HoW TAMAR’S VEIL BECAME JoSEPH’S CoAT 165 Likewise, the next law in the collection, MAL A §41 13 (= VAT 10000; KAV 1 vi 1-13), lays out the method for taking a concubine as a wife, which involves ceremonial veiling. It begins: šumma a’īlu esirtušu upaṣṣan If a man will veil his concubine, 5 6 tappa’ēšu ušeššab he will make 5 or 6 of his friends sit. ana panīšunu upaṣṣanši Before them he will veil her. mā aššitī šīt iqabbi “She is indeed my wife”, he will say. aššassu šīt (Then) she is his wife. esirtu ša ana pani ṣābe (But) a concubine who before a group la paṣṣunutuni was not veiled, mussa la iqbiuni (and) her husband did not say, mā aššitī šīt la aššat “She is my wife”, she is not a wife. esirtumma šīt Rather she is a concubine. [Stipulations concerning the inheritance of the children of concubines follow.] Here the presence or absence of a “veil” connotes both sexual and social status. In MAL A §40, we find that wives, widows, and daugh- ters of a “man” (Assyrian a’īlu) are to be veiled. Likewise, a married qadiltu 14 could wear a veil, but an unmarried one could not. In no case was a prostitute allowed to be veiled, nor was a concubine ordinarily. on the contrary, according to MAL A §41, if a concubine were to re- ceive a veil from her husband, then she would cease being a concubine and become a full wife. If the concubine were going into the street with “her lady”, however, a veil was permitted. This parallel is interesting for two reasons. First, Tamar’s garment is also explicitly connected to her marital and social status (2 Sam 13,18). The ~ysp(h) tntk is something that daughters of the king who were virgins wore, but only so long as they were virgins. This may be somewhat different from the veil of the Middle Assyrian Laws, since the types of women who are to be veiled include not only virgin daughters but also full wives. It is unclear who else other than virgin daughters of the king was eligible to wear a ~ysp(h) tntk in Israel. Would wives of the king have also worn the garment in the same way that both wives and daughters were to be veiled according to the Mid- dle Assyrian Laws? The brief gloss in 2 Sam 13,18 does not indicate one way or the other, which is no surprise since such information is unnecessary to indicate why Tamar was wearing one. It is noteworthy, 13 RoTH, Law Collections, 169. 14 on this somewhat enigmatic term, see CAD Q 48-50.