Setting: Genesis 11:29-30
Extra-biblical Sources: Sanhedrin 69b:13
We followed the great Euprhates river, moving slowly on account of the livestock and the children; resting when possible in the cool shade cast by embankments. We reached Uruk on the second day. Uruk; our great sister city and the cradle of civilization.
Surely we might have settled at Uruk, even if outside the walls until a place was found for us within. We have friends there, and Shulgi son of Ur-Nammu would surely have done Terah a favor and set aside some land for our family there.
At first it seemed that we would indeed make a new life in Uruk, for we loitered there not a few days. Iscah and I spent our time looking after the slave children, scavenging for fire wood, and doing what we could to make satisfying meals from the provisions we had in the camp. We ate a lot of bread with curds and leeks. We might have had honey on occasion, but it seemed inappropriate to indulge in sweets while our dead father ate dirt.
His body was with us, for there is nothing more important for the dead than their burial, and we feared lest the followers of Nimrod should desecrate his tomb if he were buried close to Ur. The plan was to bury him somewhere in the desert where he could rest in peace. I only know this because I overheard Terah discussing the manner with Nahor. It is not as if the men tell us anything.
It is not as if they tell us even of our own marriages, for I also overheard them discussing how to properly conduct a wedding in the camp, and I suspected that the wedding was either for myself, in need of a redeemer, or for the slave girl Kalumtum, daugher of Abdhulraman. The way of women was upon her, and it is customary to marry slaves as soon as nature signals their fertility.
Alas, whether slavewoman or freewoman, it is not customary for any man to willingly take on marriage with one who does not experience the way of women. And so I did not suspect that Terah and Haran spoke of a wedding for Iscah.
After a few days of encampment across the river, outside of Uruk, Terah and his servants visited the city to trade for necessary supplies that were neglected as we left Ur in haste. The morning after they returned, it was clear that a wedding celebration was being prepared. It was that morning that I was taken by the slave women outside of camp, that I might be prepared to meet my groom.
That evening, as Utu set and darkness fell across the land, I was brought back into the camp. I was veiled, with costly ornaments on my wrists and ankles and neck, and what ointment and perfumes were available here in our exile had been liberally applied.
To my shock I saw that Iscah, too, had been prepared for marriage and was joining me beside Terah in the middle of the assembly.
Two trenches had been dug in the middle of camp, each roughly one cubit wide and each several cubits long. On both side of the trenches were halves of heifers, goats, rams, and pigeons; their bodies cut in two and laid so that their blood drained from their severed bodies into the trenches.
Terah stood between these blood paths, with myself on his left and Iscah on his right.
In the darkening dusk the blood appeared a purplish black, and the flames of nearby torches danced upon it in red and yellow. Terah called forth Nahor, who walked the blood path so that his bare feet and his white robes were splattered with the blood. I confess that in my pity for Iscah, in which I am well-rehearsed, I looked at the blood and thought not just of these animals but of the blood that I myself produce and that Iscah does not. I thought also of the blood that must be shed that night, as a demonstration of our purity, and I wondered if this standard applied to Iscah or how it might go for her.
As Nahor reached us, Terah declared: “Nahor, son of Terah, if you do not faithfully love, protect, and support this woman Milcah all the days of your life, may you be torn to pieces like these animals. If you should harm her, you shall in turn be harmed. If you should take another wife, you must not decrease her portion, or we shall require it from your hands. Truly. Truly.”
Nahor responded: “Be it as you have said. If I do not love, protect, and support this woman Milcah all the days of my life, may I be as these animals. May the Annunaki bless our union, and may Inanna grant that Milcah’s womb produce many children. Truly. Truly.”
The household of Terah cheered and I was led away by the women to the wedding chamber. As we left the assembly I glanced back to see that Abram was walking the blood path toward Iscah.