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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comFausset Bible Dictionary: Bilhah
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1. Rachel's handmaid (). Rachel having no children gave Bilhah to her husband Jacob, who by the latter had two sons, Dan and Naphtali (-8; ; ; ). Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, defiled her, and was therefore deprived of the birthright, which was given to the sons of Joseph (; ; ). Blunt says, so vivid was the desire for the promised Redeemer, that "the wife provoked, instead of resenting, the faithlessness of her husband, the mother taught her own child deceit, daughters deliberately worked their own and their fathers' shame, and the daughter-in-law courted the incestuous bed, and to be childless was a by-word" (; ; ; ; ; ; ).
2. A Simeonite town (), named also Baalah or Balah ().