Dear Friends,

This week I would like to discuss the few cases in the Bible in which we hear of the birth of twins, as well as the linguistic aspects of the Hebrew word for twins, תְאוֹמִים, te-o-mim. The word is derived from the root  תא"ם, which means “to double” or “to be similar to”.
In the Bible, we hear of two sets of human twins, in both cases twin boys. Both stories appear in the Book of Genesis, and in both cases there is a fight at birth over which of the two will be the firstborn. It is interesting to note that these two sets of twins are the only ones of which we hear in the Bible – thus perhaps reflecting a reality in which twins were quite a rare occurrence, at birth and especially later on. In the ancient world, twins, who are often born prematurely, rarely survived (and often only one of the twins did).

Jacob and Esau
The story of the birth of these two twin-rivals is described in Genesis 25. At first we hear that Rebecca was barren, and Isaac prayed for her to have children. She then became pregnant, and throughout the pregnancy was distraught, because the boys struggled within her. She then received a prophecy, according to which two nations would come from her two twins, and the older would serve the younger. The question of age – and the birthright of the firstborn – is very important when dealing with this particular set of twins. Already in-utero, Jacob tried to get past Esau in order to be born first, but did not succeed – he was born immediately after him, and was holding on to his heal, as though trying to hold him back. Incidentally, exegetes such as the medieval commentator Rashi, have noted that these twins were apparently born full-term: the text specifically states “and when her days to give birth were full” (Genesis 25:24). The two grew up to be rivals, both over the birth-right and over their parents’ affections. You can hear more about their story on our weekly portion channel for the portion of “Toldot”.
 

Perez and Zerax
Another set of twins in the Book of Genesis, about whom we hear very little later on, are Perez and Zerah, who appear in Genesis 38. Judah’s sons had married a local woman, Tamar, but died before they had any children. Tamar is then given to Judah’s second son, who refuses to fulfill his duty of providing an offspring to commemorate his brother. Tamar is then sent to wait for the third son to come of age, but when she is not given to him, she seduces Judah in disguise and is impregnated by him. She is condemned to death for having committed adultery, but when Judah understands that he is the father, he admits that he wronged her and she is saved. She then gives birth to the twins, who were apparently born prematurely, as Rashi learns from the words: “and behold, at the time she gave birth” – which he compares to the description of the birth of Jacob and Esau, concluding that in Tamar’s case, the birth was not full term. One of the twins put out his hand at first, and the midwife bound it with a scarlet thread, in order to mark him as the firstborn. However, he then retrieved his hand, and his brother was the one who was born first (one wonders about the realism of such a description and how it was technically possible, especially when taking into account that the story was in most probability recorded by a man!). The only other information we have about Perez and Zerax is about their descendants. The most important of these is Perz’s descendant King David.
 

Identical parts in the building of the Desert Tabernacle
A large part of the second half of the Book of Exodus is dedicated to a detailed description of the building of the Desert Tabernacle, the Israelite’s first place of worship which served them during their forty years in the desert. Many of the different parts used to build the Tabernacle are required to be identical to each other. For instance, each of the ten curtains creating the walls of the Tabernacle must be the same size. The boards are also required to be identical, and in this case, their similarity is described by the word תֹאֲמִם – to-a-mim – matching, similar (Exodus 26:24). Although not identical to the word for twins, the similarity between these two nouns which are derived from the same root is clear.
 

Non-human twins
On two occasions in the Song of Songs (4:5 and 7:4), we hear a description of the female lover’s breasts as “two fawns, the twins of a gazelle”. This is of course a complement, conveying the physical perfection and symmetry of this beloved woman. Twins among some species of gazelles are apparently not a rare occurrence, and one example of such fictional twins is Bambi’s twin fawns,

Giving birth to twins as a verb
Again in the Song of Songs (4:2 and 6:6), we have the only occurrence of a verb from the root תא"ם, this time when describing the perfections of the beloved’s teeth. The lover states that all her teeth are like a flock of ewes that has come up from washing, with not one failing among them, and they are all מַתְאִימוֹת, mat-i-mot. Based on Modern Hebrew, we might understand this to mean that they are all matching, but in Biblical Hebrew, the meaning is apparently that they are all extremely fertile, bearing twins.

Have a great week!

Naama Baumgarten