First off, I wish to THANK YOU for how you have truly enriched my life with your writings! My minimal Hebrew knowledge has benefited greatly from your very easy-to-understand explanations and storytelling.

I would like to ask a couple of questions regarding our friend, Serah (Serach) bat Asher. I have spent years researching everything about her for she is a wonderful mystery to pursue in the scriptures.

I have always been curious why she is not connected by the Rabbis and sages to Deborah? I know everyone insists that Deborah was from the tribe of Ephraim, but the scriptures do not actually state that. Hinted, yes, but not stated. And then there is the “MOTHER IN ISRAEL” connection – the only two times this appears is with Deborah and Serah (Wise Woman of Abel) as both seem to be identifying themselves as such.

I have heard the argument that “MOTHER IN ISRAEL” in II Samuel is referring to the City but I think there is so much more in the layers of this scripture.

Deborah, some say, means bee, but can also mean a wasp. A hornet (Tsir’ah) is a type of wasp and the hissing noise of the bee is ‘sharaq’. Could this be a play on words that we find so many times in the scriptures?

Some say Deborah was a title of some sort but we know she was a prophetess and a warrior. So was Serach — (Numbers 26:1 clearly states that anyone mentioned in the census was able to go to war.

“Take the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, from twenty years old and upward, throughout their fathers’ house, all that are able to go to war in Israel.”

I know one of the reasons she is listed in the census is because she was due an inheritance (from Michal, her real father because his estate was taken over by Asher), but it clearly says “all that are able to go to war in Israel”.

We also know Serach was a prophetess for she was one of the seventy soul (nefesh – not plural) to enter Egypt. Yet, she is never numbered as one of the seven prophetesses in the Tanach (although Deborah is listed).

Serah and Deborah share too much to be a coincidence, in my humble opinion.

Then there is SHERAH, who built Bethhoron the nether, and the upper, and Uzzensherah) – daughter, or KINSWOMAN,of Ephraim. She built cities that are very close to the properties Rabbis have identified as being owned by Deborah…a connection to SHERAH AND DEBORAH???

I have read in some rabbinical writings that Serah was said to have lived with the Tribe of Ephraim after the Exodus and is why some think Tinnath-Serah, burial place of Joshua. is named as such.

I have pages and pages of similarities and questions and I am sure that during your studies you also may have asked some of these very questions. Perhaps, you found answers and if you did, could you please (PLEASE!!!) share with me so I can either research more or consider them a dead end.

My ‘research’ (more appropriately termed Study of the Torah) is strictly for myself and a few others that I have shared the Serah story with for in my circle of friends, no one is aware of her story.

Again, thank you for your inspirational stories!!!

Shalom,

Terri L. (I will be glad to share my whole name in regular email).