When Sex is about Male Power: Rabbinic Readings and the Rhetoric of Multi-Coital Encounters

Today’s post is by Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, who contacted the Shiloh Project with an offer to write a post on a topic that ventures beyond biblical texts and into the fascinating territory of rabbinic interpretation.

Rabbi Klein earned his MA in Jewish Education from Middlesex University/London School of Jewish Studies. His Bible and Rabbinic scholarship have appeared in such journals as Hakirah, Jewish Bible Quarterly, and the Journal of Halachah and Contemporary Society. He is the author of G-d versus Gods: Judaism in the Age of Idolatry (Mosaica Press, 2018), a traditional exploration of Bible depictions of the struggle against idol worship. He can be contacted by email at [email protected].

In my 2024 paper “Male Virility and Biblical Power Dynamics” (JBQ vol. 51:1), I try to cast fresh light on certain striking rabbinic interpretations of Biblical narratives by examining how these deploy what I identify as the motif of “sex as power.” At stake here is not simply the salacious detail that the rabbis occasionally read multi-orgasmic or multi-coital encounters into Biblical scenes even, sometimes, where the Scriptural text makes no explicit reference to any sexual act; instead, I argue, these rabbinic moves reveal deep-seated assumptions about the ways sexual prowess can function as a symbolic or literal assertion of male power. Furthermore, I maintain, my reading shadows cultural dynamics that we might now recognize as indicative of rape culture.

To ground my argument, I focus on three striking cases in which the Babylonian Talmud (the centrepiece of rabbinic knowledge) asserts that famous male figures — namely, King David, Zimri, and Sisera — each accomplish multiple acts of intercourse in one discrete narrative episode. The Bible itself makes no such claims; it is rather the oral rabbinic tradition preserved in Talmud that transforms these episodes into sexual feats of mythical proportions. These amplifications are not simply ribald embellishments to the Bible; in the rabbinic mind, they are entangled with displays of male dominance, virility, and control.

Let me illustrate this dynamic with the episode of Zimri and Cozbi, as interpreted in the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 82b). The Biblical story, found in Numbers 25, recounts how Zimri, an Israelite prince from the Tribe of Simeon, brings Cozbi, a Midianite woman, into the Israelite camp (25:6). If this was a prelude to fornicating in public view (there is mention of being in the sight of Moses and the whole community of Israel) — this would be a flagrant act of rebellion against Moses’ authority and Israel’s covenantal norms. But in the Talmud’s telling, Zimri not only commits a transgressive sex act, he engages in 424 acts of intercourse with Cozbi. The number itself derives from a gematria (the alphanumerical equivalence) of the word zarzir (“starling” or “greyhound,” Proverbs 30:31), suggesting a connection between animalistic virility and Zimri’s action of extreme defiance.

Leaving aside the physiological capacity (or otherwise) of multiple male orgasm, this Talmudic assertion is still puzzling. Why does the Talmud magnify this episode to such excess? In my reading of this hyperbolic scene, Zimri’s sexual display becomes a performance of challenge and defiance, whereby he attempts to overshadow Moses’ spiritual and political authority. In rabbinic thought, his action is not just sexually deviant but leveraged for destructive political ends. The woman, Cozbi, is little more than a pawn — the gameboard upon which the masculine rivalry between Zimri and Moses plays out.

In my essay I trace this same dynamic in two other rabbinic expansions. The first depicts King David’s supposed virility in his old age (Sanhedrin 22a). Again, the interpretation is rooted in the number of words or verb inflections in a single Biblical verse. Here, too, the underlying message is clear: David’s powerful kingship is signified by his sexual potency. The rabbinic commentators thereby rebut the claim that David grew frail and lost the masculine vigour necessary for royal authority. Such might, after all, be implied by the Biblical text that describes the elderly David as being kept warm by a beautiful virgin, Abishag, with whom he did not have sexual intercourse (1 Kings 1:1-4). Again, hyperbolic sexual performance functions in the Talmud passage as proof of David’s power; again, sexual performance signifies a political credential that is played out with the body of a woman (in this case, Bathsheba).

The story of Sisera and Jael (Judges 4–5) also receives rabbinic elaboration. Sisera, the defeated Canaanite general, flees to Jael’s tent where, according to Yevamot 103a, he fornicates with (read: rapes) Jael seven times before falling asleep, whereupon Jael drives a tent peg through his skull. The Talmud’s numeric claim rests on a hermeneutic device that focuses on the repetition of Hebrew verbs used in Deborah’s poetic retelling of Jael’s heroic role in the Israelites’ victory. The reading could also suggest that rape is imagined as the last desperate act of a man attempting to reclaim his power. In the rabbinic framing, Sisera’s multiple acts of coitus are a final, grotesque assertion of masculine control in the face of military failure. It was his final act before his star fades away and the roles are reversed, as he faced death at the hands of a woman. Indeed, Jael’s “manly” act of penetrating the Canaanite general’s skull, is, arguably, not only one of vengeance but of retaliatory penetration, even revenge rape.

What unites these three episodes is a display of hyperbolic male sexual prowess and my longer essay notes that traditional rabbinic sources have debated over the exaggerated numbers attributed to sexual acts. These exaggerated figures themselves, however, signal that they are not intended to be read as realistic but more likely as literary or narrative devices. Hence, the rabbis employ stock numbers for the acts of coitus — seven (Sisera), thirteen (David), and 424 (Zimri) — that align with other rabbinic uses of “round” or symbolic numbers. The hyperbolic numbers, then, serve as a shorthand to express the men’s claim to power.

By reading these three cases together, I suggest that rabbinic midrash does more than fill in Biblical gaps or ambiguities; rather, it draws attention to them and throws into relief the deeply gendered and hierarchical dynamics embedded in these ancient texts. Sex, in these midrashic readings is sometimes not “just sex” — it is a potent weapon of male power, often clearly indicative of rape, and a performance of status-assertion. It is used by powerful men to show other men that they “have what it takes.” The women — and it is not deemed relevant or dwelt upon whether they are willing or not (with Jael most clearly unwilling among the three) — become mere conduits of male power, which, in the case of Zimri, is displayed for all to see.

These examples show how rabbinic texts, like some other ancient textual traditions, encode examples of the dynamics that we nowadays recognize and label as sustaining rape culture — this being a term modern scholars use to describe a system in which sexual violence and coercion are normalized and instrumentalized. When the Talmud turns Zimri’s public sexual excess, David’s bedroom performance, or Sisera’s humiliating defeat following his rape bravado, into fantastical tales, it demonstrates how male sexual acts (both consensual and coerced) can be constructed as expressions of power and dominance. It also demonstrates that women tend not to be depicted as agents but as conduits or facilitators of male power. The exception, however, is Jael who subverts the dynamic of gendered power and goes on to retaliate.

Finally, I would add that reflecting on these rabbinic interpretations is more than “just” an academic exercise. These texts continue to be read, interpreted, and consulted for guidance and learning. Hence, our readings of them inevitably echo into our contemporary worlds. The normalization of sexual violence or even merely the valourization of (tall)tales of sexual conquest can shape cultural attitudes toward sex and power in ways that are neither neutral nor without consequence. To study these motifs critically, as I do in my essay, is to bring these social issues to the fore so that the very act of reading the Bible and its interpretations can become an opportunity to confront, question, and perhaps transform our views on sexual ethics.