Sexuality in the Old Testament: strong as death, unquenchable as fire

Currents in Theology and Mission, Feb, 2003 by Esther M. Menn

But back to sexuality and power: The power of men was expressed in their sexual potency. Moses was celebrated for his unabated vigor until the day of his death (Deut 34:7), whereas David's impotence, demonstrated by his sleeping with his live hot-water bottle Abishag but never knowing her, signals the decline of the aging king (1 Kgs 1:1-4). Solomon's 700 wives and 300 concubines symbolize the power of his rule (1 Kgs 11:3), and his marriages with foreign women, including Pharaoh's daughter (1 Kgs 3:1), had political significance as well as religious consequences (1 Kgs 11:1-13). King Ahab's marriage with the infamous Jezebel was also a political marriage, since she was the daughter of the king of Tyre (1 Kgs 16:31-32). As in the case of Solomon's wives, Jezebel brought with her to Israel foreign worship, in this case of the Tyrian Baal, and she is therefore charged with metaphorically "whoring" after other gods (2 Kgs 9:22). The influence of these foreign wives on their husbands' religious observances sugges ts the power that women exercised, even within the context of arranged political marriages.

Sexual attractiveness to men was a power that women could use for positive purposes as well. For example, Esther became the Persian King Ahashuerus' queen through a beauty contest (Est 2:15-18), and from this position of favor, she is able to influence the king to save the Jewish people from destruction (Esther 7-9). In general, the social and political significance of sexual relations including marriage is much more pronounced in the Bible than in our contemporary culture of the individual.

Sexuality and Old Testament laws

A discussion of sexuality in the Old Testament would not be complete without at least a cursory look at some of the laws that attempt to channel and order sexuality for the welfare and purity of the community, as well as for the perceived good of the individuals involved. To a large extent, these laws are culturally specific to the Israelite culture of over two thousand years ago, although certainly many of them address the same, universally relevant issues that are treated in our legal codes, including incest, rape, and divorce. Although certainly the entire community has a stake in sexual matters, the consistent privileging of the community over the individual (especially over the individual woman) in this legal material is hard to take. Speaking personally, my visceral reaction to many of the prohibitions and regulations make me realize how grateful I am for our relatively permissive society, whatever the remaining problems that need to be addressed. A few examples will illustrate the distance between the biblical world and our own with regard to sexual mores and legal prohibitions.

First, here is a law that makes a man who has illicit sex with a single woman still under the authority of her father take responsibility for his crime and compensate the father for the loss of a bride price:

If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are caught in the act, the man who lay with her shall give fifty shekels of silver to the young woman's father, and she shall become his wife. Because he violated her, he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives. (Deut 22:28-29)