A female slave (as a member of the household)
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H8198, šipĕḥāh, is a Hebrew noun for a female slave or maidservant within a household. English versions may use servant, maidservant, slave girl, or female slave according to context, but the word often names a woman whose freedom, labor, sexuality, and family life were controlled by others.
Reader summary
Full entry for שִׁפְחָה (H8198) · Open the biblical lexicon
H8198, šipĕḥāh, is a Hebrew noun for a female slave or maidservant within a household. English versions may use servant, maidservant, slave girl, or female slave according to context, but the word often names a woman whose freedom, labor, sexuality, and family life were controlled by others.
The BSB source-word alignment has 63 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include and maidservants (9), maidservant (6), maidservants (6), servant (4), your maidservant (4).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 12:16. Its strongest book concentrations include Genesis (28), 2 Samuel (7), 1 Samuel (6), Jeremiah (6).
H8198, šipĕḥāh, is a Hebrew noun for a female slave or maidservant within a household. English versions may use servant, maidservant, slave girl, or female slave according to context, but the word often names a woman whose freedom, labor, sexuality, and family life were controlled by others. Genesis introduces Hagar with this status before naming her as an Egyptian woman. Sarai gives her to Abram for childbearing, Abram places her back in Sarai's power, and harsh treatment drives her into the wilderness. Scripture reports these household arrangements without making coercion good, and the Lord addresses Hagar by name when others treat her as property.
The noun also appears in law, wisdom, royal narratives, prayer, and prophetic judgment. Leviticus 19:20 recognizes a slave girl's unfree legal condition in a sexual case, though the law's limited protection must not be confused with full justice or modern consent. Abigail uses the term for herself in deferential speech when she agrees to marry David, showing that the noun can also function as a humble self-designation. Psalm 123 compares the worshiper's watchful dependence to a maidservant looking to her mistress, but the image directs hope toward the Lord's mercy rather than granting human masters unlimited authority.
Jeremiah 34 supplies the clearest moral exposure. Judah's leaders covenant to release enslaved men and women, then seize them again and force them back into slavery. The Lord calls that reversal a profaning of His name. Joel 2:29 later declares that God's Spirit will be poured out even on male and female servants, refusing to make household rank a barrier to divine gift and prophetic speech. Faithful teaching should therefore name enslaved women as persons before God, attend to their words and danger, condemn trafficking and forced service, and refuse to turn metaphors of humble service into permission for bodily control.
H8198 spans household slavery, humble self-description, legal vulnerability, prayerful dependence, violated emancipation, and the promise that God's Spirit reaches women of low social status.
Now Abram’s wife Sarai had borne him no children, but she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar.
The first occurrence locates Hagar inside Sarai's household power while also giving her ethnicity and personal name. Her later treatment must be read as the experience of a particular woman, not merely as a device in Abram's family story.
“Here,” said Abram, “your servant is in your hands. Do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she fled from her.
Abram's transfer of responsibility leaves Hagar exposed to harsh treatment, and her flight reveals the danger carried by her unfree status. The narrative does not permit household authority to be romanticized.
If a man lies carnally with a slave girl promised to another man but who has not been redeemed or given her freedom, there must be due punishment. But they are not to be put to death, because she had not been freed.
The case law distinguishes the woman's constrained legal status and prevents the death penalty in this situation. It acknowledges vulnerability within an ancient system but does not settle every question of coercion, consent, or full justice.
She arose, bowed facedown, and said, “Here is your servant, ready to serve and to wash the feet of my lord’s servants.”
Abigail adopts maidservant language as a humble response to David's marriage proposal. Here the noun participates in deferential speech, so not every occurrence by itself proves literal enslavement.
As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes are on the Lord our God until He shows us mercy.
The psalm uses a familiar household posture to portray sustained attention and dependence. Its theological destination is the Lord's mercy amid contempt, not an endorsement of human domination.
But now you have changed your minds and profaned My name. Each of you has taken back the menservants and maidservants whom you had set at liberty to go wherever they wanted, and you have again forced them to be your slaves.
The prophet names re-enslavement as force and as profanation of God's name. Promised freedom cannot be revoked when the powerful find obedience costly.
Even on My menservants and maidservants, I will pour out My Spirit in those days.
The promised outpouring crosses household rank and includes women identified by service status. Social lowliness does not restrict the Spirit's gift or the prophetic vocation named in the surrounding oracle.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Household slave with legal standing within family structure; often contrasted with free women in covenant contexts.
Household slave with legal standing within family structure; often contrasted with free women in covenant contexts.
a female slave (as a member of the household) BDB: maid Usage: (bond-, hand-) maid(-en, -servant), wench, bondwoman, womanservant.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 63 lexical occurrence verses.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
H8198 makes enslaved and serving women visible inside texts where households, rulers, and family ambitions could reduce them to function. Hagar is called a maidservant, yet the Lord addresses her by name and hears affliction that the household has produced. Leviticus recognizes the legal vulnerability of an unfree woman without giving modern teachers permission to ignore consent or settle for partial protection.
Abigail's speech demonstrates that the noun may express humility without defining her entire status. Psalm 123 turns the maidservant's attentive gaze toward hope for divine mercy. Jeremiah 34 then removes any illusion that broken promises of freedom are a minor administrative fault: forcing released women back into slavery profanes God's name. Joel announces that the Spirit reaches maidservants and gives them a place in the prophetic people.
The preaching burden is not to make bondage sacred, but to recover personhood, hear speech from below, expose coercive power, honor promised freedom, and receive the gifts of women whom social rank has pushed aside.
Jer.34.16
H8198 is a feminine Hebrew noun used in singular and plural forms, often with possessive suffixes such as my maidservant or your maidservant. The possessive grammar reflects household relation and control but does not turn a person into an object before God. Context must distinguish literal female slavery from courtly or humble self-reference. The related H519, ʾāmâ, can also denote a female servant or slave, so conclusions should follow each exact occurrence rather than merge the two terms automatically.
The Old Testament moves from women held within patriarchal households to prophetic condemnation of revoked freedom and a promise that the Spirit will be poured out on maidservants. In Acts 2, Peter cites Joel when the gathered believers speak by the Spirit. That fulfillment does not pretend ancient status differences never existed; it declares that they cannot fence off God's gift, voice, or calling.
The movement coheres with Jesus' attention to socially vulnerable women and the apostolic confession that those baptized into Christ share one inheritance, while still requiring concrete protection from exploitation.