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Summary
- Noah had one wife. Genesis 6:18 and 7:13 speak of Noah’s “wife” in the singular, and 1 Peter 3:20 counts eight people saved in the ark: Noah, his wife, their three sons and the sons’ three wives.
- The Bible never names her. She appears in five verses of Genesis (6:18; 7:7; 7:13; 8:16; 8:18) and never speaks.
- The Book of Jubilees (4:33) and the Genesis Apocryphon among the Dead Sea Scrolls call her Emzara; Jubilees makes her Noah’s cousin.
- In Genesis Rabbah, Rabbi Abba bar Kahana identified her with Naamah, the sister of Tubalcain (Genesis 4:22), and explained the name: “her actions were pleasing.” The other rabbis disagreed.
- The first man the Bible names with two wives is Cain’s descendant Lamech (Genesis 4:19). Genesis gives Noah no second wife, before or after the flood.
- Each of Noah’s sons had one wife. Genesis leaves them unnamed; Jubilees calls them Sedeqetelebab (Shem’s wife), Ne’elatama’uk (Ham’s) and ‘Adataneses (Japheth’s).
- The medieval York, Chester and Towneley mystery plays made Noah’s wife a comic figure who refuses to board the ark.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- King James Version: Genesis 2:24; 4:19–22; 5:28–29; 6:18, 22; 7:1, 7, 13; 8:16, 18; 9:19, 22, 28; 10:1; 11:10; Leviticus 18:8; Matthew 19:5; Hebrews 11:7; 1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 2:5, BibleGateway.
- Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, Book III, chapter 19, tr. Marcus Dods, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 2, New Advent.
- Augustine, Contra Faustum, Book XII, sections 14 and 21, tr. Richard Stothert, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, vol. 4, New Advent.
- Genesis Rabbah 23:3, The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah (2022), Sefaria.
- Rashi on Genesis 4:22, 7:7 and 8:16, tr. M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann (1929–1934), Sefaria.
- The Book of Jubilees, tr. R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (1913): chapter 4 and chapter 7.
- The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, “Emzara in Jubilees” (Jubilees 4:33, tr. James C. VanderKam, 2018) and “Emzara in the Genesis Apocryphon” (Genesis Apocryphon 6:7).
- John Sietze Bergsma and Scott Walker Hahn, “Noah’s Nakedness and the Curse on Canaan (Genesis 9:20–27)”, Journal of Biblical Literature 124, no. 1 (2005): 25–40.
- Garrett P. J. Epp, ed., “3. Noah,” in The Towneley Plays, TEAMS Middle English Texts Series (Medieval Institute Publications, 2017), now at METS.
- Peter Whiteford, “‘Et dat alapam vita’: A Stage Direction in the Chester ‘Noah’s Flood’”, Early Theatre 24, no. 1 (2021).
- The Qur’an, Surah 66:10, Saheeh International translation.
- The Septuagint, Genesis 7:7 and 8:15–18, tr. L. C. L. Brenton, eBible.org; Anthony Maas, “Versions of the Bible”, The Catholic Encyclopedia (1912), New Advent.
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