer.
Hagar’s legal
status
Hagar, who originally was Sarah’s
handmaiden/servant slave became – at Sarah’s suggestion – Abraham’s ‘second
wife’. But then she reverted to her earlier handmaiden/servant slave status due
to a slippery rule that allowed the husband to return her to the control of his first
wife if he so wished, or agreed to under pressure.
Gen. 16: 6
|
ו וַיֹּאמֶר אַבְרָם אֶל-שָׂרַי, הִנֵּה שִׁפְחָתֵךְ
בְּיָדֵךְ--עֲשִׂי-לָהּ, הַטּוֹב בְּעֵינָיִךְ; וַתְּעַנֶּהָ שָׂרַי, וַתִּבְרַח
מִפָּנֶיהָ. |
6 But Abram said unto Sarai: 'Behold,
thy maid is in thy hand; do to her that which is good in thine eyes.' And
Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her face. |
Once Hagar returned and gave birth to
Ishmael, she reverted to the control of the husband as his ‘second wife’.
It is important to stress this as
Hagar is never called in the Bible a ‘concubine’. She is Abraham’s ‘wife’ as stated in Gen 16:3 “ לְאִשָּׁהֹ לו “.
The Hebrew term for concubine is ALWAYS פּלּגּשּ . For example, Gen. 22:24, Judges 19: 24-25,27, 29; 2
Samuel 16:21-22, 20:3 and 1 Kings
11:3.
King David had at least 7 full wives
and at least 10 concubines (as discussed by Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 21a 17) and, most famously, King Solomon
had 300 concubines and 700 wives:
1 Kings 11:3
|
ג וַיְהִי-לוֹ נָשִׁים, שָׂרוֹת שְׁבַע מֵאוֹת, וּפִלַגְשִׁים, שְׁלֹשׁ
מֵאוֹת; וַיַּטּוּ נָשָׁיו, אֶת-לִבּוֹ. |
3 And he had seven hundred wives,
princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart. |
Also, Hagar was not alone in such a rise from handmaiden slave to ‘second
wife‘ status as it recurred two generations
later re: Bilhah and Zilpah.
Bilhah and Zilpah, the handmaiden slaves of Rachel and Leah
respectively, were given to Jacob by their respective mistresses as “לְאִשָּׁה לוֹ “ and continued the rest of their
lives as full ‘second wives’ in status.
And although are they
are mentioned numerous times in the Bible, they are not called
concubines פִלַגְשִׁים.
Only once is there such a label applied: Gen. 35:22, when
Reuben slept with Bilhah.
|
כב וַיְהִי,
בִּשְׁכֹּן יִשְׂרָאֵל בָּאָרֶץ הַהִוא, וַיֵּלֶךְ רְאוּבֵן וַיִּשְׁכַּב אֶת-בִּלְהָה פִּילֶגֶשׁ
אָבִיו |
22 And it came to pass, while Israel dwelt in
that land, that Reuben
went and lay with Bilhah his father's concubine; and Israel heard of
it. {P} |
The Talmud and Rabbinic attempts to deny the plain
meaning of the text (i.e. he only
removed Jacobs bed or disheveled the sheets) is rejected by the Radak
(1160-1235) and Chatam Sofer (1762–1839) who alone seem to have paid any
attention to the use of the term ‘concubine’ here and how this is in
conflict with the ‘full wife’ status she has with the Bible’s marriage use
of Formula #1: לְאִשָּׁה
לוֹ (Gen. 30:4)[v]
In fact, the circumstances
of Bilhah and Zilpah’s rise from servant/slave status so closely parallels that of Hagar that there is
clearly an underlying ‘pattern’ that deserves closer examination.
Initiators and their Motivation
If one compares the Bible’s wording in the three cases: Sarah – Rachel --
Leah, it is essentially the same.
A wife wishes to give her husband an offspring but cannot do so. She
then convinces the husband to consort with her handmaiden/servant so that a
child may be born in the through the ‘handmaiden—the substitute wife’ or ‘surrogate’, and the offspring is to be
seen as the child of the ‘donor wife’
In the cases of Rachel and Leah, it is they, the ‘donor’ wives, who give
the children names based on their perceptions of the births as God’s gift
to them.
Compare the 3 texts:
Put simply, the text presents Bilhah
and Zilpah as well as Hagar as procreation surrogates and the birth
of their offspring should be a joy to the barren wife who orchestrated
these unions and births.
