NOTE: All texts are from the online Hebrew - English Bible /
Mechon-Mamre . Any
RED lettering is my highlighting.
In the ancient world, marriage was not just the formal
union of a man and woman but far more importantly, the union of two families
and even clans and kingdoms.
Royal Marriages
Kings often
used their daughters as tools in creating and cementing political alliances.
The first
mentioned in the Bible is Joseph’s marriage.
As a reward
for Joseph correctly interpreting Pharaohs two dreams (of cattle then of wheat),
the king not only makes him his is second-in-command as Viceroy, but also gives
him a wife, Asenath
the daughter of Poti-phera.
Gen. 41: 45
|
מה וַיִּקְרָא פַרְעֹה שֵׁם-יוֹסֵף,
צָפְנַת פַּעְנֵחַ, וַיִּתֶּן-לוֹ אֶת-אָסְנַת בַּת-פּוֹטִי פֶרַע כֹּהֵן אֹן,
לְאִשָּׁה; וַיֵּצֵא יוֹסֵף, עַל-אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם. |
45 And Pharaoh called
Joseph's name Zaphenath-paneah; and he gave him to wife Asenath the daughter of Poti-phera |
And King Solomon married a daughter of Egypt’s pharaoh
as recorded in 1
Kings ch 3: 1.
|
א וַיִּתְחַתֵּן שְׁלֹמֹה, אֶת-פַּרְעֹה מֶלֶךְ מִצְרָיִם; וַיִּקַּח אֶת-בַּת-פַּרְעֹה, וַיְבִיאֶהָ
אֶל-עִיר דָּוִד, עַד כַּלֹּתוֹ לִבְנוֹת אֶת-בֵּיתוֹ וְאֶת-בֵּית יְהוָה,
וְאֶת-חוֹמַת יְרוּשָׁלִַם סָבִיב. |
1 And Solomon became
allied [
literally “married”] to Pharaoh king of Egypt by marriage, and took Pharaoh's daughter,
and brought her into the city of David, until he had made an end of building
his own house, and the house of the LORD, and the wall of Jerusalem round
about. |
[My square bracket addition.]
Note the
wording. King Solomon literally
“married“ pharaoh, king of Egypt, and the female – the wife – was the ‘means’
to complete this state-to-state bonding.
And as part
of the wedding arrangement, pharaoh gave Solomon as a dowry gift the ‘land’ of
the city of Gezer; a city which he had just conquered and burned to the ground.
And Solomon then rebuilt it as a fortification.
1 Kings 9: 16 -17
Solomon
similarly made formal alliances via marriage with many adjoining tribes and
kingdoms as listed in 1 Kings 11: 1 – 3
As per verse
3, Solomon married a total of 700 princesses; most notably, from the tribes or kingdoms of the Moabites,
Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites --as they are mentioned by name.
And to
underscore such marriages were strictly ‘political’ and not romantic in
natures, Solomon removed pharaoh’s daughter -- and his other wives -- from
Jerusalem once the holy Temple was completed; relocating Pharoah’s daughter to
a new palace at Millo.
See 1 Kings
3:1 above, 1 Kings 9:24 and 2 Chronicle 8 11.
1 Kings
9:24
|
כד אַךְ בַּת-פַּרְעֹה, עָלְתָה
מֵעִיר דָּוִד, אֶל-בֵּיתָהּ, אֲשֶׁר בָּנָה-לָהּ; אָז, בָּנָה אֶת-הַמִּלּוֹא. |
24 But Pharaoh's daughter
came up out of the city of David unto her house which [Solomon] had built for
her; then did he build Millo. |
2 Chronicle
8: 11.
Before
this, KING SAUL gave his daughter Michal to the young hero
David thereby bringing him into the royal family via this arranged marriage.
The text, verse 19, notes David expected
another daughter to be his bride, Merab, but Saul gave her to one Adriel the Meholathite: a political alliance with
an important Jordan valley tribe.[i]
So instead, he was given Michal – who happened
to love David (verse 20).
For a bride price (called a dowry in the
English) King Saul required from David not money but the foreskins of 100
Philistines. And once David did so,[ii] the
marriage deal was sealed (verses 25 and 27).
