(BA) ʿNH

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There are some uses of ʕnh were the word refers to something that, in at least a number of cases, approximates what English-speakers would call rape. I am speaking carefully here because it is not clear to me that, in sexual contexts, what makes a behavior ʕnh in classical Hebrew is the same as what makes an action a "rape" in contemporary English. And so it may not be correct to automatically assume a one-to-one correspondence between the Hebrew term and its English synonym. The meaning of a word, in its own language, is determined by how it is used, and so a survey of the uses of this word in sexual contexts is the only way to know, with whatever degree of certainty is possible, what it meant to those who used the word in classical Hebrew.

For one thing, the word did not necessarily have the judicial implications that the English word carries. Take, for example, the legislation surrounding marriage to a woman captured in battle found in Deuteronomy 21. A soldier is allowed to abduct a woman, but then must wait thirty days to engage in sexual activity with her. The behavior is, in Deuteronomy's view, licit, but still the sexual relations are considered ʕnh.

To the case of the war bride we may add Lamentations 5:11, in which the shoe is on the other foot, and the author regretfully relates the mistreatment of Israelite women by foreign men.

Likewise, Deuteronomy 22 envisions a scenario in which a betrothed woman may be subject to ʕnh, yet still be held legally culpable on a par with the man involved if she does not shout for help (v. 24). Indeed, a careful reading of this passage shows that being found in the act of sexual relations with someone else's fiance is treated as ʕnh without regard for whether the woman consented.

In this case, the ʕnh is treated not as an offence against the woman, but rather an offence against the woman's fiance, "because he ʕnh his neighbor's woman" (v. 24). While ʕnh against a man's "woman" is treated there as a capital offense, in the case of a woman who is not married or engaged, but still a virgin living under her father's authority, committing ʕnh is a financial offense against the victim's father, who is entitled to money, presumably to compensate him for the money he could otherwise have received selling her virginity to a future husband (v. 29, compare Exodus 22:16-17). The daughter in this case calls to mind the violation of Dinah, also described by the word ʕnh (Genesis 34:2), and whose violation results in an offer of payment to the her father and brothers.

Now up to this point, while coercion is in some cases implied, or at least potentially present, it is not spelled out explicitly. However, in the case of Tamar, the woman's consent is explicitly denied and physical overpowering is explicitly referred to (2 Samuel 13:14). Likewise, the lack of consent in Judges 19:24 is crystal clear, and the act is explicitly described as violent.

As the other glosses in BDB show, the word ʕnh, in non-sexual contexts, refers to a variety of kinds of oppression, violence, and mistreatment. In Ezekiel 22:10-11, in a context which lists a variety of offenses, are two acts of ʕnh, one involving a sister, and the other involving a menstruating woman. As both sisters and menstruating women are strictly forbidden in biblical sexual regulations, it would seem that here in Ezekiel the offense is not the ʕnh itself, but rather the status of the woman involved. And this is something that carries throughout the examples of this word; every victim of ʕnh is a woman who has a status other than a normally acquired wife.

I think the evidence from usage argues that the dividing line between ʕnh and non-ʕnh sexual intercourse was not simply consent.

BDB. Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; and Briggs, Charles A. (1907). A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament.

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