וּפִֽילַגְשׁ֖וֹ וּשְׁמָ֣הּ רְאוּמָ֑ה וַתֵּ֤לֶד גַּם־הִוא֙ אֶת־טֶ֣בַח וְאֶת־גַּ֔חַם וְאֶת־תַּ֖חַשׁ וְאֶֽת־מַעֲכָֽה׃
And his concubine, whose name was Reumah, also bore [sons]—Tebah, Gaham, and Tahash—and [a daughter,] Maacah.
(The above rendering—and footnote—come from the RJPS translation, an adaptation of the NJPS translation. Before accounting for the insertions, I will analyze the plain sense of the Hebrew text.)
Gender is germane: the text’s original audience most likely would have concluded that the first three children listed are male, whereas the last one is female. This judgment comes both from their names and their position in the list (which is all we know about them, apart from their parentage).
In the Bible, the name Maacah is given to five or six other persons—all of whom are women (2 Sam 3:3 // 1 Chron 3:2; 1 Kings 15:2 // 2 Chron 11:20–22; 1 Kings 15:10; 1 Chron 2:48–49; 1 Chron 9:35–37; 1 Chron 7:15–16). The societal prominence of some of them strongly suggests that the text’s original audience would have known this name as a woman’s name. The lopsided distribution of attested genders argues against Maacah’s meanwhile having been known as a man’s name, as well.
In a genealogy, the audience is inclined to construe gender as germane, because lineages are normally stated in terms of men. Thus names that appear to be male are presumptively taken as such. However, biblical genealogies of Israelites do occasionally identify a lineage by a woman’s name—especially at the end of a list of segments. A female would not be a surprise at the end of the list in question.
Names in biblical genealogies often represent ethnic groups or settled locales, and these names are no exception. In particular, the Bible twice mentions that the “Maacathites” lived in a territory that bordered that of the Israelite tribe of Manasseh (Deut. 3:14; Josh. 12:5). The Israelites did consider women to be the founders of towns in Manasseh’s own territory (the Samaria ostraca mention two towns, Hoglah and Noah, whose names match those of two renowned women within Manasseh; see Num. 27:1–11; 36:1–12; Josh. 17:4–6; cf. 1 Chron. 7:14–18); thus it would not be surprising if they understood their neighbor’s eponymous ancestor to likewise be a woman. Indeed, one of the many biblical women named Maacah was Manasseh’s daughter or daughter-in-law. That high-level Israelite genealogical position seems to allude to the neighboring people—and thus to the Maacah in this verse.
As for rendering into English, the NJPS list gives no particular indication of the gender of these offspring of Nahor and Reumah. Most contemporary readers would assume that all of the names in this verse refer to males. To prompt in our readers a construal that is closer to that of the ancient audience, I have inserted some clarifying words and punctuation.