Women in the Bible

Concubines of David

2 Samuel 15:16; 16:21-22; 19:5; 20:3; 1 Chronicles 3:9

• 2 Samuel 15:16 So the king left, followed by all his household, except ten concubines whom he left behind to look after the house.

• 2 Samuel 16:21-22 Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Go in to your father’s concubines, the ones he has left to look after the house, and all Israel will hear that you have made yourself odious to your father, and the hands of all who are with you will be strengthened.” So they pitched a tent for Absalom upon the roof, and Absalom went in to his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel.

• 2 Samuel 20:3 David came to his house at Jerusalem, and the king took the ten concubines whom he had left to look after the house and put them in a house under guard and provided for them but did not go in to them. So they were shut up until the day of their death, living as if in widowhood.

List of Reading & Resources:

Articles

• “The Political Import of David’s Marriages” by Jon D. Levenson and Baruch Halpern

• “Concubine” by Susanne Scholz

• “Abishag: Bible” by Claudia V. Camp

Books

• “Concubines of David” (p.264) by Ken Stone in Women in Scripture: A Dictionary of Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books, and the New Testament edited by Carol Meyers (2001)

• “1 and 2 Samuel” (pp. 150-163) by Jo Ann Hackett in The Women’s Bible Commentary, edited by Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, and Jacqueline E. Lapsley (2012)

• “Dominated by David” (pp.203-236) in Womanist Midrash by Wilda C. Gafney (2017)