Concubinage
In the patriarchal and monarchic narratives, a concubine is a woman attached to a household as wife in a status below the principal wife, often a slave or a war captive, whose children may or may not be reckoned as heirs. Scripture records the practice without commending it. It regulates its margins and follows the trail of grief and judgment it leaves through the families of the patriarchs, the judges, and the kings.
Laws Concerning the Status of the Subordinate Wife
Three Mosaic statutes set protective limits around the practice without endorsing it. A daughter sold into household slavery is not to be discharged like a male slave, may be redeemed if her master has betrayed her, and if a second wife is taken, "her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, he will not diminish" (Ex 21:7-11). Sexual offense against a betrothed female slave incurs a trespass-offering rather than the death penalty owed for a free betrothed woman, "because she was not free" (Le 19:20-22). A captive taken in war may be brought home as a wife only after a month of mourning her parents, and if the captor has "no delight in her, then you will let her go according to her soul; but you will not sell her at all for silver, you will not deal with her as a slave, because you have humbled her" (De 21:10-14).
Children of Concubines and the Question of Inheritance
A concubine's son is not, by default, the heir. Yahweh tells Abraham that the steward of his house "will not be your heir; But he who will come forth out of inside you will be your heir" (Gen 15:4). When Sarah sees Hagar's son mocking, she demands, "Cast out this slave and her son. For the son of this slave will not be heir with my son, even with Isaac" (Gen 21:10). God ratifies the displacement: "In all that Sarah says to you, listen to her voice. For in Isaac will your seed be called" (Gen 21:12), with the parallel promise that "of the son of the slave I will make into a nation, because he is your seed" (Gen 21:13). Abraham's later practice with the rest of his concubines is the same pattern: "But to the sons of the concubines, that Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts. And he sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, to the east country" (Gen 25:6).
Concubines Called Wives
The vocabulary slides. The Levite of Bethlehem-judah is called a husband, his concubine a damsel, his father-in-law a son-in-law, all in the same scene (Jdg 19:3-5). Joseph as a lad keeps the flock "with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives" (Gen 37:2), although Bilhah and Zilpah were each given to Jacob as the slave-wife of a sister. The status is not a separate institution from marriage; it is a lower tier of it, and the same woman may be referred to as wife or as concubine depending on the angle of the narrative.
Hagar and Sarai
An early concubine named in Scripture is the slave-girl of Sarai. "Now Sarai, Abram's wife, bore him no [children]: and she had a female slave, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar" (Gen 16:1). Sarai gives her to Abram "to be his wife" after ten years in Canaan (Gen 16:3), and "Hagar bore Abram a son: and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael" (Gen 16:15). The arrangement is fragile from the start. After Isaac's birth, Sarah sees Ishmael mocking and demands the slave and her son be cast out (Gen 21:9-10). The expulsion is the household's, but Yahweh underwrites it (Gen 21:12). "And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a bottle of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and [gave her] the boy, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba" (Gen 21:14).
The Patriarchs and Their Concubines
Abraham's brother Nahor also has a concubine: "And his concubine, whose name was Reumah, she also bore Tebah, and Gaham, and Tahash, and Maacah" (Gen 22:24). Jacob takes Bilhah as Rachel's surrogate: "And she gave him Bilhah her slave as wife: and Jacob entered her" (Gen 30:4). Esau's son Eliphaz: "And Timna was concubine to Eliphaz Esau's son; and she bore to Eliphaz Amalek" (Gen 36:12). Abraham's later wife Keturah is reckoned with the concubines in the Chronicler's genealogy: "And the sons of Keturah, Abraham's concubine: she bore Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah" (1Ch 1:32).
Gideon and the Levite of Ephraim
In the period of the judges, Gideon's concubine in Shechem bears him Abimelech (Jdg 8:31), the son who later murders his seventy half-brothers. The book closes with the unnamed concubine of an unnamed Levite "sojourning on the farther side of the hill-country of Ephraim, who took to himself a concubine out of Beth-lehem-judah" (Jdg 19:1) — the woman whose abuse and dismemberment at Gibeah ignites civil war against Benjamin. The narrator's frame is "in those days, when there was no king in Israel" (Jdg 19:1).
Concubines Among the Tribal Genealogies
The Chronicler preserves household records that sit lightly on the practice. "And Ephah, Caleb's concubine, bore Haran, and Moza, and Gazez. . . . Maacah, Caleb's concubine, bore Sheber and Tirhanah" (1Ch 2:46-48). For Manasseh: "his wife bore Asriel. His concubine the Aramitess bore Machir the father of Gilead" (1Ch 7:14).
The Kings of Israel
With the monarchy, the practice scales. Saul has a concubine named Rizpah (2Sa 3:7); after the king's death, Abner enters her, and Ishbosheth's challenge — "Why have you entered my father's concubine?" — sparks the breach that delivers Saul's house into David's hand. Years later, "the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth" (2Sa 21:8) — handed over to be hanged before Yahweh by the Gibeonites. David himself "took more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem, after he came from Hebron; and there were yet sons and daughters born to David" (2Sa 5:13). When he flees from Absalom, "the king left ten women, who were concubines, to keep the house" (2Sa 15:16) — the ten Absalom takes publicly on the palace roof in fulfillment of Nathan's word against him. Solomon multiplies the practice past any pretense of restraint: "And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart" (1Ki 11:3). Rehoboam continues it: "Rehoboam loved Maacah the daughter of Absalom above all his wives and his concubines: (for he took eighteen wives, and threescore concubines, and begot twenty and eight sons and threescore daughters)" (2Ch 11:21).
Belshazzar's Feast
A late named appearance comes the night Babylon falls. Belshazzar "commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, might drink from them" (Dan 5:2). The harem profanes the temple vessels, and the writing on the wall answers within the chapter.