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

REASSESSING THE SOCIAL LOCATION OF FEMALE LABOR IN THE DTRH | 335
another reality, at least for the Israelites. Its God is, precisely, a God who
rescued them from slavery and humiliation to make of them a great nation!
Throughout the Bible, women perform several tasks, many of them in a
professional manner. Often, texts do not pause to give us detailed information
(they often do not even remember them), as has become clear in our study.
Many terms occur in pre-exilic sources (notably, in the books of Samuel), and
some of them, such as the song of Deborah (Judg 5), are considered by most
scholars as part of the earliest material that we have, even though reworked and
integrated into that post-exilic meta-narrative that is the “Deuteronomistic
History” or the “Former Prophets,” as one chooses to look at Joshua–2 Kings.
Except for references to the הנוז (sex worker) and “concubines” (more a
relational term than that of an occupation, as already discussed) all other
occupations appear only once in this whole block Joshua–2 Kings (and only the
הנוז is mentioned in a law in Deut 23) as evident in our Chart IV.
Besides these, we have traced several other professions, such as grinders,
singers, music performers, messengers, weavers, and advisers. Since they are
ignored or even somehow misplaced in the biblical record, they are located with
other women made invisible. Charts VIII (DtrH) and IX (elsewhere) reflect the
texts in which they appear. 15
INVISIBLE WOMEN
In chapter 5, several associations or “brotherhoods” were studied. Since many if
not all of these were hereditary (priests, temple servants, donated people, water
drawers, wood hewers, and others), they were literally born from women. We
cannot know, however, whether these women belonged to those “guilds” and
even in case they did, what that means in terms of work. It is our assumption
that at least in the case of groups belonging to the lower socio-economic
echelons, whether legally free or slaves, active members of the hereditary guilds
or not, their lives did probably suffer restrictions: they usually lived on the edge
of survival and must have worked to help out the family. 16 DtrH also states that
at least certain groups of Canaanites who survived Israel’s settlement were
permanently bound to the state and temple. These groups included women
whose living standards are unknown to us. Furthermore, people serving in tasks
such as grain-grinding at the mill, beer-brewing, midwifery, music and arts,
15
By “misplaced” I mean that they appear in unusual contexts (such as weaving for Asherah, but
nowhere else) or their recognized female-related profession is ascribed to a male in DtrH (such as
the composers and singers of songs of war and of laments).
16
Women were also affected by their relatives’ absence due to corvée or war, but they probably
remained free. See above, chapter 3.