Bible law re:
inheritance
Sarah’s concern re: Ishmael: that
erupted when he was age 17 and Isaac a mere age 2, is clear from her wording in the
Bible
Gen. 21:10
|
י וַתֹּאמֶר, לְאַבְרָהָם, גָּרֵשׁ הָאָמָה הַזֹּאת,
וְאֶת-בְּנָהּ: כִּי לֹא יִירַשׁ בֶּן-הָאָמָה הַזֹּאת, עִם-בְּנִי
עִם-יִצְחָק. |
10 Wherefore
she said unto Abraham: 'Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman
shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.' |
Suddenly, Sarah fears that Ishmael
will inherit
alongside Isaac on Abraham’s death.
If she foresaw Torah law as Divinely
stated in Deut. 21:15-17, she had good reason to be upset.
Det. 21:15-17 rules that irrespective
of which wife the husband ‘loved more’ or even if he ‘hated one wife’, the laws of inheritance are based on which son was born first – irrespective of
the mother and any ‘love’ or ‘hate’
between husband and wife. The son born first gets a double share
compared to any other sons.
If Hagar was considered in law a true
‘second wife’, , לוֹ לְאִשָּׁה her
son Ishmael would – as he was born first -- have been the primogenitor heir and
entitled to a double portion of the estate.
Now the Divine law given in
Deuteronomy is post- Exodus and post- Mount Sinai revelation, so one could
argue this law and commandment would NOT have applied hundreds of years before
to the Sarah-Hagar-Ishmael situation.
But as we have already discussed above,
two generations later, the exact Sarah-Hagar scenario recurred when barren
Rachel gives her husband Jacob her handmaiden Bilhah to bear offspring, and so
did Leah with Zilpah: with these 4 surrogate sons becoming equal heirs with
the other children born of Leah (6) and Rachel (2).
Here too, however, we need not
speculate that these matriarchs and Jacob ‘knew Torah law in advance’.
Relevant Ancient Law Codes
As stated at the outset of this blog,
the patriarchs and our earliest ancestors did not live in a vacuum. The
communities and societies in which they
grew up and lived had established traditions, customs and laws that everyone
was expected to follow.
The
Bible even acknowledges this in Leviticus 18: 2-5 where it orders the children
of Israel NOT to follow various matrimonial laws and customs of either
Egypt or Canaan.
The
laws re: marriage and inheritance that would have applied in the land of Canaan were probably in all likelihood
identical to Mesopotamian law, for all 7 nations were Semitic[vi]
and descendants of the man named Canaan and of Mesopotamian ancestry (Gen. 10:
15-19).
So
too were Abraham and Sarah, their offspring, and even Leah and Rachel (and of
course Laban) who lived north of the Euphrates.
The
Mesopotamian connection is why Abraham and all the patriarchs and their
descendants are called HEBREWS in the Bible: literary,
“they come from over the river (Euphrates)” – the official southern boundary of ancient Mesopotamia[vii]
.
Q:
So what was Mesopotamian law regarding inheritance?
Two
codes have been uncovered from that ancient land.
The
Code of Ur-Numma dates from the 22nd century BCE. But only 30 of its apparent 57 laws have
survived in legible form and none deal with inheritance.[viii]
But
the Code of Hammurabi, the great
Mesopotamian king who lived just before or was a contemporary of Abraham at the
start of the 18th century BCE[ix]
has been recovered: all 282 laws[x].
And this Code continued in force for many centuries[xi].
A
number of its laws deal with marriage, divorce, widowhood, adultery, annulment, adoption, etc. but only the
following are relevant here:
144. If a man take a wife and this
woman give her husband a maid-servant, and she bear him children, but this man
wishes to take another wife, this shall not be permitted to him; he shall not
take a second wife.
145. If a man take a wife, and she
bear him no children, and he intend to take another wife: if he take this
second wife, and bring her into the house, this second wife shall not be
allowed equality with his wife.
146. If a man take a wife and she give this man a maid-servant
as wife and she bear him children, and then this maid assume equality with the wife: because
she has borne him children her master shall not sell her for money, but
he may keep her as a slave, reckoning her among the maid-servants.
147. If she have not borne him children, then her mistress may
sell her for money.
170. If his wife bear sons to a man,
or his maid-servant have
borne sons, and the father while still living says to the children whom his
maid-servant has borne: "My sons," and he count them with the sons of
his wife; if then the father die, then the sons of the wife and of the
maid-servant shall divide the paternal property in common. The son of the
wife is to partition and choose.
