The Hebrew word saris (Strong, #5631; plural: sarisim) in the OT derived from the Akkadian sha reshi, meaning lit. “he who is head, chief,” referring initially to court officials who served the king.¹³    Yet sha reshi also came to be used in the expression “turn into a eunuch,” and especially after 1000 B.C. both Akkadian and Hebrew words were increasingly used in a specialized sense to refer to castrated officials.¹⁴    Saris appears 47 times in the OT, including 4 times as rab-saris and 6 times as sar-hassarisim, (both meaning “chief eunuch”),¹⁵ although many Bible scholars are hesitant about identifying any eunuchs in the OT narrative, especially in Israel and among later Jewish exiles.¹⁶    In English translations, one finds a full range extending from the New English Bible (1970), which translates saris/sarisim as “eunuch(s)” in every instance, to the Contemporary English Version (1995), which avoids using “eunuch(s)” entirely, preferring general terms like “officer(s)” or official(s).”    Of 16 English translations inspected,¹⁷ most display an overly conservative skepticism, although many acknowledge eunuchs in Queen Jezebel’s harem (2 Kings 9:32), in the Babylonian court (Dan 1) and Persian court (Est 1-7), and in Isaiah’s two prophecies about sarisim (Isa 39:7, 56:3-5).    Assyriologist Kirk Grayson notes that castration has been “virtually taboo in modern [secular] scholarship,” eliciting “very few serious studies,” even though eunuchs have been identified as an important institution in China, Turkey, Mediaeval Islam, Byzantium, Greece, the Hellenistic world, later Roman times, Achaemenid Persia, the Medes, Urartu, the Hittites (the last two empires located in what is now modern Turkey), Babylonia and Assyria; and in many of these civilizations the proportion of eunuchs found among officers was particularly high.¹⁸    Bible scholars have tended to believe that because of Deut 23:1, which banned genitally wounded males from joining the Israelite worshipping community, castrated males would never have been allowed in Israel.¹⁹    Yet, one has to notice how harshly Jeremiah condemns the people, who had forsaken Yahweh to serve foreign gods; and therefore they shall now serve strangers in a foreign land (Jer 5:19).    They stole and murdered, committed adultery and practiced perjury (7:9), and brought detestable idols into the Temple and sacrificed their children on pagan altars (7:30-31).    Also, because they had not kept the Sabbath, the Lord said he would ‘set Jerusalem afire’ (17:27).    After breaking so many ‘Ten Commandments,’ even, would Israel really care about Deut 23:1?    Instead, it is far more likely, as Taylor and Snaith suggest, that the rulers of Israel began employing eunuchs in imitation of their powerful neighbors (an inclination they long held, cf. 1 Sam 8:5),²⁰ beginning with Jezebel in the Northern Kingdom of Israel²¹ and then this practice is observed again with the final kings of the Southern Kingdom of Judah.    With regards to the Jews taken into captivity, one must never forget that castrating captives for royal court service was standard practice for their conquerors.    Most eunuchs were captured in war, received as tribute, or kidnapped in slave raids (note that even Jewish youths were so abducted, Joel 3:4-6).²²

In fact, after studying historical evidence for the extensive and widespread use of eunuchs in harem supervision and serving the king in other ways (personal service, guards, generals and governors²³) in the Neo-Assyrian (883-609 B.C.), Neo-Babylonian (626-539 B.C.) and Achaemenid²⁴ Persian (559-330 B.C.) empires, that largely controlled the ancient Near East during the period of the Divided Monarchy (Israel and Judah) and then later during the Exile and also investigating all references to saris/sarisim in the OT, (See appendix online, “Searching for Eunuchs in the OT”), this writer has come to the following conclusions:    (1) There is insufficient historical proof for eunuchs in early Egypt and therefore that Potiphar and pharaoh’s chief cupbearer and chief baker were “eunuchs” (Gen 37:36, 39:1, 40:2,7; NEB: “eunuch[s],” NRSV: “officer[s]”).    (2) However, it is likely that Jezebel, princess from Tyre, a cosmopolitan city with merchant ties to Assyria,²⁵ whom Ahab took as his pagan queen in the 9th century B.C., introduced eunuchs as harem and (possibly) other court servants in the Northern Kingdom of Israel (cf. 2 Kings 9:32).    (3) It is also likely that when saris suddenly reappears as a title among the court retinues of Jehoiachin (or “Jeconiah,” Jer 29:2) and Zedekiah (Jer 39:1-2, 41:16-17) near the end of the Southern Kingdom of Judah (ca. 608-586 B.C.), this referred to eunuchs and not simply royal “officials,” for which other Hebrew terms were in use and available without carrying the taint of castration.    (4) Noting the numerous historical examples of eunuchs serving the king abroad and as military officers, the sarisim who accompanied Nebuchadnezzar II to Judah (bet. 604-586 B.C.) were also most likely eunuchs (2 Kings 18:17, Jer 39:3,13; NRSV: “Rab-saris”).   (5) Most agree that the sarisim mentioned in Nebuchadnezzar’s court (Dan 1; REB: “chief eunuch,” but NRSV: “palace master”) and in Xerxes II’s court (Est 1-7) were eunuchs.    (6) Everyone agrees that Isaiah’s two prophecies, one declaring that sons of Judah would be made eunuchs (Isa 39:7) and the other overturning Deut 23:1 and now inviting all Jewish eunuchs who loved God to rejoin the worshipping community (Isa 56:3-5).    Still, most interpreters close their eyes to the fact that both passages strongly anticipate that certain Jews taken in Exile were castrated … but who?    (7) Most certainly Daniel and the other handsome, high-born youths whom Nebuchadnezzar took to Babylon to serve as personal aides in his court (Dan 1) were castrated, and Nehemiah as royal cupbearer to Artaxerxes I (Neh 1:11) was also certainly a eunuch.    Mordecai, who ‘sat at the king’s gate’ of Xerxes II’s palace, might also have been a eunuch, as was the case with royal doorkeepers (Est 2:21, 6:10).    

