“Take This Child and Suckle It for Me”: Wet Nurses and Resistance in Ancient Israel

Abstract

Using Exodus 2 and other references to wet nurses in the Hebrew Bible as a springboard, this article examines the socio-historical conditions of free and enslaved wet nurses in antiquity through a cross-cultural investigation of Graeco-Roman and rabbinic legal and cultural texts. It then analyzes Exodus 2as an example of resistance literature during the Persian period to support anti-colonial resistance within the Jewish community in Yehud against Persian control. The wet nurse represents the resistance of the enslaved class to oppression and genocide.

“Naomi the Nurse: Obed’s Ambiguous Identity Transmission”

“…Much of the scholarship regarding this point considers a distinction to be maintained between the nouns derived from these roots for literal wet nursing ‫)מנקת(‬ and that of general caregiving ‫)אמנת(‬ (Gruber, 2000: 322). For this reason, the majority view at present is that, because the noun derived for Naomi as nurse is based on the more general root ‫אמן‬ "to act as caregiver" or "nanny," the passage does not intend to suggest that Naomi literally functions as wet nurse, only as a caregiver (e.g., Reinhartz, 2014Reinhartz, : 1580Yee, 2009). According to such an interpretation, Naomi functions symbolically as nurse (e.g., LaCocque, 2004: 143).…”

The Silenced Speak: Hannah, Mary, and Global Poverty

“… 14 Wet-nursing contracts range from a year and a half to three years. See, Yee GA (2009) ‘Take this child and suckle it for me’: wet nurses and resistance in ancient Israel. Biblical Theology Bulletin 39.4: 183, 185 (180-89). …”