Sexual Power and Political Prestige

Sex has always been of greater interest to anthropologists than to students of the Bible. For that very reason, however, anthropology may offer an added dimension for understanding biblical texts.

I would like to test that proposition by considering two biblical episodes involving sex with concubines. But don’t expect detailed descriptions of sexual activity. We will be talking more about the meaning of sex—or more precisely the meaning of sex and gender—than about anything erotic.

This exercise will also illustrate the possible use of anthropology (and the social sciences generally) as a tool in biblical interpretation. For anthropological and sociological insights are widely thought to provide some of the most exciting new understandings of biblical texts.

The texts on which I will focus come from 2 Samuel. Both recount incidents that occur when Israel’s kingship is in dispute. In the first, David is struggling to become Saul’s successor. In the second, David’s kingship is challenged by his son, Absalom.

After Saul and his sons were slaughtered by the Philistines and their bodies hung on the walls of Beth-Shean (1 Samuel 31), a struggle for the throne ensued between Saul’s only surviving son Eshbaal^a and the young David. Eshbaal was initially aided by Saul’s general, Abner son of Ner. In a curious episode recounted in 2 Samuel 3:7–11, we are told that Saul had a concubine named Rizpah. Eshbaal challenges Abner: “Why have you gone in to my father’s concubine?” We infer that after Saul’s death, sexual contact has taken place between Abner and Rizpah.

While sexual activity plays a role here, it is not in itself of great interest. Instead, its role in the narrative seems to derive from its impact upon the two men, Abner and Eshbaal, who actually appear upon the narrative stage. Rizpah does not appear at all except in the discourse of Eshbaal. The narrative focuses not on the sexual relation, but on the conflict it provokes between Abner and Eshbaal.

Eshbaal’s question sounds like an accusation: Abner certainly interprets it this way, and responds angrily. Abner retorts that he has been loyal to the house of Saul, preventing it from falling to the house of David. Now that Eshbaal has accused him of a misdeed, however, Abner will change his loyalty. Yahweh’s promise to establish the throne of David (1 Samuel 16) will be fulfilled, he says. Eshbaal, afraid, does not answer him. Abner then proceeds to make a covenant with David.

How do we make sense of this exchange? Eshbaal obviously interprets Abner’s act in sleeping with Rizpah as an offence. Abner’s sexual contact with Rizpah must be seen as a sign of some sort, a sign that Eshbaal understands. The modern reader, however, cannot be certain about the range of meanings that might have been attributed to this sign in ancient Israel. Although Abner’s action has a meaning for Eshbaal, this meaning is never specified.

Biblical scholars have recognized that certain assumptions about sexual practices are presupposed by the story. It is usually suggested that there must have been a custom whereby a successor to the throne takes as his own the harem of a previous king.¹ A corollary of this would be that if a man takes the harem of a king, he is in effect claiming the throne for himself. Thus, Abner’s act can be interpreted by Eshbaal as evidence that Abner desires the throne.

This custom is not actually stated in the Hebrew Bible. It is simply a reading hypothesis used to interpret the narrated events. Although sexual behavior has political meanings in this narrative, it is not clear, from the discourse of the commentators, why sexual relations have significance for political relations: The symbolic association remains vague. Moreover, the validity of the hypothesis is called into question by the fact that Abner did not actually seem to aspire to the throne. Indeed it was Abner who had just made Eshbaal king over Israel (2 Samuel 2:9). We will see if anthropology can do better.

The second incident occurs much later, well into David’s reign. Again the question is who will occupy the throne. Absalom, David’s son, has revolted; he wants the throne for himself. David has fled Jerusalem, leaving ten concubines behind to take care of his palace. Absalom seeks the advice of Ahithophel, a former counselor to his father, who tells him: “Go in to [have sexual intercourse with] your father’s concubines, whom he left to mind the palace. When all Israel hears that you have become odious to your father, all who support you will be strengthened.” A tent was placed on the roof, and “Absalom went in to his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel” (2 Samuel 16:21–22).

From a literary perspective, what happened fulfills Yahweh’s earlier judgment against David in 2 Samuel—in which the Lord condemns David for sleeping with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and for then scheming to have Uriah killed in a battle with the Ammonites. “Thus said Yahweh [to David]: ‘I will make a calamity rise against you from within your own house; I will take your wives and give them to another man before your very eyes and he shall sleep with your wives under this very sun. You acted in secret, but I will make this happen in the sight of all Israel and in broad daylight.’” (2 Samuel 12:11–12).

However, Ahithophel provides a motivation for Absalom’s actions. This motivation is twofold: First, by having sexual relations with the concubines; Absalom will make himself “odious” to David, as all Israel will hear. Second, those who support Absalom will be encouraged and strengthened. Will Absalom’s supporters be heartened by the fact that Absalom has made himself “odious” to his father? What exactly does this mean?

The term generally translated “become odious” refers literally to having a bad smell. The verb form here (the niphal) is primarily used figuratively. It is used in a similar way in 2 Samuel 10:6, where the Ammonites have “become odious” or “been a stink” to David. The Ammonite king’s treatment of David’s messengers (he has forcibly shaven the beards and cut the skirts of David’s emissaries) accomplishes this.

