by biblical law and her sexual activity is not punishable. She is the source of extra-institutional sex. Therefore, she is seen as a threat to patriarchy and the family structure it supports. Over time, the term "zonah" came to be applied to a married woman who committed adultery, and that sense of the term was used as a metaphor for the Jewish people being unfaithful to Yahweh, especially in the Book of Hosea and the Book of Ezekiel, where the descriptions of sexual acts and punishments are both brutal and pornographic. Hagar and Sarah Abraham is an important figure in the Bible, yet "his story pivots on two women." Sarah was Abraham's wife and Hagar was Sarah's personal slave who became Abraham's concubine. Sarah is introduced in the Bible with only her name and that she is "barren" and without child. She had borne no children though God had promised them a child. Sarah is the first of barren women introduced, and the theme of infertility remains present throughout the matriarch narratives (Genesis 11:30, 25:21; 30:1–2). Later in the story Sarah overhears God's promise that she is to bear a child, and she does not believe it. "Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?” (Genesis 18:10–15). Sarah's response to God's promise could imply different interpretations including the lack of Abraham's sexual response to Sarah, Sarah's emotional numbness due to infertility has put her in disbelief, or more traditionally, Sarah is relieved, and God has brought "joy out of sorrow through the birth of Issac". Later on, Sarah relies on her beauty and gives her slave Hagar to Abraham as a concubine. Abraham then has sexual relations with her and Hagar becomes pregnant. Sarah hopes to build a family through Hagar, but Hagar "began to despise her mistress" (Genesis 16:4). Then Sarah mistreated Hagar, who fled. God spoke to the slave Hagar in the desert, sent her home, and she bore Abraham a son, Ishmael, "a wild donkey of a man" (Genesis 16:12). The text suggests that Sarah had made a mistake which could have been avoided if there had been a strong maternal-type presence to guide her. When Ishmael was 13, Abraham received the covenant practice of circumcision, and