A maid-servant or female slave
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The Hebrew noun ʾāmāh refers to a female servant, maidservant, or enslaved woman, although women also use the term deferentially for themselves when speaking to God, a king, or another person of higher standing. The word therefore marks a position of service or lowered social status, but its precise force ranges from polite self-designation to actual bondage and ownership.
Reader summary
Full entry for אָמָה (H519) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Hebrew noun ʾāmāh refers to a female servant, maidservant, or enslaved woman, although women also use the term deferentially for themselves when speaking to God, a king, or another person of higher standing. The word therefore marks a position of service or lowered social status, but its precise force ranges from polite self-designation to actual.
The BSB source-word alignment has 56 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include and maidservants (8), your servant (5), maidservant (4), of your maidservant (4), or maidservant (4).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 20:17. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Samuel (10), Exodus (9), Deuteronomy (8), Genesis (7).
The Hebrew noun ʾāmāh refers to a female servant, maidservant, or enslaved woman, although women also use the term deferentially for themselves when speaking to God, a king, or another person of higher standing. The word therefore marks a position of service or lowered social status, but its precise force ranges from polite self-designation to actual bondage and ownership.
Scripture does not allow readers to hide that harder reality. Hagar is called a slave woman, Bilhah is given to Jacob for childbearing, legal texts address injury, release, labor, and purchase, and Job recognizes that a maidservant can bring a complaint that must be heard because master and servant share one Maker. Sabbath commands include female servants in rest and worship.
Responsible teaching should preserve those voices, power differences, and bodily risks without pretending that regulation equals moral celebration or using servant language to demand silence and unsafe submission today.
Narrative, law, wisdom, prayer, and court speech use ʾāmāh for women in service or dependence, exposing unequal power while also naming rest, complaint, protection, and direct address to God.
And she said to Abraham, “Expel the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac!”
Sarah’s command identifies Hagar by her enslaved status while seeking to expel her and her son from the household and inheritance.
But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God, on which you must not do any work—neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox or donkey or any of your livestock, nor the foreigner within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest as you do.
The Sabbath command includes male and female servants in the household’s rest and explicitly says they are to rest as the householder does.
If a man strikes and blinds the eye of his manservant or maidservant, he must let the servant go free as compensation for the eye.
The law requires release when a master blinds a servant, naming bodily injury and a consequence without making the institution morally ideal.
If I have rejected the cause of my manservant or maidservant when they made a complaint against me,
Job treats a maidservant’s complaint as a cause that must not be rejected, and the following verses ground accountability in their common Maker.
“Who are you?” he asked. “I am your servant Ruth,” she replied. “Spread the corner of your garment over me, for you are a kinsman-redeemer.”
Ruth calls herself Boaz’s servant while directly requesting covenant protection from a kinsman-redeemer, showing deferential speech with purposeful agency.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Female servant in household hierarchies; often vulnerable, yet occasionally elevated through covenant favor or royal service
Female servant in household hierarchies; often vulnerable, yet occasionally elevated through covenant favor or royal service
a maid-servant or female slave BDB: maid Usage: (hand-) bondmaid(-woman), maid(-servant).
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 56 lexical occurrence verses.
אָמָה is a primitive word - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
ʾĀmāh makes unequal power linguistically visible. Sometimes a woman chooses the conventional language of a servant to address God, a king, or a potential protector. In other passages, the designation records actual ownership, forced dependence, reproductive use, labor, injury, or vulnerability. Those settings cannot be blended into a harmless generic idea of humble service.
The canon also refuses to make a female servant voiceless. Sabbath law includes her rest, legal material attaches consequences to bodily injury, Job says her complaint demands an answer before their common Maker, Ruth speaks a direct request, and God sees and preserves Hagar and her son beyond the household that expels them. Teaching this word faithfully means neither pretending ancient servitude was modern employment nor claiming that every text resolves the institution.
It means reading power, personhood, protection, and accountability in the exact passage.
Job.31.13
The feminine noun can denote an actual maidservant or enslaved woman, and it can also function as a deferential self-reference. Possessive forms often reveal the social relationship, but narrative context determines whether the language is chosen courtesy, household dependence, or coercive bondage.
The New Testament addresses enslaved people and masters within the Roman world while declaring their accountability to one Lord and welcoming enslaved and free believers into one body in Christ. Those texts must not be used to excuse trafficking, assault, coercive control, or the silencing of complaints; the gospel summons every holder of power under Christ’s judgment and neighbor-love commands.