Like so much of ancient literature, this passage provides us with no social context in which to understand why these acts caused a stink for David, such that the Israelites proceeded to prepare for battle. We will return to this episode. At this point, we simply note that there is another biblical text in which someone is made odious, just as Absalom is made odious to David by having sexual relations with David’s concubines. The obvious difficulty in understanding what it means to be odious provides an occasion to introduce us to the necessity of contextualizing a text if we are to understand it.

Meaning can only be determined in relation to some sort of context. The context in terms of which a text is read is itself an interpretation of particular data deemed relevant by the interpreter. There are as many contexts as there are readers. Thus, a “context’ is never simply there as a given, but is instead a construct with which we “frame’ a text to produce a reading. The notion of “framing” acknowledges that the context is in part our own interpretation.²

Much of our “context” for biblical literature comes from the texts that the context is supposed to illuminate. Yet the biblical texts often give little explicit information about the assumptions that underlie them.

Anthropological concepts provide an additional tool in the contextualizing process. By framing the text with particular insights derived from anthropology, we can derive new meaning from the text.

Where stories with sexual scenes are concerned, past interpreters have usually framed the texts in terms of their own definitions of sexual morality. Anthropological discourse, however, can help us develop a reading that highlights, rather than glosses over, the cultural differences between our society and the society in which the biblical texts emerged, especially where sexual conduct is concerned.

In both episodes—the one involving Eshbaal and Abner, and the other involving Absalom and Ahithophel—we as readers must provide some kind of frame of assumptions about the significance of the sexual acts that occurred, if the text is to be contextualized and interpreted.

Let us begin by noting that little, if any, attention is given in these texts to the concubines. The concubines are represented as acted upon rather than acting: They are objects rather than subjects. We gain no insight into their viewpoints and hear none of their words. Obviously, given the chance, they would have provided us with their perspective on what happened to them. Instead, these texts focus upon the actions, viewpoints and words of male characters. The text describes male interests, presenting events from a perspective that is concerned almost exclusively with the male participants in sexual practice. Although we must therefore analyze the text in terms of the male-specific interests that motivated it, we must remain cognizant of concerns and viewpoints that have been left out.

Many anthropologists point out that prestige within a society depends in part upon the ability to display culturally recognized gender characteristics, including those concerning sexual activity. Gender itself can be part of the prestige structure of a society, to the extent that prestige is allotted differently to men and women by virtue of their gender. It is also true that “the concepts used to differentiate men from women in terms of social worth are often identical to the concepts used … to grade individuals of the same gender.”³ That is, the values in terms of which men are accorded more prestige than women are frequently the same values in terms of which some men are accorded more prestige than other men.

Thus, attributes considered “masculine” in a particular culture are often accorded a higher value than attributes considered “feminine.” These attributes are then used not only to allot prestige differentially to men and women, but also to allot prestige differentially to particular men depending upon the degree to which they possess the supposedly masculine attributes. One example is the active/passive dichotomy. In many cultures, “activity” is widely assumed to be a male trait and “passivity” a female one. But the two polar terms can also be used to distinguish between men, so that a man who seems more “passive” than “active” is in danger of losing some social prestige.

Every culture thus has particular ideas about how a man or a woman ought to act as a man or woman. These ideas extend not only to gender division of labor, but also to such things as leisure activities, clothing, body language and so forth.

“Masculinity” is often culturally defined in contrast to “femininity.” Prestige is granted to the man if he can demonstrate his possession of the former. (The situation of women is more ambiguous, since under certain circumstances a woman who is perceived to “act like a man” is admired rather than criticized.)

Sexual activities play a crucial role in assessing gender performance. The various ideas about “how men act” and “how women act” include ideas about sexual practices. A failure to meet expectations in the realm of sexual practice affects the overall estimate of one’s prestige, because one’s socially affirmed gender is brought into question. Among men, for example, the omission or commission of a particular sexual act can raise questions about whether one is “a real man.”⁴

The primary interaction in the two biblical episodes we are discussing is not between the men and the women with whom they have sex, but between the men themselves. The men in the episodes are negotiating their relationships; the women are reduced to objects of exchange. The men establish and negotiate their relations with one another partly through their relations with women. Women, though vitally important to the process, serve here as “a conduit of a relationship” between men.⁵

By having sexual relations with his father’s concubines, Absalom has demonstrated David’s inability to fulfill a crucial part of a culturally defined view of manhood. As all Israel can see, David has been unable to maintain control over sexual access to the women of his house. This ability is a crucial element in a culturally prescribed definition of manliness. Absalom has attempted to increase his own prestige by showing his ability to take what David ought to be able to control, but cannot. It is not simply David’s power of control that has been placed in question: It is David’s social masculinity. Lacking a crucial element of a cultural definition of masculinity, David falls perilously close to femininity. He is symbolically emasculated.

As Absalom made himself “odious” to David by sleeping with his father’s concubines, so, in 2 Samuel 10:2–6, the Ammonites made themselves “odious” to the Israelites by cutting off the beards and skirts of David’s messengers. Let us compare these two incidents in light of the anthropological concepts.

