Women at Work in the Deuteronomistic History - International Voices ...

HIDE AND SEEK: MISCELLANEOUS WOMEN | 175
one born in his house may eat (Lev 22:11). Here again, the home-born are paired
with the ones bought from without.
According to Willesen, דילי (or plural ־ידלי) only appears in conjunction
with terms denoting a particular group, never occurring in conjunction with a
gentilic, for which ־ןב is used. 36 Willesen concludes that “the root yld always
implies subordination and dependence, and in our compounds the second
elements only assert to whom or what the person in question was born and
therefore subordinate. In face of this we cannot claim that the notion of
subordination is constituted by the compound, but it is implied in the word
yālīd.” 37
The disappointed king impersonated in Qoheleth enumerates, among his
many (and senseless) riches, “male and female slaves (תוחפשׁו םידבע), and
home-born slaves (children of the house תיב־ינב, Qoh 2:7), herds and flocks.”
Perhaps the difference in vocabulary is due only to the particularities of this
book and the meaning intended would have been exactly the same as the
תיב־ידלי. Were there a difference, it would not be between free or unfree,
judging from their place in this list. Here again, the porousness of language
points to the inclusion of slaves as part of the household in which they grew, to
the denial of an identity as adult for the slave, and to the subordinated role
children played even in their own families. Indirectly, they attest also to
foreigners being bought and incorporated into the household. Many of these
must have been women.
ריכשׂ — The Hired Laborer
The adjective ריכשׂ, “hired,” appears ten times in legal texts in the Torah. The
information one may glean from these is scant, but it seems to apply both to
Israelites under indentured work (Lev 19:13) and to foreigners (they are not
allowed to partake of the holy, see Exod 12:45, Lev 22:10); and they were
among the poorest (see Deut 15:18; 24:14). Besides these instances, the term
appears three times in the Joban poetry. There is also a handful of appearances
in the prophets; these share the same impression as to their precarious situation
(see especially Jer 46:21). Even though the only feminine term does not refer to
a person (Isa 7:20), nothing precludes the presence of women among the poorest
36 F. Willesen, “The Yālīd in Hebrew Society,” ST 12 (1958): 192–3.
37 Willesen, “The Yālīd in Hebrew Society,” 197–98. Notice 198 n.10 (in brackets in the quotation
above): “P. HEINISCH, Das Sklavenrecht in Israel und im alten Orient (Studia Catholica 11/1934–
5), stresses the fact that the concept of slavery in the ancient Near East was not that of our time. ‘It
was paternal refuge for the impoverished and a sanctuary for conquered aliens,’ NORTH, op. cit.
[Sociology of the Biblical Jubilee (AnBib 4/1954)], p. 135.”