Bilhah

Reuben was Jacob's (Israel) eldest son with Leah. Genesis 35:22 says, "And it came to pass, while Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father's concubine; and Israel heard of it." As a result of this adultery, he lost the respect of his father, who said: "Unstable as water, you shall excel no longer; For when you mounted your father’s bed, You brought disgrace—my couch he mounted!" Some rabbinical commentators interpreted the story differently, saying that Reuben's disruption of Bilhah's and Jacob's beds was not through sex with Bilhah. As long as Rachel was alive, say these commentators, Jacob kept her bed in his tent. When Rachel died, Jacob moved Bilhah's bed into his tent, who had been mentored by Rachel, to retain a closeness to his favourite wife. However, Reuben, Leah's eldest, felt that this move slighted his mother, who was also a primary wife, and so he moved his mother's bed into Jacob's tent and removed or overturned Bilhah's. This invasion of Jacob's privacy was viewed so gravely that the Bible equates it with adultery, and lost Reuben his first-born right to a double inheritance. ==In popular culture==

• In the novels The Red Tent by Anita Diamant and Rachel and Leah by Orson Scott Card, Bilhah and Zilpah are half-sisters of Leah and Rachel by different mothers, following the Talmudic tradition. • In Margaret Atwood's speculative fiction novel ''The Handmaid's Tale'', the theocratic society depicted cites the relationship between Bilhah, Rachel and Jacob as the scriptural basis for the role of handmaids as surrogates to high-ranking men and their infertile wives. ==References==