171. If, however, the father while still living did not say to
the sons of the maid-servant: "My sons," and then the father dies,
then the sons of the maid-servant shall not share with the sons of the wife,
but the freedom of the maid and her sons shall be granted. The sons of
the wife shall have no right to enslave the sons of the maid; the wife shall
take her dowry (from her father), and the gift that her husband gave her and
deeded to her (separate from dowry, or the purchase-money paid her father), and
live in the home of her husband: so long as she lives she shall use it, it
shall not be sold for money. Whatever she leaves shall belong to her children.
From
the above laws, it is clear having a ‘full freeborn
wife’ plus a maid-servant slave as a
procreation surrogate partner was normal.
If
a ‘full freeborn wife’ is barren, she
cannot be expelled nor lose her status as ‘mistress of the home’ to any second
‘full freeborn wife’ or ‘maidservant
slave’ second wife. (#144, #145 and #146)
And
if a barren wife gives her husband a maidservant slave who produces offspring, that man cannot ever add a second ‘full freeborn
wife’ to the group. The act of having fruitful maidservant protects the role
and status of the barren wife. (#144)
If,
however, the barren wife does not supply a fruitful maidservant slave, the
husband is free to contract a second full marriage and add a second ‘full wife’
to the home – but the second freeborn wife does not supplant the first full freeborn
wife as ‘mistress of the home’. (#145)
Furthermore, a maidservant slave who bears her
master/husband offspring rises in status to almost equal to that of the full
freeborn wife. He may still count her as property among his slaves but he
cannot sell her. (#146)
But
if the maidservant slave is unable to bear children, she remains the property of the full freeborn wife who is free to
sell her. (#147)
Lastly,
#170 states that the sons of a maidservant slave whom the father claims as “my
sons”, get an equal share of the
inheritance with any sons from the man’s ‘full wife’.
Conversely,
#171 covers the opposite. If he never acknowledges them officially as his sons,
they have no claim to share the estate. But they and their servile mother are
to be set free on the husband’s death.
IMPLICATIONS
The implications of the above laws for Abraham –
Sarah-- Hagar and Ishmael seem
clear.
1.
By supplying a fruitful maidservant,
Sarah protected herself from Abraham
ever adding another full freeborn wife during
her lifetime. (#144 and #145)
2.
Once Hagar became pregnant, she
became under the full and sole control of Abraham. (#146) Hagar is also protected from any domination
or abuse by Sarah as she is now, in
law, almost her equal. (#146)
3.
When Sarah got upset at Hagar’s new
behaviour once pregnant, she had to
get Abraham’s authorization to have Hagar revert to her control as a
maidservant. The Hammurabi Code does not
mention such a legal option, but
Abraham gave in when Sarah said God would judge who was in the right (Gen. 16:5-6).
4.
Ishmael is Abraham’s first born son
and as Abraham repeatedly refers to him as ‘son’ (Gen. 17:18, 21:11). Under
Mesopotamian law Ishmael would be entitled to an equal share of Abraham’s
wealth alongside Isaac. (#170)
5.
By expelling Ishmael (age 17) along
with Hagar at Sarah’s insistence, Abraham seems to be acting contrary to
Mesopotamian law (#170). Maybe that is why the Bible stresses he
did so on God’s order (Gen. 21: 12).
Or, maybe Abraham had not yet formally
declared Ishmael as “my son”, and
when he sent away BOTH Hagar and Ishmael, he did so in line with Code #171: FREEING BOTH the mother slave
and her slave offspring by sending them away.
CONCLUSION
The
story of Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael played out sadly.
For
all of Sarah’s good intentions at the start: to supply Abraham with a child and
male heir through her maidservant slave surrogate,
it soon fell apart. Unlike the successful surrogates Bilhah and Zilpah whose 4 sons by Jacob were fully accepted by Rachel
and Leah and Jacob: becoming 4 of the 12 tribes of Israel.
And
Sarah clearly knew her Mesopotamian law.
1.
She protected her status and avoided
a second ‘full freeborn’ wife rival in the home by allowing Abraham a chance at
offspring and a male heir via the surrogate womb of Hagar.
2.
And Sarah was able to manipulate
Abraham twice as, under the Code, Hagar was still legally of slave status:
·
Pressuring him to return to her
control ‘her’ pregnant slave.
·
And, finally, pressuring Abraham to
expel both Hagar and Ishmael as per Code #171.
To Sarah they were both always ‘the alien other’. She always refers to Hagar as ‘her’
maidservant slave and stressed her Egyptian, foreign ancestry.
And Ishmael was never embraced by Sarah as ‘my surrogate son’; unlike
Rachel and Leah.
3.
