Milcah

Milcah (also spelled Milkah) is the name of two distinct women in Scripture: the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor and one of the daughters of Zelophehad (Genesis 11:29; Numbers 26:33). Genesis 11:29 names Milcah as Nahor’s wife and the daughter of Haran, who was also the father of Iscah; Genesis 22:20 identifies Nahor as Abraham’s brother. Genesis 22:20-23 says Milcah bore eight children to Nahor, including Uz, Buz, Kemuel, and Bethuel, and Genesis 22:23 concludes, “These eight Milcah bore to Nahor, Abraham’s brother.” Genesis 24:15, 24, and 47 identify Rebekah as the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah and Nahor, so the text presents Milcah as Rebekah’s grandmother.

A second Milcah is one of the daughters of Zelophehad, a Manassite. Numbers 26:33 lists Zelophehad’s daughters as Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah, and Numbers 27:1 gives the same names while tracing Zelophehad through Hepher, Gilead, Machir, and Manasseh. Numbers 27:3 records the sisters’ words that their father “died in the wilderness” and “had no sons”; Numbers 27:5 says Moses brought their cause before Yahweh, and Numbers 27:7 gives the ruling, “The daughters of Zelophehad speak right. You shall surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father’s brothers.” In that narrative Milcah is one of the five sisters in the inheritance case.

The two women are distinct figures in the text: the first belongs to the ancestral family of Abraham and Nahor in Genesis, and the second to the wilderness generation of Manasseh in Numbers (Genesis 11:29; 22:20-23; Numbers 26:33; 27:1-7). Scripture gives them the same name but does not connect them by genealogy or narrative. Christian interpreters have not generally treated either Milcah as a doctrinal focal point; where readings differ, it is chiefly in emphasis—some read the Genesis notices as part of the family line leading to Rebekah, while others read the Zelophehad sisters as a case about inheritance within Israel. Those are interpretive emphases, not competing doctrines.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.