THEN JUDAH’S WIFE DIED. She had been ill for some time, too ill to make love with him, so in addition to his grief, he was feeling sexually deprived. After the period of mourning was over, he decided to go to Timnah for the sheepshearing, together with his friend Hirah.
Sheepshearing was a time of celebration, thanksgiving, and revelry. People ate a lot and drank a lot of wine, and there were parties in the tents of the richest magnates, who would order priestesses of Ishtar to be brought in from Ekron or Beth-Shemesh, women whose lives were dedicated to the sacred mystery of sexual union and who, in opening themselves to the anonymous men who patronized them, became incarnations of the goddess and with their own bodies reenacted the cosmic marriage. The poet of Gilgamesh, Sîn-lēqi-unninni, considered these sacred prostitutes to be one of the principal glories of civilization, and he wrote of them with glowing civic pride:
the lovely priestesses standing before
the temple of Ishtar, chatting and laughing,
flushed with sexual joy, and ready
to serve men’s pleasure, in honor of the goddess.
On the roads there were also freelance harlots who did business at the festival. Most of the shepherds weren’t picky about the distinction between sacred and profane.