Handmaid

Handmaid [EBD]

servant (Gen. 16:1; Ruth 3:9; Luke 1:48). It is probable that Hagar was Sarah's personal attendant while she was in the house of Pharaoh, and was among those maid-servants whom Abram had brought from Egypt.

HANDMAID [ISBE]

HANDMAID - hand'-mad: Which appears often in the Old Testament, but seldom in the New Testament, like bondmaid, is used to translate two Hebrew words (shiphchah, and 'amah) both of which normally mean a female slave. It is used to translate the former word in the ordinary sense of female slave in Gen 16:1; 25:12; 29:24,29; Prov 30:23; Jer 34:11,16; Joel 2:29; to translate the latter word in Ex 23:12; Jdg 19:19; 2 Sam 6:20. It is used as a term of humility and respectful self-depreciation in the presence of great men, prophets and kings, to translate the former word in Ruth 2:13; 1 Sam 1:18; 28:21; 2 Sam 14:6; 2 Ki 4:2,16; it translates the latter word in the same sense in Ruth 3:9; 1 Sam 1:16; 25:24,28,31,41; 2 Sam 20:17; 1 Ki 1:13,17; 3:20. It is also used to express a sense of religious humility in translating the latter word only, and appears in this sense in but three passages, 1 Sam 1:11; Ps 86:16; 116:16.

In the New Testament it occurs 3 t, in a religious sense, as the translation of doule, "a female slave" (Lk 1:38,48; Acts 2:18), and twice (Gal 4:22,23) as the translation of paidiske, the King James Version "bondmaid."

William Joseph McGlothlin