Midrash is expansive Jewish Biblical exegesis using a rabbinic mode of interpretation prominent in the Talmud. The word itself means "textual interpretation", "study", or "exegesis", derived from the root verb darash (דָּרַשׁ), which means "resort to, seek, seek with care, enquire, require".
Child sacrifice is the ritualistic killing of children in order to please or appease a deity, supernatural beings, or sacred social order, tribal, group or national loyalties in order to achieve a desired result. As such, it is a form of human sacrifice. Child sacrifice is thought to be an extreme extension of the idea that the more important the object of sacrifice, the more devout the person rendering it.
Amalek is described in the Hebrew Bible as the enemy nation of the Israelites. The name "Amalek" can refer to the descendants of Amalek, the grandson of Esau, or anyone who lived in their territories in Canaan, or North African descendants of Ham, the son of Noah.
Moloch, Molech, or Molek is a word which appears in the Hebrew Bible several times, primarily in the Book of Leviticus. The Bible strongly condemns practices that are associated with Moloch, which are heavily implied to include child sacrifice.
The Binding of Isaac, or simply "The Binding", is a story from chapter 22 of the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. In the biblical narrative, God orders Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac at Moriah. As Abraham begins to comply, having bound Isaac to an altar, he is stopped by the Angel of the Lord; a ram appears and is slaughtered in Isaac's stead, as God commends Abraham's pious obedience to offer his son as a human sacrifice.
A vow is a promise or oath. A vow is used as a promise that is solemn rather than casual.
Jephthah appears in the Book of Judges as a judge who presided over Israel for a period of six years. According to Judges, he lived in Gilead. His father's name is also given as Gilead, and, as his mother is described as a prostitute, this may indicate that his father might have been any of the men of that area. Jephthah led the Israelites in battle against Ammon and, in exchange for defeating the Ammonites, made a vow to sacrifice whatever would come out of the door of his house first. When his daughter was the first to come out of the house, he immediately regretted the vow, which bound him to sacrifice his daughter to God. Jephthah carried out his vow.
According to the Book of Genesis, Hagar was an Egyptian slave, a handmaiden of Sarah, whom Sarah gave to her own husband Abram as a wife to bear him a child. Abraham's firstborn son, through Hagar, Ishmael, became the progenitor of the Ishmaelites, generally taken to be the Arabs. Various commentators have connected her to the Hagrites, perhaps claiming her as their eponymous ancestor. Hagar is alluded to, although not named, in the Quran, and Islam considers her Abraham's second wife.
In the Hebrew Bible, a nazirite or a nazarite is an Israelite man or woman who voluntarily took a vow which is described in Numbers 6:1–21. This vow required the nazirite to:
Delilah is a woman mentioned in the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible. She is loved by Samson, a Nazirite who possesses great strength and serves as the final Judge of Israel. Delilah is bribed by the lords of the Philistines to discover the source of his strength. After three failed attempts at doing so, she finally goads Samson into telling her that his vigor is derived from his hair. As he sleeps, Delilah calls a servant to cut Samson's hair, thereby enabling her to turn him over to the Philistines.
Hannah is one of the wives of Elkanah mentioned in the First Book of Samuel. According to the Hebrew Bible she was the mother of Samuel.
Eli was, according to the Book of Samuel, a priest and a judge of the Israelites in the city of Shiloh, ancient Israel. When Hannah came to Shiloh to pray for a son, Eli initially accused her of drunkenness, but when she protested her innocence, Eli wished her well. Hannah's eventual child, Samuel, was raised by Eli in the tabernacle. When Eli failed to rein in the abusive behavior of his own sons, God promised to punish his family, which resulted in the death of Eli's sons at the Battle of Aphek where the Ark of the Covenant was also captured. When Eli heard the news of the captured Ark, he fell from his seat, broke his neck, and died. Later biblical passages mention the fortunes of several of Eli's descendants.
Johann Friedrich Karl Keil or Carl Friedrich Keil was a conservative German Lutheran Old Testament commentator. Keil was appointed to the theological faculty of Dorpat in Estonia where he taught Bible, New Testament exegesis, and Oriental languages. In 1859 he was called to serve the Lutheran church in Leipzig. In 1887 he moved to Rödletz, where he died. Keil was a conservative critic who reacted strongly against the scientific biblical criticism of his day. He strongly supported Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. He maintained the validity of the historico-critical investigation of the Bible only if it proved the existence of New Testament revelation in the Scriptures. To this aim he edited his principal work, a commentary on the Bible, Biblischer Kommentar über das Alte Testament. The work remains his most enduring contribution to biblical studies. He also published commentaries on Maccabees and New Testament literature.
Naso or Nasso is the 35th weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and the second in the Book of Numbers. It constitutes Numbers 4:21–7:89. The parashah addresses priestly duties, camp purification, restitution for wrongs committed, the wife accused of unfaithfulness, the nazirite, the Priestly Blessing, and consecration of the Tabernacle. Naso has the largest number of letters, words, and verses of any of the 54 weekly Torah portions. The parashah is made up of 8,632 Hebrew letters, 2,264 Hebrew words, 176 verses, and 311 lines in a Torah Scroll.
Matot, Mattot, Mattoth, or Matos is the 42nd weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and the ninth in the Book of Numbers. It comprises Numbers 30:2–32:42. It discusses laws of vows, the destruction of Midianite towns, and negotiations of the Reubanites and Gadites to settle land outside of Israel.
Women in the Bible are wives, mothers and daughters, servants, slaves and prostitutes. As both victors and victims, some women in the Bible change the course of important events while others are powerless to affect even their destinies. The majority of women in the Bible are anonymous and unnamed. Individual portraits of various women in the Bible show women in various roles. The New Testament refers to a number of women in Jesus' inner circle, and scholars generally see him as dealing with women with respect and even equality.
The episode of the Levite's concubine, also known as the Benjamite War, in Judges 19–21 concerns a Levite from Ephraim and his concubine. They travel through the Benjamite city of Gibeah and are assailed by a mob, who wish to gang-rape the Levite. He turns his concubine over to the crowd, and they rape her until she collapses. After she dies from her ill treatment, the Levite dismembers her body and presents the remains to the other tribes of Israel. Outraged by the incident, the tribes swear that none shall give his daughter to the Benjamites for marriage, and launch a war which nearly wipes out the tribe, leaving only 600 surviving men. However, the punitive expedition is overcome by remorse, fearing that it will cause the extinction of an entire tribe. To ensure the survival of the Benjamite tribe while still complying with their oath, the Levites pillage and massacre the city of Jabesh-Gilead, none of whose residents partook in the war or in the vow, and capture its 400 maidens as wives for the Benjamites. The 200 men still lacking women are subtly allowed to abduct the maidens dancing at Shiloh.
Wilda C. Gafney, also known as Wil Gafney, is an American biblical scholar and Episcopal priest who is the Right Rev. Sam B. Hulsey Professor of Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. She is specialist in womanist biblical interpretation, and topics including gender and race.
Judges 11 is the eleventh chapter of the Book of Judges in the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to the prophet Samuel, but modern scholars view it as part of the Deuteronomistic History, which spans in the books of Deuteronomy to 2 Kings, attributed to nationalistic and devotedly Yahwistic writers during the time of the reformer Judean king Josiah in 7th century BCE. This chapter records the activities of judge Jephthah. belonging to a section comprising Judges 6:1 to 16:31.
Jephthes, sive Votum is a tragedy by Scottish historian and humanist scholar George Buchanan first published in 1554. Based on the biblical account of Jephthah and the sacrifice of his daughter in the Book of Judges, Buchanan wrote the play while he was a teacher in France.