Facial hair, and indeed body hair in general, is often a potent gender signifier. In some ancient texts, the production of body hair and the production of semen are considered the result of similar physiological processes. A profusion of body hair is a sign of virility, and a lack of body hair a sign of effeminacy.⁶ An anthropologist studying modern Mediterranean societies reports several men as saying “I’ve got a moustache too,” when asserting the equivalence of their honor with that of other men. The author explains that facial hair is considered “a symbol of virility,” and that the removal of the beard by another man stands metaphorically for social humiliation.⁷

A leading Hebrew Bible scholar, Kyle McCarter, suggests that the cutting of the beards of David’s messengers in this biblical episode symbolically deprives the men of their masculinity; hence, David’s messengers are subjected to “symbolic castration.”⁸ What kind of king, the original biblical audience might well ask, would allow his subjects to be treated this way? The act is a kind of challenge, for which David’s own masculine honor requires a response.

If the actions of the Ammonites constitute a symbolic emasculation of David’s messengers, the same may be the case with the actions of Absalom in sleeping with David’s concubines. While the Ammonites focus upon the gender connotations of body hair, Absalom focuses upon the gender connotations of having sexual intercourse with his father’s concubines. The concubines become a means through which Absalom can attack David’s masculinity. David has not only been shamed in his own eyes, but his prestige in the eyes of other men has also been diminished, even as Absalom’s has increased. The men who support Absalom will, it is hoped, be sufficiently impressed with Absalom’s manhood to fight even harder for his cause.

Incidentally, Absalom himself was apparently a very hairy man, as we learn in 2 Samuel 14:26 (see cover photo): The hair on his head weighed 200 shekels. This too may have been seen as an indication of his masculinity.

In the episode involving Saul’s son Eshbaal and Abner, Eshbaal assumes that sexual access to Rizpah, his deceased father’s concubine, is a matter over which he, Eshbaal, should have control. Hence, sexual actions taken toward Rizpah without Eshbaal’s permission are a denial of this power and an affront to his prestige. In confronting Abner about sleeping with Rizpah, Eshbaal need not be interpreted as implying that Abner is plotting for the throne. The confrontation would instead be an appropriate response from a man who, within a certain cluster of assumptions about gender, prestige and sexual practice, wishes to assert that he is “good at being a man.”⁹

Abner’s refusal to recognize Eshbaal’s rights in this regard is itself an attack on Eshbaal’s masculine honor. Abner points out that Eshbaal is dependent for his power upon Abner and is by no means the independent, assertive subject whose role he attempts to fill. Dependence upon the power and goodwill of another man is itself often a negative signifier of manhood. Thus, the balance of power between Abner and Eshbaal is crucial here. By claiming the right to arbitrate in the matter of Rizpah’s sexuality, Eshbaal assumes one sort of power relation. Abner’s angry reply assumes another. Both men assume that the matter of sexual contact with Rizpah is a locus for such a dispute to be decided.

Abner wins this dispute, because Eshbaal, the narrator tells us, is afraid to pursue the matter further. Eshbaal’s timidity is contrasted with Abner’s competence in the games of gender performance. This competence, embodied elsewhere by Abner’s military prowess and here by his interventions with a woman of Eshbaal’s household, increases his prestige.

This reading is not entirely at odds the reading that the wives and concubines of a previous king are linked to monarchical succession and legitimacy. It emphasizes that sexual practice should be considered relevant for male power struggles, of which the struggle for the throne is but one possible example. The books of Samuel assume at numerous points that an appropriate king is not simply one whose father was king, but rather one who embodies positive attributes. Military skill, good looks, the ability to broker alliances (including marriage alliances), participation in ecstatic religious practices—all of these qualities are cultural signifiers of a certain kind of man. In choosing a king who embodies these qualities, Yahweh as a narrative character simply follows the implicit dictates of a culture that projected its own beliefs about “being good at being a man” onto him.

Sexual activity in these stories primarily signifies prestige and power. For the biblical narrator, sexual connotations influence the struggles between men for power and honor. There is little interest in the actual male-female relations that constitute the weapons in this struggle. On the contrary, heterosexuality turns out to be of interest for the narrator almost entirely because of its impact upon homosocial relations.

Israelite women might not have shared the attitudes toward sexual practice, gender and prestige that underlie these texts. Even within the same culture, women often hold different opinions than men do about sex and prestige. The problem for the biblical interpreter is that we have little evidence to suggest the women’s viewpoint. The tales of the disputed concubines give almost no information concerning the impact of sexual practice upon the women involved. Questions about female prestige, sexual practice and gender performance have been rendered almost invisible. Narrating the power politics of male Israelite characters, the text thus practices a power politics of its own.

The sexual relation between Absalom and David’s concubines, for example, can be considered rape. There is no reason to think that these women would have been willing participants. Yet the implications of this fact are never pursued, and no space is permitted in these particular texts to a perspective from which such implications might be considered important.

Sex has always been of greater interest to anthropologists than to students of the Bible. For that very reason, however, anthropology may offer an added dimension for understanding biblical texts.