Most, but not all, eunuchs lost all interest in sexual activity, although their sexual abilities were regularly debated in all cultures that used eunuch servants.²⁶    Ecclesiasticus 30:20 (an Apocryphal text written ca. 180 B.C.) took note of how “a eunuch groans when he embraces a virgin” (REB).    If the testicles were removed after puberty, a eunuch might still have an erection, since he continued to receive testosterone from the adrenal glands, although he was sterile; and even if boys had their testicles crushed at a young age, it was possible for some to still receive testosterone from the testicles, allowing them to have an erection.    Even totally castrated eunuchs could receive anal pleasure, from the prostate gland, resulting in a climax of sorts, but without ejaculation.    Therefore, some have argued that eunuchs were not castrated to prevent them from having sex with women in the harem, but rather to assure that all children born would be from the seed of the master.²⁷    Moreover, some ancients found the smooth, hairless, hermaphroditic bodies of young eunuchs appealing; and they considered a half-man/half-woman a wondrous union of the two, combining the charms of both sexes.²⁸    Not every eunuch was used for homosexuality, of course, but many were; and eunuchs with a youthful beauty were in great demand as homosexual partners (cf. Karl Wittfogel 1957, Johanna Fürstauer 1965, Ilse Seibert 1974, Keith Hopkins 1978, David Greenberg 1988.)²⁹    With regards to eunuchs being used for sex by women in the harem, the Greek and Roman authors hint at nothing, nor do any other ancient sources.    (They were, after all, to guard the women sexually, and might be executed for failing in this task.)    However, the sexual relationship between Alexander the Great and the handsome young eunuch Bagoas (formerly the catamite of Darius III) is well documented;³⁰ and the Roman writer Curtius Rufus (6.5.22) makes it clear that this sexual relationship was just another Persian royal practice which the Macedonian conqueror took over.    Less well-known is the story of the sexual passion of King Artaxerxes (probably one of the later Artaxerxeses, II-IV) for an attractive eunuch named Tiradates; and when the eunuch died, the king plunged into deep despair; finally, when a look-alike female courtesan (high-class prostitute) was sent into his bedchamber dressed in the eunuch’s clothes, he was somewhat comforted, although he could not have sex with her.³¹    It should also be remembered that many hijra eunuchs of modern India offer themselves as prostitutes to men.³²    Further, the Kama-sutra (“Short Sayings on Love”), a Hindu text written between the 1st and 6th centuries (and claiming to be based on much older traditions) expressed the view that all eunuchs, both those who looked effeminate and those who looked more masculine, engaged in homosexual activity to a greater or lesser degree (II.xi).³³ 

So how might eunuchs of ancient times be compared (and contrasted) with gay men and male-to-female transgenders in the West today, or for that matter GLBT people in general?    Indeed, eunuchs in the ancient world were little understood, were widely viewed as ‘sexually strange,’ and were looked upon by many with scorn and derision.    Jewish eunuchs had been forced to leave their families and religious communities, to settle in a new land.    As Ringrose notes, “All historical eunuchs were ambiguous figures.”   Their services were valued, and yet they were often despised.    “They were often objects of desire [because of their youthful good looks] yet at the same time many found them to be repulsive.”³⁴    As Tom Horner notes, eunuchs usually had no choice in their condition.    “There was a special pathos to the situation in which those who had been (involuntarily) made into eunuchs in the ancient world were often looked upon with scorn…”³⁵    Some eunuchs (Assyrian) looked very corpulent and strong, while others (Persian) tended to appear slim and elegant.³⁶    Still, whatever the ancient and modern comparisons, GLTB people in the West today have never had their sexual power taken away from them.    Yet, one remembers those who under the burden of shame took their own lives, as well as those who still live facing social stigma and animosity.    The most important parallel here, however, is this:    Just as God, in his grace, opened his arms to Jewish eunuchs in Isaiah 56:3-5, so God today, in his grace, invites all GLBT people to come to him and become full members in his spiritual family and worshipping community.