This book begins promisingly, positing that both men and women in seventeenth-century England recognized “that the Bible itself negates the requirement—even the desire—for female silence” (4). By paying attention to how these writers appropriated Old Testament women's voices, the author proposes to offer a more complex picture of the relationship between gender, faith, and speech. The final two chapters, on Deborah and the feminized David, offer a nuanced survey that uses familiar material (images of Elizabeth I in particular) to demonstrate that Old Testament feminized figures were used to legitimize powerful female speech. In these chapters, the author's knowledge of the Hebrew language and the Hebrew scriptural context adds a new depth to the study of Reformation Biblical culture. Unfortunately the first two chapters, on Miriam and Hannah, draw on a much thinner body of evidence. Many of the early modern texts discussed in these chapters never name Miriam or Hannah or quote their scriptural narratives. The parallels the author finds consist largely of commonplace Reformation images that draw on several scripture passages, such as penitential tears or the spots of sin. The discussions of John Donne and Daniel Featley are particularly misleading, the latter hinging on a misidentification of the waters of Shiloah or Siloam, in Jerusalem (Isaiah 8.6), as the shrine of Shiloh, in Ephraim (1 Samuel 1.9). These early chapters leave the reader with the impression that it is surprising that early modern writers did not make more use of such evocative Biblical figures.