Harlot, Whore, etc
Harlot, Whore, etc
are terms used somewhat promiscuously in the Auth. Vers. for several Heb. words of widely different import.
1. Properly (zonah’, participle from , to play the harlot, Sept. ,Vulg. meretrix, both these latter terms referring to prostitution for mercenary motives), which occurs frequently, and is often rendered in our version by the first of the above English words, as in Gen 34:31, etc., and sometimes, without apparent reason for the change, by the second, as in Pro 23:27, and elsewhere. In Gen 38:15, the word is harlot, which, however, becomes changed to , harlot, in vers. 21, 22, which means, literally, a consecrated woman, a female (perhaps priestess) devoted to prostitution in honor of some heathen idol. The distinction shows that Judah supposed Tamar to be a heathen: the facts, therefore, do not prove that prostitution was then practiced between Hebrews.
That this condition of persons existed in the earliest states of society is clear from Gen 38:15. From that account it would appear that the veil was at that time peculiar to harlots. Judah thought Tamar to be such because she had covered her face. Mr. Buckingham remarks, in reference to this passage, that the Turcoman women go unveiled to this day(Travels in Mesopotanmia, 1, 77). It is contended by Jahn and others that in ancient times all females wore the veil (Bibl. Archcel. p. 127). Possibly some peculiarity in the size of the veil, or the mode of wearing it, may have been (Pro 7:10) the distinctive dress of the harlot at that period (see New Translation, by the Rev. A. De Sola, etc., p. 116, 248-9). The priests and the high priest were forbidden to take a wife that was (had been, Lev 21:14) a harlot. Josephus extends the law to all the Hebrews, and seems to ground it on the prohibition against oblations arising from prostitution, Deu 23:18 (Ant. 4, 8, 23). The celebrated case of Rahab has been much debated. She is, indeed, called by the word usually signifying harlot (Jos 2:1; Jos 6:17; Sept. ; Vulg. meretrix; and in Heb 11:31; Jam 2:25); but it has been attempted to show that the word may mean an innkeeper. SEE RAHAB.
If, however, there were such persons, considering what we know of Canaanitish morals (Lev 18:27), we may conclude that they would, if women, have been of this class. The next instance introduces the epithet of strange woman. It is the case of Jephthah’s mother (Jdg 11:2), who is also called a harlot (; meretrix); but the epithet (achereth), strange woman, merely denotes foreign extraction. Josephus says , a stranger by the mother’s side. The masterly description in Pro 7:6, etc. may possibly be that of an abandoned married woman (Pro 7:19-20), or of the solicitations of a courtesan, fair speech, under such a pretension. The mixture of religious observances (Pro 7:14) seems illustrated by the fact that the gods are actually worshipped in many Oriental brothels, and fragments of the offerings distributed among the frequenters(Dr. A. Clarke’s Comment. ad loc.). The representation given by Solomon is no doubt bounded upon facts, and therefore shows that in his time prostitutes plied their trade- in the streets(Pro 7:12; Pro 9:14, etc.; Jer 3:2; Eze 16:24-25; Eze 16:31). As regards the fashions involved in the practice, similar outward marks seem to have attended its earliest forms to those which we trace in the classical writers, e.g. a distinctive dress and a seat by the way- side (Gen 38:14; compare Eze 16:16; Eze 16:25; Bar 6:43; Petron. Arb. Sat. 16; Juv. 6:118 foll.; Dougtaei Analect. Sacr. Exc. 24). Public singing in the streets occurs also (Isa 23:16; Sir 9:4). Those who thus published their infamy were of the worst repute; others had houses of resort, and both classes seem to have been known among the Jews (Pro 7:8-12; Pro 23:28; Sir 9:7-8); the two women, 1Ki 3:16, lived as Greek hetaerae sometimes did, in a house together (Smith, Dict. Gr. and Roman Ant. s.v. Hetaera).