But later, when King Saul sought David's death
and he fled, Saul annulled the marriage and arranged Michal’s marriage with
another -- Palti the son of Laish, of Gallim: a
very prominent Benjaminite family.[iii] (1
Samuel 25:44)
1 Samuel 18: 17 - 28
1 Samuel 25: 44
|
מד וְשָׁאוּל, נָתַן אֶת-מִיכַל
בִּתּוֹ--אֵשֶׁת דָּוִד: לְפַלְטִי בֶן-לַיִשׁ, אֲשֶׁר מִגַּלִּים. |
44 Now Saul had given
Michal his daughter, David's wife, to Palti the son
of Laish, who was of Gallim. |
Much later, we learn that Ahab, King of
the northern Kingdom of Israel, arranged his own wedding to Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal
king of the Zidonians:a powerful Phoenician king.[iv]
1 Kings
16: 31
|
לא וַיְהִי הֲנָקֵל לֶכְתּוֹ,
בְּחַטֹּאות יָרָבְעָם בֶּן-נְבָט; וַיִּקַּח אִשָּׁה אֶת-אִיזֶבֶל,
בַּת-אֶתְבַּעַל מֶלֶךְ צִידֹנִים, וַיֵּלֶךְ וַיַּעֲבֹד אֶת-הַבַּעַל,
וַיִּשְׁתַּחוּ לוֹ. |
31 And it came to pass, as
if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son
of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the
Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him. |
Royal
marriages and religion
When an Israelite
male married an Israelite female, there was no issue or question whether she
would worship and follow the same deity as her husband: God the Eternal of the Torah.
But when the
bride was a non-Israelite, there seems have been two different standards and
rules: one for princesses and another for ordinary brides.
Royal brides
were allowed to keep their own, ancestral pagan beliefs and gods.
This is
clear re: Solomon’s wives as recorded in I Kings 11: 1 – 8.
Solomon
built pagan temples for these wives so they could continue to worship their
ancestral pagan gods, and even participated in the wives’ idolatrous services
(1 Kings 11: 7). He also attended/participated in their pagan rituals when no
temple building was involved, such as in the sacred woods of the mother goddess/tree goddess Ashtoret (1 Kings 1: 5).[v]
As these
wives knew that they were simply ‘means’ to a political union of kingdoms, and
that they would soon be ushered off to their own palaces far away from their
husbands (as Solomon did), their maintaining their ancestral religious
practices is understandable.
1 Kings 11:
1 - 8
However, when King Ahab of the northern Kingdom of Israel married Jezebel, the daughter of the king of the Zidonans (i.e., Tyre[vi]), she was not ushered off but remained in Ahab’s palace and not only allowed to keep her ancestral religion but she -- and he -- actively ‘spread it’ among his people.
Ahad built a
temple in his capital to Baal, the male Phoenician god (1 Kings 16: 32) and also a tree grove for the worship of Baal’s ‘wife’ Asherot (1 King 16:33).
Jezebel
hosted at her table 450 Baal priests and 400 Asherot priests (1 Kings 18: 19).
Moreover,
Jezebel was permitted to expel or kill off any prophets and supporters of God
the Eternal, the ancestral deity of the Israelites (1 Kings 18: 13).
To challenge
her Baal god, a prophet from the southern Kingdom of Judah had to be called in:
Elijah.
He
confronted the hundreds of Baal priests on Mount Carmel and defeated them in a
spectacular test (! Kings 18: 19 –
40)
And when
Ahab rushed back to their palace to tell Jezebel what happened, she ordered
Elijah’s death – so he fled back to Judah. (1 Kings 19: 1 – 3)
Clearly,
Jezebel and Ahab’s marriage was more than just a typical ‘political
arrangement’ and she welded great power in his kingdom.
Her actions
and Ahab’s acquiescence re: her worship and belief in Baal and Asherot, simply
reinforces proof of the pattern: royal foreign princesses were not expected to
adopt the religion of their royal husbands.
1 Kings 16:
30- 33
NOTE:
On Solomon’s death, he was succeeded by his 41-year-old eldest son, Rehoboam,
whose mother was Naamah the Ammonite (1 Kings 14:21 and 2
Chronicles 12:13). Now 1 Kings 11:5 and 7 state this Ammonite wife caused
Solomon to worship her ancestral deity, Milcom, and have Solomon build Milcom a
temple outside Jerusalem.
|
ה וַיֵּלֶךְ שְׁלֹמֹה--אַחֲרֵי
עַשְׁתֹּרֶת, אֱלֹהֵי צִדֹנִים; וְאַחֲרֵי מִלְכֹּם, שִׁקֻּץ עַמֹּנִים. |
5 For Solomon went after
Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the detestation of
the Ammonites. |
|
ז אָז יִבְנֶה שְׁלֹמֹה בָּמָה,
לִכְמוֹשׁ שִׁקֻּץ מוֹאָב, בָּהָר, אֲשֶׁר עַל-פְּנֵי יְרוּשָׁלִָם; וּלְמֹלֶךְ,
שִׁקֻּץ בְּנֵי עַמּוֹן. |
7 Then did Solomon build a
high place for Chemosh the detestation of Moab, in the mount that is before
Jerusalem, and for Molech the detestation of the children of Ammon. |
So, it would
appear Rehoboam was ‘Jewish’ only on his father’s side as his mother never
converted or practiced Judaism.
