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

Being sexual is part of being human, and the Old Testament quite frankly acknowledges this important aspect of our humanity. It unapologetically depicts men and women as physical and sexual creatures, not only as spiritual, rational, and moral beings, as we sometimes pretend when we are in our religious, Sunday mode. Just as all the other animals created alongside us on the sixth day in the Genesis story, we are acknowledged to be "flesh" (basar in Hebrew), with all of its appetites and aversions, its needs and desires, its abilities and limitations, its potential for good and for evil. Surveying what the Old Testament says about human sexuality can remind us that the more things change (and they certainly have changed a lot!), the more things stay the same. The cultural world and the social structures within which we express our sexuality today are substantially different from those of Old Testament times, and they are continuing to evolve at a rapid pace in our day. Still, all things considered, it is not s o much our fundamental differences with our biblical ancestors that strikes us, but rather our common flesh, our common capacity for love with a physical dimension, our common desire to know and be known by another. These sexual aspects of our humanity are strong as death, unquenchable as fire.

Sexuality in creation

Sexuality is as old as creation itself. Both of the creation narratives at the beginning of Genesis introduce human beings as sexual creatures. The Priestly account in Genesis 1:1-2:4 stresses that humanity, created in the "image of God" for sovereignty over the rest of creation, consists of both male and female (Gen 1:27), and this sexual aspect of creation, along with everything else that God makes, is declared "very good" (Gen 1:31). Populating the world through sexual union is part of God's blessing for humanity when the earth is still new (Gen 1:28), and the command to "be fruitful and multiply" (1) is repeated after the devastation of the flood (Gen 9:1). Beginning already with the ancestral narratives, however, producing children is no longer presented as an imperative to fill the earth but rather as a precious gift from God, often received after anxious delay. Reproduction ultimately is not a human accomplishment but remains under God's control, a point emphasized by the repeated motif of the barren a ncestress, including Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and eventually Leab, as well as Hannah the mother of Samuel, and Elizabeth in the New Testament.

In the Yahwist's version of the creation story in Genesis 2-3, longing for companionship between the sexes emerges even more centrally as the fundamental theme. The essential problem is the loneliness of the first human, Adam ("Mr. Human" as the name resonates in the Hebrew account). It is worth note that although the identification of the original human as a male character signals the androcentric perspective of the narrative, it is nevertheless not as misogynistic as its history of interpretation would lead one to believe. Adam needs not only "help" that is above him, as God, our mighty "help," is above us (Exod 18:4), and "help" that is below him as the animals prove to be (Gen 2:20), but also "help" on his same level, the "helpe meet" in the KJV, which was demoted to a subordinate "helpmate" in some later translations. Since the companion is constructed from the side of the original human body that God formed out of the ground, man and woman are literally "bone of bone, and flesh of flesh," as Adam joyful ly recognizes (Gen 2:23). His exclamation adopts an expression used elsewhere in the Old Testament to speak of kinship and political relationships entailing mutual obligations, such as those between Laban and Jacob, when the latter flees from his brother Esau to the safe haven of his uncle's home in Haran (Gen 29:14), or between David and all the tribes of Israel, when they come to anoint him king at Hebron (2 Sam 5:1). Because Eve, "the mother of all living," was originally part of Adam's own body, he clings to her to be reunited as one flesh, as all men after him cling to their wives, the narrative maintains (Gen 2:24).

Eve's desire for her husband is also noted, although later in the narrative within God's reprimand for human disobedience, where the complexity of their relationship is expressed (Gen 3:16). After the fall, their relationship becomes a hierarchical one. This etiological story recognizes the almost universal reality that women in cultures all around the world find themselves under the authority of men, whom, at least in some cases, they nevertheless love and desire. At the same time, it makes the radical statement that this reality is a perversion of the original order of things, not a mandate established in the order of creation. The mutuality between the sexes expressed in Adam's delighted recognition of Eve as his counterpart (Gen 2:23) and in their unguarded nakedness in each other's presence in the garden of Eden (Gen 2:25) is recaptured in the poetry of the Song of Songs, in which the lovers express their mutual attraction and possession of each other. As the woman explains, "My beloved is mine, and I am his" (Song 2:16).

