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

176 | WOMEN AT WORK IN THE DTRH
who had to hire themselves out, perhaps in the hope of not having to fall into
permanent slavery.
ישׁפח — The Client
The adjective ישׁפח should also be mentioned here, a term that appears in the
texts concerning release of slaves, and in a few poetic texts, and is usually
translated “freed.” Niels Lemche, however, has suggested that the ישׁפח —at
least the one in 1 Sam 17:25—was a client of the king, getting sustenance, rather
than exemption from taxes, from the royal household. The issue deserves a study
of its own; for the present discussion what matters is that a ישׁפח would have
been in a precarious situation, either economically (if a semi-free peasant, or a
manumitted slave) or socially (if a temple slave or a client) and would not have
been among the privileged rich or independent. Furthermore, considering the
Deuteronomic injunction to give lavishly to the debt-slave who leaves you (Deut
15, esp. v 18), one may assume a clientship relationship, even if only informally
stated in our sources. 38 Even though the adjective appears only in masculine
(singular and plural), at least in Deut 15:12 it includes women: “if your brother,
a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman is sold to you ... you shall let him [or her]
go free” (ישׁפח).
SUMMING UP
Were women part of all these groups? There were, for sure, daughters, wives
and mothers of those enslaved men from the groups so indicated (servants,
prisoners subject to forced labor, Canaanites). In my opinion, women related to
these groups were also bound workers, although we do not have information on
them. There were also women donated as votaries to the temple and, obviously
there were women amongst those “born in the household” and—judging from
ANE sources—some were freed and some remained slaves forever.
What cannot be ascertained so clearly is that they worked in the same
occupations as their husbands or fathers. Since slavery is a social and economic
38 The main difference between master-slave and patron-client relationships is that the latter is (at
least in theory) a voluntary association, although it is doubtful that an indentured slave, for instance,
who was to start anew, would have other options. See Ralph W. Klein, 1 Samuel (WBC 10; Waco:
Word Books, 1983), 178; McCarter, 1 Samuel (AB; Garden City: Doubleday, 1980), 304. On
patronage see R. Saller, "Patronage and Friendship in Early Imperial Rome: Drawing the
Distinction,” Patronage in Ancient Society (ed. A. Wallace-Hadrill. London: Routledge, 1989), 49–
62; Mendelsohn, “The Canaanite Term for ‘Free Proletarian,’” BASOR 83 (1941): 36–39; “New
Light on the Hupšu,” BASOR 139 (1955): 9–11; E. R. Lacheman, “Note on the Word Hupšu at
Nuzi,” BASOR 86 (1942): 36–37; Lemche, “ישׁפח in 1 Sam. XVII 25,” and “The Hebrew and the
Seven Year Cycle,” 71–72 and 72 n.29; Frank S. Frick, The City in Ancient Israel (Missoula:
Scholars Press, 1977), 98, 151–52, n.111.