I mentioned in my newsletter last week that I wasn’t sure if I could write about this topic, but as you can see I’m going to try anyway. If you didn’t get that newsletter, basically I noticed a verse near the end of Exodus that I can’t stop thinking about. This section of scripture describes the construction of the Tabernacle or Tent of Meeting (where the priests and Levites ministered before Yahweh, and where the Ark of the Covenant was kept). During construction, many ancient Israelites donated materials, and skilled craftspeople worked to make the Tabernacle according to God’s specific instructions. Right after the section describing how a craftsman named Bezalel made the altar for the burnt offerings, we read this interesting fact:
He made the basin and the base from bronze, with mirrors from the women who served at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.
Exodus 38:8, TLV
I was reading in the TLV when I noticed this, so that’s what I quoted here. The NET says basically the same thing, and the WEB says, “He made the basin of bronze, and its base of bronze, out of the mirrors of the ministering women who ministered at the door of the Tent of Meeting.” Most translations describe them as serving or ministering women. Other translations might say that the women assembled at the tent. A few describe them as vigilant women or watchers (click here to compare a variety of translations).
It is commonly accepted that women did not serve as priests or have anything to do with tabernacle or temple service in the Old Testament. Even today, it is often the case that women do not serve as ministers of God in a formal or ordained capacity (and many maintain that they should not). And yet, here is a verse that in some translations seems to indicate a group of women were serving at the Tabernacle. What is going on here?
Other Bible Verses
If you start looking for other verses that talk about “the attending women who served and ministered” (Ex. 38:8, AMP), you’ll find only one that uses the same Hebrew phrase. Once again, most English translations describe the women as serving at the Tabernacle.
Now Eli was very old; and he heard all that his sons did to all Israel, and how that they slept with the women who served at the door of the Tent of Meeting.
1 Samuel 2:22, WEB
That is the only other verse we have to go on for descriptions of these women. It does not give us much information. In both cases, the verses are not directly about the women. They are mentioned as if everyone reading would already understand who these women are and what they are doing at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. These verses are there to tell us where the metal for the bronze basin came from and to illustrate the horribly evil things that Eli’s sons were doing. At the same time, these two verses are now the only evidence we have for women doing something related to the Tabernacle.
We can learn a little bit more about what they might have been doing by looking at the Hebrew word for serving. The word is tsaba (H6633) and it means “to go forth, wage war, fight, serve” (Brown, Driver, Briggs). It is used 13 times in the Old Testament. Most of the uses refer to fighting in war, but it is also used of the serving women and for the Levite’s service (Num. 4:23; 8:24). The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (TWOT) states, “No doubt service for Yahweh is seen as involving total dedication and careful regimentation, and since God is Yahweh of hosts, enthroned between the cherubim housed inside the tent of meeting, work associated with the tent may be considered spiritual war” (entry 1865). The TWOT believes that the women mentioned by this word “ministered at the door of the tent of meeting” in some capacity.
Extra-Biblical Scholarship
With only two verses directly mentioning these women and only so much we can learn from dictionaries and other uses of the word translated “serve” or “minister,” I started investigating commentaries and scholarship. There is not much scholarship on these women and within that scholarship there is not much of a consensus. I’ve seen explanations for their roles ranging from “they were cultic prostitutes who used mirrors as a form or religious expression” to “they were prostitutes who had their mirrors removed as punishment” to “they were devote women who must have served Yahweh in some fashion.” Scholarship on this verse often examines mirrors as religious and feminine symbols and examines female roles in other cultic religious at the time (see “Through a Glass, Darkly: Reflections on the Translation and Interpretation of Exodus 38:81” by Laura Quick and “Serving Women and Their Mirrors: A Feminist Reading of Exodus 38:8b” by Janet S. Everhart).
Given a basic understanding of Yahweh’s stance on sexual morality, I think it is safe to say that these women were certainly not cultic prostitutes sanctioned by God. Despite the lack of other verses describing women as playing a role in tabernacle service, I think it is safest to assume that these women were doing some kind of service for God that was approved by God. What we cannot be sure of is what, exactly, that service invovled.
