'Wife' in the Bible

"You shall not covet the house of your neighbor; you will not covet the wife of your neighbor or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that [is] your neighbor's."

If he comes in single, he will go out single. If he is the husband of a wife, his wife will go out with him.

If his master gives him a wife and she bears for him sons or daughters, the wife and her children will belong to her master, and [the slave] will go out single.

But if the slave explicitly says, "I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,"

" 'If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged and he lies with her, he surely will give her bride price {to have her as his wife}.

You must not expose the nakedness of your father's wife--it is your father's nakedness.

[As for] the nakedness of the daughter of your father's wife, she [is] your sister, a relative of your father; you must not expose her nakedness.

You must not expose the nakedness of your father's brother; you must not {have sex with} his wife--she [is] your aunt.

You must not expose your daughter-in-law's nakedness; she [is] your son's wife; you must not expose her nakedness.

You must not expose the nakedness of your brother's wife; she [is] your brother's nakedness.

You must not expose the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, or her son's daughter, or her daughter's daughter; you must not take [her as wife] to expose her nakedness; they [are] {close relatives}--that [is] wickedness.

And you must not take [as wife] a woman with her sister, to be a rival-wife, to expose her nakedness before her {during} her life.

And {you must not have sex} with your fellow citizen's wife, becoming unclean with her.

" 'As for a man who commits adultery with a man's wife, who commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, [both] the man who commits adultery and the woman who commits adultery shall surely be put to death.

As for a man who lies with his father's wife, he has exposed his father's nakedness; both of them shall be put to death--their blood [is] on them.

As for a man who marries his brother's wife, it [is] an abomination; he has exposed his brother's nakedness--they shall be childless.

" 'And he himself must take a wife in her virginity.

A widow or a divorced woman or a defiled [woman], a prostitute--these he must not take; he shall take only a virgin from his people [as] wife.

"Speak to the {Israelites} and say to them, 'If any man's wife goes astray and acts unfaithfully to him,

if a spirit of jealousy comes over him, and he is jealous [of] his wife and she is defiled; or if a spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous [of] his wife but she is not defiled,

he will bring his wife to the priest. And he will bring her offering for her, one-tenth of an ephah of flour. He will not pour oil on it, and he will not put frankincense on it because [it is] a grain offering of jealousy, a grain offering of remembering, a reminding of guilt.

or when a spirit of jealousy comes over a man and he is jealous [of] his wife, he will present the woman {before Yahweh},and the priest will do to her all of this law.

And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he took (because he took a Cushite wife);

The name of the wife of Amram [was] Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whose [mother] bore her for Levi in Egypt; she bore to Amram: Aaron and Moses and their sister Miriam.

These [are] the decrees that Yahweh commanded Moses, as between a husband and his wife, and between a father and his daughter, [while] her childhood [is in] her father's house.

'And you shall not covet the wife of your neighbor, and you shall not crave the house of your neighbor, his field or his slave or his slave woman or his ox and his donkey or anything {that belongs to your neighbor}.'

"If your brother, the son of your mother or your son or your daughter {or your wife whom you embrace} or {your intimate friend} in secrecy {says}, 'Let us go and let us serve other gods!' [gods] that you and your ancestors have not known,

and you see among the captives a woman beautiful in appearance, and you become attached to her and you want to take her as wife,

And she shall remove the clothing of her captivity from her, and she shall remain in your house, and she shall mourn her father and her mother {a full month}, and after this {you may have sex with her}, and you may marry her, and she may {become your wife}.

[nevertheless] {it will be the case that} on the day of bestowing his inheritance upon his sons, he will not be allowed to treat as [the] firstborn son the son of the beloved [wife] {in preference to} the son of the disliked [wife], [who is] the firstborn [son].

But he shall acknowledge the firstborn son of the disliked [wife] {by giving} him a double portion of {all that he has}, for he [is] the firstfruit of his vigor; to him [is] the legal claim of the birthright.

And [then] the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, 'I gave my daughter to this man as wife, but he [now] {dislikes} her,

Then they shall fine him hundred [shekels of] silver, and they shall give [them] to the father of the young woman, for {he defamed an Israelite young woman}, and {she shall become his wife}; he will not be allowed {to divorce her} all his days.

then you shall bring out {both of them} to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them with stones so that they shall die, the young woman because she did not cry out in the town, and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife; and so you shall purge the evil from your midst.

then {the man who lay with her} shall give to the father of the young woman fifty [shekels] of silver, and she shall become {his wife} {because} he violated her, and he is not allowed to divorce her {during his lifetime}.

