Pre-Birth Biblical Persons

In Parshah Toldot we learn of Rebekah’s difficult pregnancy, Gen.25:19 – 23. After twenty years of barrenness she finally conceived, but there was a serious problem. As the Artscroll Stone Edition puts it, “The children agitated within her.” This image brings to my mind something like a top-load washing machine or perhaps a butter churn. We know that butter churns did exist in Rebekah’s lifetime. It is quite reasonable to assume that she would have used such devices. Note also that the Torah uses the word “children,” not amorphous clump of cells. 

It is clear that there are two distinct contending personalities. They each had agency and could “stand his ground” as it were, even in the womb, much to their mother’s discomfort. The twins’ conflict continued into adulthood. With maturity they no longer physically agitated; language and strategy became their tools. Esau’s grandson, Amalek, and his descendants, however, do resort to unprovoked physical violence. 

This account of pre-natal conflict strongly contradicts the pro baby killers’ dehumanization of babies prior to their birth. Both Jacob and Esau were individuals. Each was on a path of development toward adulthood; They did not suddenly become human at birth. 

Samson 

Here again we meet a woman who has long lamented her barren state and prayed for a child. See Judges 13:1 – 16:31. An angel tells her, and later her husband, that she will have a son who will “begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” An important thing about this child is that he must be a Nazir from the moment of conception through his whole life. The Nazirite vow is one of abstinence from any grape products and never cutting one’s hair. The woman is also told to abstain, so as not to violate the baby’s vow. This is an unusual sort of vow in that it is commanded by G-d; normally a person voluntarily takes on a vow for a limited time. 

From this we see, in keeping with modern science, that the baby’s life begins when the baby’s life begins – at conception; it is not a matter of belief. It is a matter of biology. And again, we see that the developing baby is a person, not just a clump of amorphous cells. Samson has a mission assigned him by G-d. 

Samuel 

See I & II Samuel for the whole story of this child and then man. Hanna, another long-barren woman, prayed for a son. Eli, the priest at Shiloh, thought she was drunk. Rather, it is from her that we learn the proper way to say our prayers. (Such a pity that women are so unimportant in Judaism.). She had vowed that the child would be then in G-d’s service for his whole lifetime and also a lifetime Nazirite. 

But for the prayers of these three women, would there even be any Jews on planet earth? 

From these birth accounts we have learned that the Tanach sees that the baby is a person from conception on. We do not find even one account of an abortion in the Tanakh; barren women, indeed, prayed to have babies, and this was celebrated. 

L'chaim, Don Belding.