Sexuality in Old Testament narratives

Ancestors in love. Although biblical narrative tends to be taciturn about what happened behind closed tent flaps, it is clear that our Israelite ancestors enjoyed sexual love within the context of their marriages. Sarah laughed when she overheard the three men telling Abraham that he would have a son, but not merely because she ridiculed the idea of procreation by senior citizens. This 90-year-old woman, who was in her younger days so beautiful that the Pharaoh of Egypt had taken her from Abraham to be his own wife, asks with delight, presumably based on good memories, "After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?" (Gen 18:12). The motif of the barrenness of the beloved matriarch suggests that women were cherished for their own attractiveness and character qualities and not only for their ability to have children.

The promised son born of this unexpected pleasure, Isaac (whose name itself means "he laughs"), found comfort after his mother's death through sexual intimacy with his young bride, Rebekah. The biblical narrator tells us of their meeting, after Rebekah has agreed to leave her family in Haran to marry Isaac, in one of the most romantic passages in the Hebrew Bible:

Isaac went out in the evening to walk in the field; and looking up, he saw camels coming. And Rebekah looked up, and when she saw Isaac, she slipped quickly from the camel, and said to the servant, "Who is the man over there, walking in the field to meet us? The servant said, "It is my master." So she took her veil and covered herself. And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent. He took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother's death. (Gen 24:63-67)

Apparently it was easier to get married in those days. All one had to do was to have sexual relations, and all the better if it was in your deceased mother's tent! Isaac was so enamored of his attractive wife Rebekah that he apparently could not resist fondling or "playing" with her in public (Gen 26:8). (Note that "he plays" is another good translation for the name "Isaac.") This intimate behavior alerted the king of Gerar to the couple's marital relationship, so that he was able to warn his male subjects not to seduce Rebekah (Gen 26:9-11).

In turn, Isaac and Rebekah's son Jacob loved the beautiful Rachel, and found working off her bride price for seven years an easy matter because of his deep feelings: "So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her" (Gen 29:20). After marrying Rachel's older sister Leah through his father-in-law's deceitful substitution of his elder daughter for his younger, Jacob is able to marry Rachel as well: "So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah" (Gen 29:30). The story of the younger favored and the older hated wife emphasizes the jealousy that can easily arise in matters of sexuality. By bargaining for bed time through a payment of some aphrodisiac mandrake plants that her son Reuben had found, Leah is entitled to meet Jacob when he returns home to tell him that he is sleeping with her: "'You must come in tome, for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes.' So he lay with her that night" (Genesis 30:16). Love and hate, manip ulation and competition--even these may be part of marriage, as the Old Testament acknowledges with its typical realism.

Same-sex friends. The patriarchs clearly loved the matriarchs (with the exception of the unfortunate Leah), and apparently the matriarchs returned the sentiment, although the Old Testament is relatively tight-lipped about matters of the heart on both sides. Interestingly, two narrative treatments of same-sex relationships are much more forthcoming about the affections. The Moabite Ruth refuses to leave her mother-in-law Naomi, even though it means leaving her homeland and all that she has ever known:

Do not press me to leave you
Or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
Where you lodge, I will lodge;
Your people shall be my people,
And your God my God.
Where you die, I will die
There I will be buried.
May the LORD do thus and so to me
And more as well,
If even death parts me from you. (Ruth 1:16-17)

Ruth's effusive profession of love and loyalty to an older woman is often read at Christian weddings because of its intensity of feeling and commitment. How different from the narrator's simple note that "He [Isaac] loved her [Rebekah]" (Gen 24:67). According to Naomi's neighbors, Ruth, who goes on to have a son with one of Naomi's deceased husband's kinsmen, is worth more than seven sons to her mother-in-law (Ruth 4:15), a high estimation in a culture that values sons.