A man may not take the wife of his father, and [so] {he may not dishonor his father}.

"When a man takes a wife and he marries her {and then} {she does not please him}, because he found {something objectionable} and writes her a letter of divorce and puts [it] in her hand and sends her [away] from his house,

and she goes from his house, and she goes [out] and becomes [a wife] {for another man},

and [then] the second man dislikes her and he writes her a letter of divorce and places [it] into her hand and sends her from his house, or if the second man dies who took her {to himself} as a wife,

her first husband who sent her [away] is not allowed {to take her again} to become a wife to him after she has {been defiled}, for that [is] a detestable thing {before} Yahweh, and [so] you shall not mislead into sin the land that Yahweh your God [is] giving to you [as an] inheritance.

"When a man takes a new wife he shall not go out with the army, and {he shall not be obligated with anything}; he shall be free from obligation, {to stay at home} for one year, and he shall bring joy [to] his wife that he took.

"When brothers dwell together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not become the wife of a {man of another family}; her brother-in-law {shall have sex with her}, and he shall take her {to himself} as wife, and he shall perform his duty as brother-in-law [with respect to] her.

"If a man and his brother fight each other and the wife of the one [man] comes near to rescue her husband from the hand of his attacker and she stretches [out] her hand and she seizes his genitals,

'Cursed be the one who lies with the wife of his father, because {he has dishonored his father's bed}.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

The most refined and the very sensitive man among you {shall be mean with his brother} and {against his beloved wife} and against the rest of his children that he has left over,

And Caleb said, "Whoever attacks Kiriath Sepher and captures it, I will give to him my daughter Acsah as a wife."

Othniel son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, captured it, and he gave to him Acsah his daughter as a wife.

And Caleb said, "Whoever attacks Kiriath Sepher and captures it, I will give to him Acsah my daughter as a wife."

Othniel son of Kenaz, the younger brother of Caleb, captured it, and he gave to him Acsah his daughter as a wife.

Now at that time Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, [was] judging Israel.

Sisera fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because [there was] peace between Jabin king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.

But Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, took in her hand a tent peg and a hammer, and she went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple, and it went through into the ground; he [was] fast asleep since he was exhausted, and he died.

"Most blessed of women is Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite; most blessed is she of women among tent dwellers.

Gilead's wife also bore for him sons; and the sons of [his] wife grew up and drove Jephthah away, and they said to him, "You will not inherit the house of our father because you [are] the son of another woman."

There was a certain man from Zorah, from the tribe of the Danites, and his name [was] Manoah; his wife [was] infertile and did not bear children.

So Manoah got up and went after his wife, and he came to the man and said to him, "[Are] you the man that spoke to the woman?" And he said, "I [am]."

And Manoah took the {young goat} and the grain offering, and he offered [it] to Yahweh on the rock, to the one who performs miracles. And Manoah and his wife [were] watching.

And when the flame went up toward the heaven from the altar, the angel of Yahweh went up in the flame of the altar to heaven while Manoah and his wife [were] watching. And they fell on their faces to the ground.

The angel of Yahweh did not appear again to Manoah and his wife, and then Manoah knew that he [was] a messenger of Yahweh.

And Manoah said to his wife, "We will certainly die because we have seen God."

But his wife said to him, "If Yahweh wanted to kill us he would not have taken from our hand the burnt offering and the grain offering, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us things such as these."

He went up and told his father and mother, and he said, "I saw a woman in Timnah from the daughters of [the] Philistines; so then, take her for me as a wife."

But his father and mother said to him, "Is there not a wife among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, that you must take a wife from [the] uncircumcised Philistines?" But Samson said to his father, "Take her for me because {she pleases me}."

When it was the fourth day, they said to Samson's wife, "Entice your husband and tell us the riddle, or we will burn you and your father's house with fire. Have you invited us to rob us?"

And Samson's wife wept before him, and she said, "You must hate me; you do not love me. You told the riddle to {my people}, but you have not explained [it] to me." He said to her, "I have not explained [it] to my father and mother. [Why] should I explain it to you?"

And Samson's wife was [given] to his companion who [was] his best man.

After a while, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a {young goat}. He said, "I want to go to my wife's private room." But her father would not allow him to enter.

And [the] Philistines said, "Who has done this?" And they said, "Samson the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he took his wife and gave her to his companion." And [the] Philistines went up and burned her and her father with fire.

The men of Israel had sworn at Mizpah, saying, "None of us will give his daughter to Benjamin as a wife."

