We continue our review of the Old Testament by compiling the names of their female heroines to offer you name ideas for your unborn girls.
We leave the story in the descendants of Jacob with his four companions. She would have 12 boys and a girl, Dina, who we will now deal with.
Dina
Dina was the daughter of Lía. When he is born, the boy being much more appreciated at that time, it does not seem that the mother was particularly proud, or, at least, we are not given so many details about his name. Anyway, Dina comes from the Hebrew word DYIN which means “Justice” or perhaps it should be interpreted as “the judge” or “the just one”. The truth is that poor Dina was not very lucky.
History, in addition to explaining the resistance to mixing with other peoples, warns of the danger posed for chaste maidens to mix with girls of less modest customs.
Dinah began to associate with the girls of Shechem, the city near which Jacob had set up his camp. And the prince’s son, named Shechem, like the city, noticed her, slept with her, and dishonored her. It seems that it could be a violation. Then the young man fell in love with her and asked for her in marriage, apparently the girl’s family acceding in exchange for the man and his citizens to adopt Hebrew customs and be circumcised.
It seemed that everything had been settled (we do not know what Dina would feel about all this, there is not a word about her point of view), but the older brothers did not forgive the offense and, at night, they attacked the city killing the men, looting the houses, taking livestock and enslaving women and children. We won’t know much more about poor Dina, but she was still alive when the entire family emigrated, years later, to Egypt. The name of Dina seems precious to me, but the story not too much.
Tamar
After the terrible affair with Dina, Jacob’s family continued to suffer unfortunate vicissitudes. Rachel was the mother of José but then she died giving birth to Benjamin. Joseph, his father’s favorite, would suffer the wrath and envy of his brothers who sold him as a slave, making Jacob believe that the young man had died.
But before continuing with Joseph and his adventures we are going to make a stop at Tamar , who was Judah’s daughter-in-law, one of Jacob’s sons. Perhaps Judah disliked the actions of his brothers and perhaps that is why he decided to move away to live in another area. Judah married a Canaanite woman named Shua who gave him three sons: Er, Onan, and Selá.
The eldest married another Canaanite, Tamar , whose name is identified with “Date Palm” and symbolizes the sweetness of the date.
Her husband Er seems to be that he was not a good person and God ended his life. As the widow had been left without children, Judah married her to his second descendant, but when she begot her children they would be considered as the eldest’s children, beginning a custom that later became known as “levirate” and that Moses will collect.
Onan su slept with Tamar but did not want her to conceive, so that she would not bear children who were considered his brother and spilled the seed outside the body of his wife. That’s where the word “onanism” comes from, which, although it should originally refer to “coitus interruptus”, the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language identifies it with masturbation in general. What Onan did did not seem right to God and the Bible says that he also took his life. Poor Tamar was left a second time widow and childless.
Sela was too young to marry him to the widow of his brothers, so Judah told the woman to go back to her father’s house and that when Sela grew up, he would marry her to him. But the years passed and Judah seems to have forgotten his daughter-in-law and the promise she had made to her.
While Judah was left a widower and little by little he came out of pain, dedicating himself to shepherd accompanied by his friend Hira. But one day, walking along the roads, he met a sacred prostitute, like those who served in the temples of Isthar, who sat on the side of the path veiled, so that her face would not be seen.
Judah wanted to lie down with her and the woman asked him for a goat as payment. He promised that he would send it to the same place the next day, but she, as a pledge, asked him for his ring with his seal, the cord with which he was girded and his staff.
But when he sent the kid the next day the prostitute was not there and no one gave him an account of her, the locals saying that no woman stopped there. Judah was taken aback.
However, the sacred prostitute was not such, it was Tamar , in disguise, who wanted either to teach Judah a lesson or, perhaps, to regain, having a son, the right to the inheritance that was being taken from her. In fact, if she could not marry anyone and Judah did not arrange the promised marriage, her situation was really damaged: neither mother nor wife, it was nothing at that time.
It must be admitted that Tamar was not resigned to being a simple object, nor to her fate being decided by men, selfish and forgetful, and she was capable of breaking social rules to get what she considered was owed to her.
The truth is that Tamar had become pregnant and when her pregnancy was evident they accused her before Judah, for having fornicated as a widow. But, before being punished, and the punishment was death, she confessed that she had really fornicated and showed the three garments as belonging to the man she had been with.
Judah gave up on having her punished, for without a doubt, if she had sinned, he had broken his promise before. In the end, Judah turns out to be a good man, although slow of reflexes.
Tamar gave birth to her twin sons, one of them, Phares, is considered the ancestor of King David and Jesus. Our Tamar was undoubtedly a woman of resources and her name was beautiful.
In Babies and more | Female baby names: Old Testament characters (I), (II) and (III), Baby names: mythological heroines (I), (II), ( III ), Female baby names: Egyptian goddesses and queens, Names Male Baby Names: Egyptian Gods and Pharaohs, Female Baby Names: Egyptian Origin, Baby Names: Bible Characters