Similarly, the biblical narrative emphasizes the love of King Saul's son Jonathan for David from first sight, both through a description of his internal state, "When David had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul" (1 Sam 18:1), and through a portrayal of his behavior, "Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul. Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that he was wearing and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his belt" (1 Sam 18:4). Upon Saul and Jonathan's death in battle, David composes an elegy that strongly expresses his own feelings for Jonathan:

How the mighty have fallen
In the midst of the battle!
Jonathan lies slain upon your high places.
I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;
Greatly beloved were you to me;
Your love to me was wonderful,
Passing the love of women.
How the mighty have fallen,
And the weapons of war perished!
                            (2 Sam 1:25-26)

It should be noted that in this context there is a political subtext, since both children of Saul--his daughter Michal (who becomes one of David's wives) and his son Jonathan--are depicted as loving David and thereby affirming his legitimacy for the throne at the expense of the Saulide lineage. Clearly this material is pro-David propaganda. This aspect aside, the biblical narrator does not apologize for nor condemn the emotional attachment expressed by the two men, nor does he present it as anything out of the ordinary. It should be recognized that neither pair of friends, Ruth and Naomi nor Jonathan and David, is depicted as sexually intimate. In fact, Ruth, Naomi, David, and Jonathan were all married to other people and had children with their respective spouses. The closeness of the relationships between the two sets of friends does show that deep same-sex attachments are not something new in human history. Indeed, judging from the expressions of feelings quoted above, one might think that emotional bonds between friends of the same sex were closer than between spouses. Whatever else we conclude, we might consider whether our contemporary expectations of marriage to provide our closest companionship are realistic.

Uglier aspects of sexuality. The Old Testament discloses not only the positive side of sexual attraction and activity but also its uglier aspects, involving specifically male violence and female deception. It is disturbing that scenes illustrating the power of sexuality for grave harm are generally portrayed more graphically than love scenes. This emphasis may emerge partly from prurient interest, but in any case, just as the Old Testament does not allow us to deny or forget our human sexuality, it also does not allow us to idealize it.

Rape is the subject of a number of biblical narratives. One of the most infamous is the Sodomites' attempted gang rape of the divine beings under the protection of Abraham's nephew Lot in Genesis 19. The intended male-on-male violent assault is thwarted by the guests' use of supernatural power to blind their would-be attackers, but the evilness and inhospitality of Sodom seals the city's destruction. To be true to its biblical source, the term "sodomy," which remains on the law books in some states, should be defined as violent homosexual gang rape of a foreign (or even divine) guest staying at a neighbor's house. With that definition, everyone should be against sodomy.

Two other horrific rapes of women deserve note. One of these is the brutal gang rape and murder of the Levite's concubine in Judges 19, which is modeled on the same basic narrative pattern as Genesis 19. This atrocity takes place in the city of Gibeah, Saul's ancestral home, and so the narrative maybe considered an anti-Saulide polemic. The depravity of the act also serves as a prime example of the depths to which the tribes had sunk, when "every man did what was right in his own eyes," before there was a king in the land (Jdg 21:25 RSV). The outcome of this act of sexual violence is tribal warfare, in which the entire tribe of Benjamin is almost wiped out. A problematic arrangement allowing the abduction of wives for the remaining members of this tribe perpetuates the violence.

Another biblical rape involves incest. King David's son Amnon forcibly takes his half-sister Tamar, after luring her to his bed by pretending to be sick (2 Samuel 13). This narrative is part of the story of Solomon's succession to the Davidic throne through the disqualification of his older brothers, including Amnon in the wake of this crime. More important for present purposes is the loathing that Amnon feels for Tamar after he rapes her (2 Sam 13:15). Whether the rapid change from lust to loathing stems from his own guilt and shame or from aesthetic distaste from the experience is left open to interpretation. Whatever the case, the narrative cautions us that to "know" one in the biblical sense is not always to love one.