But we cannot give them wives from our daughters." (For the {Israelites} swore, saying, "Cursed be [anyone] who gives a wife to Benjamin.")

and watch and look; when the daughters of Shiloh dance in the dances, come out from the vineyards and seize for yourselves a wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.

And if their fathers or their brothers complain to us, we will say to them, 'Allow us to have them, because we did not capture a wife for each man in the battle, and because you did not give [them] to them, {or else} you would have been guilty.'"

And it happened in the days [when] {the judges ruled}, there was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem [of] Judah went {to reside} in the countryside of Moab--he and his wife and his two sons.

And the name of the man [was] Elimelech, and the name of his wife [was] Naomi, and the name of his two sons [were] Mahlon and Kilion. [They were] Ephraimites from Bethlehem [in] Judah. And they went [to] the countryside of Moab and remained there.

And Boaz said, "On the day of your acquiring the field from the hand of Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the wife of the dead [man], [in order] to raise up [for] the name of the dead his inheritance."

And also Ruth the Moabite, the wife of Mahlon, I have acquired as a wife, to raise up the name of the dead over his inheritance, so that the name of the dead may not be cut off from his relatives and from the gate of his [birth] place. You [are] witnesses today."

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. And he went [in] to her, and Yahweh {enabled her to conceive}, and she bore a son.

{On} the day Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters.

(Now her rival wife would provoke her severely in order to upset her because Yahweh had closed her womb.)

Then they rose early in the morning and worshiped before Yahweh {and returned} to their house at Ramah. Then Elkanah {had sexual relations with} Hannah his wife, and Yahweh remembered her.

And Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, and he said, "May Yahweh give you an offspring from this woman in place of the petitioned [one] that she requested from Yahweh." Then they went to their home.

Now his daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, [was] pregnant and [about] to give birth. When she heard the news concerning the capture of the ark of God and that her father-in-law and her husband had died, she {went into labor} and gave birth, because her labor pains came upon her.

The name of Saul's wife [was] Ahinoam the daughter of Ahimaaz, and the name of the commander of his army [was] Abner, the son of Ner, Saul's uncle.

Then Saul said to David, "Here [is] my older daughter Merab. I will give her to you as [your] wife. Only be {a brave warrior} for me and fight the battles of Yahweh." For Saul thought, "My hand will not be against him, but let the hand of [the] Philistines be against him."

{But} at the time Saul's daughter Merab [was] to be given to David, she was given [instead] to Adriel the Meholathite as wife.

And David got up, and he and his men went and struck down two hundred men [of the] Philistines. Then David brought their foreskins, and {they presented the full number} to become the king's son-in-law. Then Saul gave him Michal his daughter as [his] wife.

Then Saul sent messengers to David's house to guard him and to kill him in the morning, but Michal his wife told David, saying, "If {you do not save your life} tonight, [then] tomorrow you [will be] killed!"

The name of the man [was] Nabal, and the name of his wife [was] Abigail. Now the woman [was] wise and beautiful, but the man [was] stubborn and {mean}, and he [was] as his heart.

But a young man of the servants told Abigail, Nabal's wife, saying, "Look, David sent messengers from the desert to greet our master, but he addressed them angrily,

{And then} in the morning when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these words. Then his heart died {within him}, and he became like a stone.

When David heard that Nabal had died, he said, "Blessed be Yahweh who has vindicated the case of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and he has kept back his servant from evil; but Yahweh has returned the evil of Nabal on his [own] head." Then David sent and spoke with Abigail to take her for his wife.

So the servants of David came to Abigail at Carmel, and they spoke to her, saying, "David has sent us to you to take you for his wife."

Then Abigail {quickly got up} and rode on the donkey, [along with] five of her maidservants who {attended her}, and she went after the messengers of David and became his wife.

(Now Saul had given his daughter Michal, David's wife, to Palti the son of Laish, who [was] from Gallim.)

David settled with Achish in Gath, he and his men, each with his household. David [took along] his two wives Ahinoam {from Jezreel} and Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite.

Two of David's wives had been taken captive. Ahinoam {from Jezreel} and Abigail, the wife of Nabal the Carmelite.

Then all the corrupt and useless men among the men who went with David reacted and said, "Because they did not go with us, we will not give them [anything] from the plunder which we recovered, {except} each [man may take] his own wife and children. They must take them along and go!"

So David went up there {along with} his two wives, Ahinoam {from Jezreel} and Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite.

His second [was] Kileab by Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite; the third [was] Absalom the son of Maacah, [who was] the daughter of Talmai the king of Geshur.

The sixth [was] Ithream by Eglah the wife of David. These [were] born to David in Hebron.