She ensured that Ishmael never
inherit alongside Isaac, the child of her own flesh and blood.
|
ט וַתֵּרֶא
שָׂרָה אֶת-בֶּן-הָגָר
הַמִּצְרִית, אֲשֶׁר-יָלְדָה לְאַבְרָהָם--מְצַחֵק. |
9 And
Sarah saw the son of
Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne unto Abraham, making sport. |
|
י וַתֹּאמֶר,
לְאַבְרָהָם, גָּרֵשׁ הָאָמָה
הַזֹּאת, וְאֶת-בְּנָהּ: כִּי לֹא יִירַשׁ בֶּן-הָאָמָה הַזֹּאת, עִם-בְּנִי
עִם-יִצְחָק. |
10 Wherefore
she said unto Abraham: 'Cast out this bondwoman and her son;
for the son of this bondwoman
shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.' |
In so doing, Sarah tried her best to ensure that Isaac became Abraham’s
sole heir: to fulfill his Divine destiny as the next Patriarch of the Jewish
People.
Note:
As Sarah died and Abraham thereafter took another ‘mate’: Keturah, who bore him
6 sons, Sarah’s plans could have been undone.
But in the next blog, Part 3:
Keturah, why this did not happen will be explained. And, as well, it wil be revealed more of what
the term ‘concubine’ meant in Patriarch
times.
Supplementary Note:
While one might get the impression from the lives of
the Patriarchs and later King David and King Solomon that polygamy was an accepted
ancient norm, that is not true of early Mesopotamian law.
The Code of Hammurabi preferred monogamy.
Only
if the first ‘full freeborn wife’ is barren can a man add one additional ‘full freeborn wife’ -- to father children.
(#145)
If
a man’s first ‘full wife’ is barren and gives him her maidservant slave to bear
offspring, that too becomes the marital limit of two spouses (#144)
So,
under Mesopotamian law, polygamy is
limited to barren situations and has a very short breadth of two.
Consequently
the situation with Leah and Rachel is an anomaly under the Code.
Yes,
2 freeborn full wives is allowed but only if the first – after many years
–proves barren. Jacob’s wedding to
Rachel takes place just 7 days after he wed Leah: not enough time to argue in
court: ”My first wife is unable to conceive’. But Jacob could have argued he
had contracted with Laban to marry Rachel and switching sisters was done
without his consent or prior knowledge. I.e., He only realized the wife under
the heavy veil was not Rachel the NEXT MORNING (Gen. 19:25). He must
have been too merry from drinking and consummated the marriage the first night
without kissing – or at least without his eyes open.
The
Code also does not include the concept of a concubine as envisioned in later history: a ‘common law’ union
between a freeborn man and a female (slave) based solely on her beauty and sex
appeal[xii].
In
Mesopotamian law, marital unions and sex were always primarily to produce
offspring.
However,
The Code re: marital unions clearly collapsed centuries later.
The
great judge Gideon fathered 71 sons through “many wives” and at least
one identified ‘concubine’ (Judges 8:30-31). King David had at least 7 full
freeborn wives and at least 10 other concubines: chosen for their beauty and
sex appeal as discussed by Talmud Bavli,
Sanhedrin 21a 17. And King Solomon
was notorious for having 700 full freeborn wives and 300 concubines (1 Kings
11:3).
Hosting
a harem of full wives and even ‘common law’ concubines was now lawful.
[i] Abraham was 75 years old when he and
Sarah entered Canaan. 10 years later
Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to bear a child as she could not. The boy, Ishmael,
was born when Abraham was 86. (See Genesis 16: 3,16)
[ii]
NOTE: The angel who met Hagar
at the water hole did tell her that her son is to be named Ishmael as “the LORD hath heard thy – i.e,. Hagar’s -
affliction.” (Gen. 16:11) But Abraham
would not have used the same reasoning.
[iii] See Rashi who cites Talmud Bavli, Gitten 75b for the 2 years figure.
[iv] See Strong’s Concordance for item
1478 at https://biblehub.com/hebrew/1478.htm
[v] See Sefaria, Resources in right sidebar for Gen. 35:22.
[vi] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaan
[vii]See Gen. 14:13, 39:14 and 17, Exod.
41:12; Exod. 1:15-16, 19, 21, Exod. 2:6-7, 11, 13; Exod. 21:2; Deut. 15:12 and
nine other times in the ensuing Tanach
as tracked by Bible Hub at https://biblehub.com/topical/h/hebrew.htm
[viii]
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Ur-Nammu
[ix] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammurabi
[x] https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp
[xii]
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concubinage
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