Each of these narratives, although horrific, condemns the violent behavior of predatory men in no uncertain terms. Deuteronomy aptly summarizes the seriousness of forced intercourse, in a law concerning the rape of an engaged woman in the open country where no one can hear her cry out, by comparing the crime to murder: "The young woman has not committed an offence punishable by death, because this case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor" (Deut 22:26). This perspective seems precociously insightful, in that it reclassifies rape as not merely an illegal sex act but as a violent, virtually deadly, crime against another person--a change of perception that has only recently been advocated in our own time.

Because women generally possess less overt power, physically at least if not always socially, their manipulation of sexuality to the harm of another generally involves subterfuge. Potiphar's wife, for example, is unrequited in her desire for sexual attentions from Joseph, her husband's handsome employee, since he will not listen to his mistress's crude command, "Lie with me!" or even more literally, "Lay me!" (Gen 39:7, 12). She therefore uses the garment that she pulls off Joseph's body to convince her husband that his employee attempted to rape her, and Joseph lands in prison on trumped-up charges. In the long run, though, Joseph's unjust incarceration indirectly leads to his rise to second in command over all of Egypt; in prison Joseph meets Pharaoh's butler, who later recommends him as an interpreter of dreams to Pharaoh himself (Genesis 40-41).

Another unforgettable deceiver is Delilah, Samson's Philistine girlfriend, whose nagging accusations that he doesn't love her eventually lead the mighty hero to disclose the basis of his phenomenal strength, making him vulnerable to capture by Philistines (Judges 16). In this case, too, Samson's degradation leads ultimately to greater, although Pyrrhic, victory, because once his hair has grown out and his strength has returned he is able to pull down the Philistine temple upon himself and more Philistines than he ever killed in life. Unlike in classical Greek literature where the rage of slighted women precipitates the murders of husbands and children, there is relatively less expression in the Old Testament of a fear of women's misuse of male vulnerability within sexual relationships. In these biblical stories of deceiving women, even if in the short term things look bad for the hero, ultimately things work out for the best.

Sexuality and power. The social and political dimensions of sexuality are especially clear in the Old Testament. Sex had consequences, not just for the individuals involved, as our culture tends to assume, but for the larger community. These consequences included the creation of family lines important for inheritance, group coherence, and political alliances. Women who restore genealogies broken by tragedy and legal impasse are therefore applauded, even if they use deceptive and morally ambiguous means. Such is the case with David's ancestress Tamar (after whom David named his own daughter discussed above), who posed as a prostitute in order to sleep with her father-in-law and bear sons to continue the family line (Genesis 38).

Incidentally, Genesis 38 is another of those misunderstood scriptural passages that has contributed to the Christian vocabulary of sexual sins. Onan, Tamar's brother-in-law, lent his name to "onanism," a term traditionally signifying masturbation--although it has become somewhat archaic now that disapprobation of the practice has diminished. Onan spilled his seed on the ground rather than fulfill his obligation to impregnate his sister-in-law Tamar in accordance with the levirate law, which holds a dead man's brother responsible for producing heirs on behalf of the deceased (Deut 25:5-10). The offspring Onan had with Tamar would legally be his elder brother Er's children, and as heirs of the eldest son they would inherit a double portion of the family's wealth, thus leaving less for remaining brothers, including Onan himself. What God saw as "evil" in Onan's coitus interuptus was his selfish refusal to meet his legal and social obligation, not the technical aspects of the sex act itself. An accurate definiti on of "onanism" based on Genesis 38 would therefore be one who withdraws before ejaculation when having socially sanctioned sex with his sister-in-law in order to produce heirs for her dead husband. This shows how much things have changed as far as the social structures within which human sexuality is legitimately expressed! There is no explicit prohibition against masturbation in the Old Testament.

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)

The woman whom we might consider the survivor of rape is not consulted in this case, although it should be acknowledge that the sense of the word translated "violated" includes intercourse with an unmarried daughter without the permission of the father or other male relatives, regardless of the woman's consent. Even with this qualification, this law offends our understanding of the independent legal agency of a woman to make her own decisions about sexuality and marriage after attaining a certain age.