The baneful fascination ascribed to them in Pro 7:21-23, may be compared with what Chardin says of similar effects among the young nobility of Persia (Voyages en Perse, 1, 163, ed. 1711), as also may Luk 15:30, for the sums lavished on them (ib. 162). In earlier times the price of a kid is mentioned (Genesis 38), and great wealth doubtless sometimes accrued to them (Eze 16:33; Eze 16:39; Eze 23:26). But lust, as distinct from gain, appears as the inducement in Pro 7:14-15 (see Dougtaei Anal. Sacr. ad loc.), where the victim is further allured by a promised sacrificial banquet (comp. Ter. Eun. 3:3). The harlots are classed with publicans, as those who lay under the ban of society in the N.T. (Mat 21:32). No doubt they multiplied with the increase of polygamy, and consequently lowered the estimate of marriage. The corrupt practices imported by Gentile converts into the Church occasion most of the other passages in which allusions to the subject there occur, 1 Corinthians 1, 9, 11; 2Co 12:21; 1Th 4:3; 1Ti 1:10. The decree, Act 15:29, has occasioned doubts as to the meaning of 7opveia there, chiefly from its context, which may be seen discussed at length in Deyling’s Observ. Sacr. 2, 470, sq.; Schttgen, Hor. Hebr. 1, 468; Spencer and Hammond, ad loc. The simplest sense, however, seems the most probable. The children of such persons were held in contempt, and could not exercise privileges nor inherit (Joh 8:41; Deu 23:2; Jdg 11:1-2). The term bastard is not, however, applied to any illegitimate offspring born out of wedlock, but is restricted by the Rabbins to the issue of any connection within the degrees prohibited by the law. A manner, according to the Mishna (Yebamoth, 4:13), is one, says R. Akiba, who is born of relations between whom marriage is forbidden. Simeon the Temanite says it is every one whose parents are liable to the punishment of cutting off by the hands of Heaven; R. Joshua, every one whose parents are liable to death by the house of judgment, as, for instance, the offspring of adultery. On the general subject, Michaelis’s Laws of Moses, bk. 5, art. 268; Selden, De Ux. Hebr. 1, 16; 3. 12; and De Jur. Natur. 5, 4, together with Schottgen, and the authorities there quoted, may be consulted.
The words , A.V. and they washed his armor(1Ki 22:38), should be, and the harlots washed, which is not only the natural rendering, but in accordance with the Sept. and Josephus.
Since the Hebrews regarded Jehovah as the husband of his people, by virtue of the covenant he had made with them (Jer 3:1), therefore to commit fornication is a very common metaphor in the Scriptures to denote defection on their part from that covenant, and especially by the practice of idolatry. SEE FORNICATION. Hence the degeneracy of Jerusalem is illustrated by the symbol of a harlot (Isa 1:21), and even that of heathen cities, as of Nineveh (Nah 3:4). Under this figure the prophet Ezekiel delivers the tremendous invectives contained in Eze 16:23. In the prophecy of Hosea the illustration is carried to a start-ling extent. The prophet seems commanded by the Lord to take a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms(Hos 1:2), and to love an adulteress(Hos 3:1). It has, indeed, been much disputed whether these transactions were real, or passed in vision only; but the idea itself, and the diversified applications of it throughout the prophecy, render it one of the most effective portions of Scripture. SEE HOSEA.