But Rabbinic tradition holds that Naamah was a
righteous person and converted at some point before her son’s birth: as
inferred from the discussion in Talmud Bavli, Bava Kama 38b: 1 -8 re: Moab and
Ammon.[vii]
Rambam in his Mishnah Torah, Forbidden Intercourse 13:
16 asserts that Solomon converted all his foreign wives before or at their
marriage (as did Samson) but they later reverted to their pagan ways.[viii]
This last point is probably based on the text which
mentions in 1 Kings 11: 4 that Solomon (only) built them these temples “in his
old age”, i.e., after many years of marriage during which the wives pretended
to fully reject their ancient paganism.[ix]
Rambam even holds that the wives themselves built the
pagan temples and worship sites rather than the literal words (quoted above)
that name Solomon.[x]
The matrilineal descent rule re: who is a ‘Jew’, is
ultimately based on Deut. 7: 3-4 where Moses warns the Israelites not to
inter-marry with the pagan Canaanite dwellers: both male and female.
Talmud Bavli, Kiddushin 68b, 2-3 explains based on the
pronoun usage in Deut. 7: 3-4 that the offspring of
a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother is not Jewish, but the offspring of a
Jewish mother are Jews even of the father is not.[xi]
Some suggest the matrilineal rule only came into
effect under Erza (mid – 5th c. BCE). Once he became aware of the
high rate of male Israelites returning from Babylon now married to Canaanite
women, he declared -- and the people agreed-- that the Israelites all give up
their pagan wives and even their children.
And remarry Jewish women (Ezra chapters
9 – 10).[xii]
Deut. 7: 1 - 4
|
א כִּי יְבִיאֲךָ, יְהוָה
אֱלֹהֶיךָ, אֶל-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר-אַתָּה בָא-שָׁמָּה לְרִשְׁתָּהּ; וְנָשַׁל
גּוֹיִם-רַבִּים מִפָּנֶיךָ הַחִתִּי וְהַגִּרְגָּשִׁי וְהָאֱמֹרִי
וְהַכְּנַעֲנִי וְהַפְּרִזִּי, וְהַחִוִּי וְהַיְבוּסִי--שִׁבְעָה גוֹיִם,
רַבִּים וַעֲצוּמִים מִמֶּךָּ. |
1 When the LORD thy God
shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall
cast out many nations before thee, the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the
Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite,
seven nations greater and mightier than thou; |
|
ב וּנְתָנָם יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ,
לְפָנֶיךָ--וְהִכִּיתָם: הַחֲרֵם תַּחֲרִים אֹתָם, לֹא-תִכְרֹת לָהֶם
בְּרִית וְלֹא תְחָנֵּם. |
2 and when the LORD thy
God shall deliver them up before thee, and thou shalt smite them; then thou
shalt utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show
mercy unto them; |
|
ג וְלֹא תִתְחַתֵּן, בָּם:
בִּתְּךָ לֹא-תִתֵּן לִבְנוֹ, וּבִתּוֹ לֹא-תִקַּח לִבְנֶךָ. |
3 neither shalt thou make
marriages with them: thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou
take unto thy son. |
The Pattern
So, in the
ancient Near East, royal marriages were carefully arranged by the kings, i.e.,
their fathers, as means to creating a permanent bond and alliance between two
countries or peoples.
The brides
were merely tools to this end and usually sent to live in palaces far from their husband’s throne and capital – and his bed.
So it is
not surprising these pagan wives continued to worship their ancestral gods.
Rabbinic
suggestions they converted to Judaism at their marriage and only reverted to
idolatry much later is doubtful and wishful thinking.
No biblical
text supports such a claim.
Finally,
there is Ahab and Jezebel: the great exception in the Bible.
Jezebel was
not a ‘token wife’ to be sent off but a true love and co-ruler
with her husband Ahab.
She too
continued to worship Baal and Asherot after her marriage and even convinced
Ahab to promote these deities among his Israelite people.
[ii]
According to this text, 1 Samuel 18:27, David
gave Saul double, 200, but this is certainly a scribal error and should read
100. In 2 Samuel 3:14, where David asks
Michal to be returned to him, he states he gave only 100 foreskins to King
Saul. The Greek Septuagint also uses 100
for 1 Samuel 18: 27 .
[v] ASHTORETH - JewishEncyclopedia.com and https://religionsfacts.com/asherah-an-ancient-goddess-and-her-modern-symbol/
[ix] His point is stressed in the Steinsaltz
translation, https://www.sefaria.org/I_Kings.11.4?lang=bi&with=Steinsaltz&lang2=en
[x] Ibid.
[xi] https://www.sefaria.org/Kiddushin.68b.4?lang=bi See Wikipedia for a full discussion of this
topic at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrilineality_in_Judaism
[xii]
Ibid,
