POLYGAMY
Another element of the narrative
that may be hard for a modern audience to understand is Abraham’s multiple
wives. Because of barrenness, Sarah offers Abraham one of her handmaidens (šipḥāh),
Hagar (The name means “hireling” from Akkadian agru; Black, George, and
Postgate, Concise Dictionary of Akkadian, 6) as a wife (Genesis 16:1-2).
Polygamy was known (Gelb, “household and Family in Early Mesopotamia,” 66) but
not commonly practiced. It was usually under conditions of childlessness,
sickness, or misconduct, and with the consent of the first wife (Westbrook, Old
Babylonian Marriage Law, 107-9). Old Assyrian merchants would have a wife (aššutum)
at home and a second wife (amtum) at his second base of operation (Mogens
Trolle Larsen, The Aššur-nādā Archive [Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor
het Nabije Oosten, 2002], xxv-xxvi). With Abraham and Sarah we have two of the
conditions that apply that are specifically mentioned in the text:
childlessness and not just the consent but the instigation of the first wife
(Genesis 16:2).
After her marriage while she is
pregnant, Hagar demeans (tēqal) Sarah (Genesis 16:4). Legally, Sarah, as
the first wife, takes precedence over the second wife and has power over her (Westbrook,
Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 110-111). A roughly contemporaneous legal
document spells out the situation this way: “Buneneabi and Belissunu have
bought šamašnuri, daughter of Ibišaan,
her father. To Buneneabi she will be a wife and to Belissunu she will be a
servant. The day that šamašnuri
says to Belissunu, ‘You are not my owner’ she will shave her and sell her.” (CT
8 22 b). The text says that Sarah first oppressed or humbled (te ‘annehā)
Hagar (Genesis 16:6). Hagar ran away but returned at the command of an angel
(Genesis 16:7-15). Fugitive slaves were a serious matter; harboring them
carried the death penalty (Codex Hammurapi §§15-20). Later, Sarah’s expulsion
of Hagar and her son after provocation (meṣaḥēq; Genesis 21:9-21) was
according to standard legal practice of the time but was actually more lenient
since Hagar and Ishmael were not sold but set free and sent away. (John Gee, “The
Wanderings of Abraham,” in From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament Through
the Lens of the Restoration, eds., Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade [Provo,
Utah: Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021], 272-73)