Bible Dictionary
Handmaid
A female servant or slave. The term may also be used humbly by a woman speaking of herself before a superior or before God.
Definition
A handmaid is a female servant or slave. The term can also be used as a humble and respectful self-designation before a superior, prophet, king, or God.
Biblical Usage
In the Old Testament, handmaid may describe an actual female slave or express humility and religious self-deprecation. In the New Testament it is used of Mary and other female servants of God, and also translates “bondmaid” in Galatians.
Historical Background
The term translates two Hebrew words that normally mean female slave. The supplied material distinguishes ordinary servitude from the figurative language of respectful or religious humility.
Scripture References
Related Figures
Historical Bible Dictionaries
Easton's Bible Dictionary
Servant (Gen. 16:1; Ruth 3:9; Luke 1:48). It is probable that Hagar was Sarah’s personal attendant while she was in the house of Pharaoh, and was among those maid-servants whom Abram had brought from Egypt.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>hand'-mad: Which appears often in the Old Testament, but seldom in the New Testament, like bondmaid, is used to translate two Hebrew words (shiphchah, and 'amah) both of which normally mean a female slave. It is used to translate the former word in the ordinary sense of female slave in Ge 16:1; 25:12; 29:24,29; Pr 30:23; Jer 34:11,16; Joe 2:29; to translate the latter word in Ex 23:12; Jud 19:19; 2Sa 6:20. It is used as a term of humility and respectful self-depreciation in the presence of great men, prophets and kings, to translate the former word in Ru 2:13; 1Sa 1:18; 28:21; 2Sa 14:6; 2Ki 4:2,16; it translates the latter word in the same sense in Ru 3:9; 1Sa 1:16; 25:24,28,31,41; 2Sa 20:17; 1Ki 1:13,17; 3:20. It is also used to express a sense of religious humility in translating the latter word only, and appears in this sense in but three passages, 1Sa 1:11; Ps 86:16; 116:16.</p><p>In the New Testament it occurs 3 t, in a religious sense, as the translation of doule, "a female slave" (Lu 1:38,48; Ac 2:18), and twice (Ga 4:22,23) as the translation of paidiske, the King James Version "bondmaid."</p><p>William Joseph McGlothlin</p>