There is no veil wide enough to shield the marrow of scripture.
What is flesh in these words—what is bone—what is salt
rubbed into the deep cut of a woman's silence,
screaming across centuries, stitched together with sacred verse?
Galatians 3:28-29:
Here, the text sings unity, the great equalizer—
no Jew, no Greek, no male nor female—
but behind the hymn lies the knife. Beneath inclusion's banner
are centuries of hands that skim women from the surface,
flattening us into figures for men's desires and sons' inheritance.
If there is no male or female, why is her body
offered as price and penitence in the lines we dare not underline?
Leviticus 27:3-4:
A woman is worth thirty shekels.
Less than a man, she is catalogued,
the weight of her body a ledger entry for holiness,
as if her spirit were lighter, her soul dimmer, her bones
more breakable. Value in the temple, value in the market,
value according to the word of God.
Ephesians 5:22:
"Wives, submit to your husbands." As if love
were submission, as if devotion meant surrender.
The text slips its collar tight around the necks of wives,
sanctioning a gospel that smiles through clenched teeth,
offering blessings in the language of chains.
Numbers 1:1-2:
"Number the men." Not the women,
because their names were written only in kitchens,
in childbirth, and in the warm wash of forgetfulness.
When the census rolls through the camp,
they are counted only by proximity—by husband,
by father, by son—until they are nothing but shadows
in the arithmetic of power.
Genesis 17:9-14:
Circumcision—etched into men, a covenant of blood.
Where is the covenant for daughters? Is it in the quiet?
In the way women are cut without knives, marked by silence
and by laws never meant for them?
Leviticus 21:9:
The daughter of a priest who profanes herself
by promiscuity is burned.
No trial, no recourse, no forgiveness.
Her body, turned to ash, is the only acceptable apology.
The pages do not tell us of her pain, only of the fire
that was holy, only of the shame that was cleansed.
Exodus 20:17:
Do not covet your neighbour's wife.
She is listed between the house and the ox,
as if she were a belonging—a thing to steal or desire.
A woman catalogued among objects,
a boundary not to be crossed,
but only because she belongs to another man.
Jeremiah 8:9-10:
Even the prophets lament, but not for her.
Wives shall be given to others, lands divided—
justice rendered in the tearing apart of families.
This is the inheritance of wisdom: to exchange
one woman for another, like fields traded in drought.
Exodus 21:7-9:
If a man sells his daughter as a slave,
she is not freed like the men.
Her freedom is conditional, hinging on her body—
whether she pleases her master or not.
A girl, bartered between hands,
her future written in the margins of the law.
Deuteronomy 22:28-29:
If a man rapes a virgin not pledged to be married,
he shall pay fifty shekels and take her as his wife.
She becomes his forever—a bride by conquest.
There is no song for her. No lament.
Only a bride-price paid, and the rest of her life
lived in the shadow of a crime rebranded as matrimony.
Leviticus 12:1-5:
A woman who gives birth is unclean.
Longer if she births a daughter,
as if femininity stains the world deeper.
She waits, alone, until the days of her purification pass—
until her body, miraculous in creation,
is deemed fit for the world again.
Numbers 5:15-31:
The trial of jealousy.
If a husband suspects his wife of infidelity,
he brings her to the priest.
She drinks the bitter water; if her belly swells,
she is condemned. Innocence or guilt,
decided by ritual and suspicion—
an ordeal to prove her worth or expose her ruin.
Her body, again, the battlefield for men's doubts.
Genesis 4:19:
Lamech took two wives.
The beginning of a lineage—
men taking what they will,
accumulating women as one does cattle,
as one builds a fortune, brick by brick, wife by wife.
And so the scriptures stand,
written on parchment, etched into stone,
binding hearts and minds in the ink of divine decree.
Here is love, we are told. Here is justice. Here is the will of God.
But beneath every commandment, there is a scar.
These words—their roots twist into every corner of history,
curl around the necks of daughters yet unborn,
inscribing shame upon their bodies before they have names.
Laws written to consecrate the domination of women
have left their fingerprints on every system,
every law that devalues a woman's word,
every home where submission is called holy,
every man who believes himself righteous
for wielding power over a life that is not his own.
The Bible's songs are sweet until you learn
to taste the poison beneath the honey.
And what of love? What of forgiveness?
It is a love that commands women to shrink.
It is forgiveness that burns daughters for sin.
This is scripture: a blade disguised as light.
These are holy words:
used to bend, to break, to bind,
to build altars upon the bodies of women
and call them temples of the Lord.