The word for “serve” is not the ordinary one. It means “to serve in a host,” especially in a war. It appears that women were organized into bands and served at the tent of meeting. S. R. Driver thinks that this meant “no doubt” washing, cleaning, or repairing (Exodus, 391). But there is no hint of that (see 1 Sam 2:22; and see Ps 68:11 [12 HT]). They seem to have had more to do than what Driver said.
NET study note on Exodus 38:8
Many commentary writers believe that donating the mirrors was the extent of these women’s service and that they had gathered themselves into troops at the tent of meeting rather than being assembled for service as the Levites were. Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers says “women wont to frequent the ‘tent of meeting’ … and to flock thither in troops–offered voluntarily for the service of God the mirrors” (BibleHub). Matthew Henry notes that “Some women, devoted to God and zealous for the tabernacle worship, expressed zeal by parting with their mirrors” (BibleHub). This does not, of course, explain what the women in 1 Samuel were still doing there (though some writers do use that verse as evidence that they were prostitutes).
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown stray into modern views on what mirrors symbolize when they say, these women were “not priestesses, but females of pious character and influence, who frequented the courts of the sacred building (Luke 2:37), and whose parting with their mirrors, like the cutting the hair of the Nazarites, was their renouncing the world for a season, and devoting themselves to ascetic modes of life” (BibliaPlus). We need to be cautious about reading in our assumptions about women into texts that are thousands of years removed from our culture. It is often better to admit we don’t have a clear answer than to guess.
Ways that Women Serve
Of the commentaries I’ve looked at, I find Adam Clarke’s the most intriguing. Firstly, I like that he admits “What the employment of these women was at the door of the tabernacle, is not easily known” (BibleHub). I’m always more inclined to trust a scholar that admits he doesn’t know everything than one who assumes his view must be truth. Secondly, Clarke points out that women serving the same role in 1 Sam. 2:22 were being abused by Eli’s sons rather than trying to shift blame onto the women or using this as an excuse to call them cultic prostitutes. Thirdly, he bases his speculation on scripture and other ancient texts instead of on his own cultural assumptions about what women can and cannot do in service to God.
Some think they assembled there for purposes of devotion. Others, that they kept watch there during the night; and this is the most probable opinion, for they appear to have been in the same employment as those who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation in the days of Samuel, who were abused by the sons of the high priest Eli, 1 Samuel 2:22. Among the ancients women were generally employed in the office of porters or doorkeepers. Such were employed about the house of the high priest in our Lord’s time; for a woman is actually represented as keeping the door of the palace of the high priest, John 18:17 . …
Many other examples might be produced. It is therefore very likely that the persons mentioned here, and in 1 Samuel 2:22, were the women who guarded the tabernacle; and that they regularly relieved each other, a troop or company regularly keeping watch: and indeed this seems to be implied in the original, צבאו tsabeu, they came by troops; and these troops successively consecrated their mirrors to the service of the tabernacle.
Clarke’s commentary on Exodus 38
Like many others, Clarke assumes these women had distinctly feminine roles to play in relation to the Tabernacle. Rather than making assumptions based on his own contemporary ideas of “women’s work,” he examined the Bible for work that other women did at the entrances of other places. I am not completely convinced by his argument, partly because there was a family of Levites designated as doorkeepers (see “The Sons of Korah” by Truth Be Told podcast for a good analysis). The Korahites’ role as “keepers of the thresholds of the tent” (1 Chr. 9:19, WEB) was confirmed by David, and the text notes that “Their ancestors had guarded the entrance to the Lord’s dwelling place” (1 Chr. 9:19, NET). It appears their family filled this role for some time, though I suppose that doesn’t eliminate the possibility of women acting as doorkeepers before or alongside them.
While we cannot say for sure what the women assembling at the entrance to the tent of meeting did, it is certain that women have always been involved in service to God. We looked at this in relation to both the Old and New Testament in my article “Focusing On Authority Misses the Point (How Do Women Serve in the Church?)” We know that women have served as prophetess, deacons/servants, church hosts, workers/laborers in the church, and at least one judge/leader. One of those prophetesses, a woman named Anna who met the infant Jesus and spoke to people about him, “never left the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day” (Luke 2:36-38, NET). Perhaps she was continuing the tradition begun by those women back in Exodus 38, who assembled at the entrance of the newly built tabernacle.
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