Heavenly Bodies: Pregnancy and Birth Omens in Israel

A handful of texts from Israel reflect the view that unusual pregnancy and birth events could be divine signs warranting interpretation. These examples include a range of areas of divinatory activity: »inquiry« based on unusual pregnancy, observation and interpretation of unusual birth appearance, prophetic announce- ment of birth omens, reproduction as prophetic symbolic action, and anticipation of future anomalous births. Birth omens were common throughout the Near East but are known mainly from scholarly compendia; the differences in genre should not mask the similar perspective.