There are laws intended to protect a woman from abuses of the disparity of power between husband and wife within Israelite marriage, such as this one preventing a husband's wrongful accusation of his wife for not being a virgin at their marriage, which if true would be grounds for stoning her:

Suppose a man marries a woman, but after going in to her, he dislike her and makes up charges against her, slandering her by saying, "I married this woman; but when I lay with her, I did not find evidence of her virginity." The father of the young woman and her mother shall then submit the evidence of the young woman's virginity to the elders of the city at the city gate. The father of the young woman shall say to the elders: I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her. Now he has made up charges against her, saying, I did not find evidence of your daughter's virginity. But here is the evidence of my daughter's virginity. Then they shall spread out the cloth before the elders of the town. The elders of that town shall take the man and punish him; and they shall fine him one hundred shekels of silver (which they shall give to the young woman's father) because he has slandered a virgin of Israel. She shall remain his wife; he shall not be permitted to divorce her as longs as he lives. (Deut 22:13-19)

This law has the noble purpose of protecting a woman's security in marriage, by ensuring that she not be arbitrarily rejected after her virginity is gone. Yet the thought of the wife's parents with the bloody sheet that they've kept since the wedding night, and of the elders of the town poring over it together is repugnant to the contemporary imagination, as is the ruling that the disliked wife shall forever remain within this difficult marriage.

Similarly, the laws concerning adultery reveal the difference between Israelite society and our own. Take for example this law from Leviticus: "If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death" (Lev 20:10). Adultery in Israelite law is defined as sexual intercourse involving a married woman. Married men may have sexual relations outside of marriage, as long as they are not with a married woman. By contrast, married women are restricted to their husbands, who control their sexuality for the establishment of his children's paternity. Today we have a broader ethical norm against adultery, which includes not only the wife's but also the husband's sexual relations outside of marriage, once again reflecting the difference in women's social status. In another way, however, we are more lenient, in that we do not impose the death sentence for adulterers.

If we were to examine more specifically what the Old Testament says about homosexuality, we could look at the law just a little further down in the same passage in Leviticus that prohibits, also on pain of death, a man lying with a male as with a woman (Lev 20:13). There is no doubt that the Old Testament laws work to keep the binary distinction between male and female present already in the creation stories in Genesis. There is also no doubt that Israelite society sought to channel male sexual energy into marriage, family, reproduction, and child rearing. Because Israel was a small minority population in the Ancient Near East whose survival depended on keeping its numbers up through reproduction, this strategy made sense. Polygamy contributed to the same goal. Rather than discuss the Old Testament law in Lev 20:13 in isolation to determine whether or not it has continuing authority, as is sometimes done, I would suggest that the oblique and more honest way of assessing its continuing relevance would be to st udy the Israelite laws on sexuality and family more broadly, to get a feeling for how different the culture within which these laws were operative was from our own.

I would also suggest that the Israelite and later the Jewish emphasis on "being fruitful and multiplying" could be contrasted with Christianity's broader range of attitudes toward the biological family and the importance of producing physical children. Things such as the value placed on virginity and celibacy in the monastic tradition, and the fact that Christians are not born but baptized, may suggest that we cannot uncritically adopt selected laws from an ancient culture very different from ours, hut need instead to reason through the issue anew for our own time, for our own culture and church.

Concluding summary

From our quick survey, we have seen how the Old Testament portrays human sexuality as an important part of our common humanity, one of the powerful gifts of creation, one of the complicated moral challenges of living well, and one of the primal forces channeled by the structures and laws of society. Certainly we twenty-first-century Christians differ from the ancient Israelites, in our ideals and social norms, our understanding of the roles of men and women, our concept of the vocation of service to God and the neighbor, and our expectation of seeing the face of Christ in others. At its core, however, our sexuality remains "strong as death, unquenchable as fire."

(1.) All translations in this essay are New Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise noted.