Antje Labahn - Ehud Ben Zvi, «Observations on Women in the Genealogies of 1 Chronicles 1–9», Vol. 84 (2003) 457-478

These observations address the construction of women and their roles in the genealogies of 1 Chronicles 1–9. References to women in these chapters construed them as fulfilling a variety of roles in society, and characterized and identified them in various ways. To be sure, the genealogies reflected and reinforced the main construction of family and family roles in a traditional ancient near eastern society. But, numerous references in these genealogies indicated to the early (and predominantly male) readers of the book that ideologically construed gender expectations may and have been transgressed in the past and with good results. By implication, these references suggested to the readers that gender (and ethnic) boundaries can and even should be transgressed on occasion, with divine blessing, and resulting in divine blessing.

the additional information about the mothers concerns their place of origin³⁰. The readers of Chronicles are told unequivocally that some of the mothers mentioned, and particularly those in the Judahite genealogies, were foreigners³¹. It is noticeable that the women mentioned with their place of origin — whether Israelites or "foreigner" — are treated in the same way as other women in the genealogies. The text does not suggest to its readers a disapproval of marriages of Israelites/Judahites with foreign wives in principle, nor that there was something wrong with the marriage of a Judahite woman and an Egyptian slave³². To be sure, there is, in some cases, a clear Israelitization of the woman (see the case of Bithiah, above), but even this Israelitization does not erase her foreign origin. These references to "foreign" mothers, and particularly so in the genealogies, make sense in Persian times when the polity of Yehud interacted with neighbor polities in political, administrative, economic and marital realms; the latter, at least within the upper classes. Compare this with the situation that was so criticized in Ezra-Nehemiah³³. These references are consistent with a positive attitude and open relation toward neighboring countries that is clearly at odds with that advanced in Ezra-Nehemiah, but consistent with prominent references to "foreign" (fore)mothers or wives of praiseworthy leaders of Israel in the past that consistently appear in the construction of the past that was agreed upon, shared by and textually inscribed in the writings of the literati of Yehud (e.g., Zipporah [Moses], Osnat [Joseph], Ruth [David], Naamah [Solomon, foremother of all the Judahite kings and of any future Davidic king]).