2. (kedeshah’, from , to consecrate, occurs Gen 38:15; Gen 38:21-22; Deu 23:17; Hos 4:14). It has already been observed that the proper meaning of the word is consecrated prostitute. The very early allusion to such persons, in the first of these passages, agrees with the accounts of them in ancient heathen writers. Herodotus refers to the abominable custom of the Babylonians, who compelled every native female to attend the temple of Venus once in her life, and to prostitute herself in honor of the goddess(i, 199; Bar 6:43). Strabo calls prostitutes, who, it is well known, were at Athens dedicated to Venus, , consecrated servants, votaries(Geog. 8:378; Grotius, Annotat. on Baruch; Beloe’s Herodotus, Notes, 1, 272, Lond. 1806). The transaction related in Num 15:1-15 (compare Psa 106:28) seems connected with idolatry. The prohibition in Deu 23:17, there shall be no , whore,’ of the daughters of Israel, is intended to exclude such devotees from the worship of Jehovah (see other allusions, Job 36:14; 1Ki 14:24; 1Ki 15:12). The law forbids (Lev 19:29) the father’s compelling his daughter to sin, but does not mention it as a voluntary mode of life on her part without his complicity. It could, indeed, hardly be so. The provision of Lev 21:9, regarding the priest’s daughter, may have arisen from the fact of his home being less guarded, owing to his absence when ministering, as well as from the scandal to sanctity so involved. Perhaps such abominations might, if not thus severely marked, lead the way to the excesses of Gentile ritualistic fornication, to which, indeed, when so near the sanctuary, they might be viewed as approximating (Michaelis, Laws of Moses, art. 268). Yet it seems to be assumed that the harlot class would exist, and the prohibition of Deu 23:18, forbidding offerings from the wages of such sin, is perhaps due to the contagion of heathen example, in whose worship practices abounded which the Israelites were taught to abhor. The term there especially refers to the impure worship of the Syrian Astarte (Num 25:1; comp. Herod. 1, 199; Justin, 18:5; Strabo, 8, 378; 12, 559; Val. Max. 2, 6, 15; August. De Civ. Dei, 4, 4), whose votaries, as idolatry progressed, would be recruited from the daughters of Israel; hence the common mention of both these sins in the Prophets, the one, indeed, being a metaphor of the other (Isa 1:21; Isa 57:8; Jer 2:20; comp. Exo 34:15-16; Jer 3:1-2; Jer 3:6; Ezekiel 16, 23; Hos 1:2; Hos 2:4-5; Hos 4:11; Hos 4:13-15; Hos 5:3). The latter class would grow up with the growth of great cities and of foreign intercourse, and hardly could enter into the-view of the Mosaic institutes.
3. (nokriyah’, from , to ignore), the strange woman (1Ki 11:1; Pro 5:20; Pro 6:24; Pro 7:5; Pro 23:7; Sept. ; Vulg. aliena, extranea). It seems probable that some of the Hebrews in later times interpreted the prohibition against fornication (Deuteronomy 22:41) as limited to females of their own nation, and that the strange womenin question were Canaanites and other Gentiles (Jos 23:13). In the case of Solomon they are specified as Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites. The passages referred to discover the character of these females. To the same class belongs (zarah’, from ,to turn in as a visitor), the strange woman(Pro 5:3; Pro 5:20; Pro 22:14; Pro 23:33; ; meretrix, aliena, extranea): it is sometimes found in full, (Pro 2:16; Pro 7:5). To the same class of females likewise belongs (kesiluth’, folly), the foolish woman, i.e. by a common association of ideas in the Shemitic dialects, sinful (Psa 14:1). The description in Pro 9:14, etc. illustrates the character of the female so designated. To this may be added (ra, wrong), the evil woman(Proverbs 5, 24).
In the New Testament occurs in Mat 21:31-32; Luk 15:30; 1Co 6:15-16; Heb 11:31; Jam 2:25. In none of these passages does it necessarily imply prostitution for gain. The likeliest is Luk 15:30. It is used symbolically for a city in Revelation 17:1; 5:15, 16; 19:2. where the term and all the attendant imagery are derived from the Old Testament. It may be observed in regard to Tyre, which (Isa 23:15-17) is represented as committing fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth, that these. words, as indeed seems likely from those which follow, may relate to the various arts which she had employed to induce merchants to trade with her (Patrick, ad loc.). So the Sept. understood it, .Schleusner observes that the same words in Rev 18:3 may also relate to commercial dealings. (Fesselii Adversar. Sacr. 2, 27, 1, 2 [Wittenb. 1650]; Frisch, De muliere pere niud ap. Hebr. [Lips. 1744J). Cuillpare PROSTITUTE.