Women in the Bible Who Prayed to Have Babies
In Bible times, children were a vital part of a family's social and economic status. The same Hebrew words are translated to English as "childlessness" and "nakedness," though they mostly refer to men. Besides maternal love, it was important for women to keep their husbands from appearing naked in this way, and the only fertility treatment appropriate to both biblical understanding of reproductive biology and reporting in the Bible was prayer. It should also be remembered that the births of daughters are rarely reported in the Bible; motherhood was considered successful only when it was a boy.
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Rebekah (Genesis 24-27)
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The promise of countless descendants to Abraham got off to a slow start, according to the Bible's accounts. His wife Sarah had only one child, Isaac (though there's no account of her actually praying for a child). Isaac married Rebekah, but it took 20 years and both of them praying before she achieved her one and only pregnancy, with twins Jacob and Esau.
Rachel (Genesis 29-31, etc.)
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Rachel's story sets a narrative pattern in the Bible of women especially cherished by their husbands despite fertility problems. She was Jacob's first choice, but he was tricked into first marrying her sister Leah, who had no fertility problems. Rachel takes the lead of her husband's grandmother, Sarah, and has children through her servant Bilhah. She also bargains with her sister for use of an herbal fertility treatment, mandrake roots. She does finally have a son, Joseph, and another, Benjamin, Jacob's last recorded child. But Rachel dies shortly after her second delivery.
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Tamar (Genesis 38)
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Tamar's fertility problem is one of the few biblical cases that clearly is not her responsibility, and she is one of the few biblical mothers who takes direct action, in addition to prayer, to have a child. Tamar's problem is that her husband, the first son of Jacob's first son, Judah, has died before they had children. According to law and custom of the time, it was the responsibility of Judah's other sons to make Tamar pregnant, though the child would be considered the dead brother's. The second brother also dies, and Judah is afraid to send his youngest to Tamar. So Tamar tricks Judah himself into impregnating her, by impersonating a prostitute, and she becomes a grandmother of King David.
Hannah (1Samuel 1:1-2:21)
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Hannah is probably the best known for her fertility prayer, which according to the story is so fervent that a priest watching her thinks she might be drunk. As Rachel was before her, Hannah is cherished by her husband despite her "barrenness" and despised by her fertile co-wife. Hannah's husband, Elkanah, asks her why his love isn't enough. Perhaps this frees her to promise to give her son back to God if she can only become a mother. Her son Samuel becomes the great prophet who anoints and advises the first two kings of Israel and Judah.
Elizabeth (Luke 1:5-80)
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The Greek Testament is much more concerned with the politics of occupation than with fertility, but this one Gospel includes an echo of the story of Abraham and Sarah, with the birth of one child to aged parents who have given up. Elizabeth is a cousin to Mary of Nazareth, who will become the mother of Jesus, and Elizabeth's son will be the great prophet known as John the Baptist. Elizabeth's husband, the priest Zechariah, is struck mute on hearing that Elizabeth will indeed have a child, and cannot speak until the child is born.
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References
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