Three Women and a Baby – a Bible Study

RAHAB was included in the genealogy of Jesus.  She was a harlot who played a pivotal role in the fall of Jericho.  Halley’s Bible Handbook suggests she may have been a temple prostitute, which in Canaanite opinion was acceptable (2000, p. 190). Rahab and her family lived within the outer city wall. Her house was actually an integral part of the wall, so it is possible that the house could have been an inn since they came to look for the spies there. Besides her harlotry, Rahab was also engaged in another occupation as she dried flax on her rooftop and made linen from it.  Although the Canaanites had many gods, somehow Rahab recognised that the one god of Israel was to be honoured and feared.  When she heard that the spies, who were guests in her house, were in danger she hid them on the roof, making a covenant with them.  If she helped them they would spare her and her family.  The spies negotiated their side of the agreement.  This was that Rahab had to keep their location secret as well as helping them to safety.  She was also told to gather all of her father’s family under her roof and identify her house by hanging a scarlet cord from a window.  This reminds us of the blood on the doorposts of the slaves in Egypt on the first Passover. 

Rahab is one of the two women named in Hebrews 11 as examples of Godly faith. The other is Abraham’s wife, Sarah. Few would question Sarah’s inclusion. She exemplified, in most respects, what are considered Christian values and qualities. But Rahab?  Why would the holy, righteous God of Israel include the name of a harlot as one of His faithful saints?  The easy answer is to say that we cannot point the finger and judge her, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, but it is also true that God shows great mercy and power through human weakness as mentioned in 2 Corinthians 12.9.  Many people would do little to risk their lives for family and friends, but Rahab risked her life for the enemy spies, focusing on their Godly mission.  She believed that God was bringing the people into the Promised Land and she played a vital part in His plan. 

Joshua 2:9-11 “9And she said unto the men, I know that the LORD hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you.  10For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed.  11And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.”   This is an awesome confession of faith from Rahab, who had heard and believed in the God of Israel.  She deserves her place in history and is a notable part of the genealogy of Jesus. 

Rahab married Salmon, the son of Judah’s tribal leader and from this marriage came Boaz the faithful man of God who married Ruth.   Rahab became what many mothers wanted to be, the messianic hope.  Rahab, in fact, experienced the messianic hope herself in a very personal way, finding deliverance, physical and spiritual, through the mercy of God.  This is hope and encouragement for all of us and a reminder that one day God will write His laws on the hearts and minds of all peoples. Hebrews 8:11

RUTH a young woman of Moab, was the gentile great-grandmother of Jewish King David and an ancestress of Jesus 4:21-22; Mt 1:1,5.  She was a widow who chose to stay with her Mother-in-law Naomi.  The book of Ruth was written at the time of the Judges, when Israel was at peace with Moab and at times of great moral degeneracy.  In fact people from Israel were not supposed to marry Moabites, yet here we see an Israelite family who did intermarry. 

The three women, Naomi, Orpah and Ruth were left in a predicament when their husbands died and Naomi wanted to return to her own country.  She and her husband Elimelech had left Bethlehem (meaning House of Bread) during a famine and it was to there she wanted to go.  She tried to persuade her daughters-in-law to go back to their own people, but Ruth said she did now want to do that.  In Chapter 1: 16 But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.”  Putting her trust in the God of Israel she went with Naomi. 

It was written that the corners of a field were to be left to help others.  Leviticus 23:22:  “‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God.’”

So she gleaned in the field of Boaz, a kinsman of Naomi.  There, when he saw her, he told his workers to make sure she had more than just the gleanings.  In Chapter 2 we read: 5 Boaz asked the foreman of his harvesters, “Whose young woman is that?” 6 The foreman replied, “She is the Moabitess who came back from Moab with Naomi. 7 She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.’ She went into the field and has worked steadily from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.” 8 So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with my servant girls. 9 Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the girls. I have told the men not to touch you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.” 10 At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She exclaimed, “Why have I found such favour in your eyes that you notice me–a foreigner?” 11 Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband–how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before.12 May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”

This is a heart-warming story of kindness which leads to Boaz taking the part of kinsman redeemer seriously by ending up marrying this Gentile bride who believed in the God of the Israelites.  Mosaic Law specified only that Elimelech’s closest family was obligated keep his property from departing the possession of his widow or legitimate heirs. Yet Boaz went beyond this minimum of commanded behavior. He certainly desired to preserve Elimelech’s inheritance and protect Naomi’s livelihood. However, he also found himself drawn to Ruth.  He did comment on how he had heard of her kindness and faithfulness to Naomi, traits he clearly admired in her. 

Boaz definitely intended to make Ruth his wife so that “the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother.  This falls into line with the scripture of Deuteronomy 25:6” He said in Ruth 4:10 “Ruth the Moabite, the widow of Mahlon, I have bought to be my wife, to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance.”  This was an honorable thing to do and shows that Boaz was someone well versed in the Law, and we see the hand of God in all this.  Boaz went on to say to Ruth in 4:12, “May your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman.”  These words remind the reader of the fact that Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute and bore Perez to her own father-in-law after her husband and first levir both died because of their wicked disregard of the Lord in Genesis 38. Moab (and Ammon) began because Lot’s daughters in turn got their father very drunk so that he didn’t know what he had done, lay with him, and bore children to him thinking that they were the last people on the earth after the destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah and the cities of the plain. Genesis 19:30-38).  They did this to preserve his seed and it is notable that the word Moab means ‘incest.’

By Matthew’s including of Tamar and Ruth in Jesus’ genealogy we see how he emphasizes God’s reconciling work in Christ. The Moabites, Israel’s “cousins” by the relationship between Lot and Abraham, were among the Gentile nations walking in darkness and here we see Ruth and her future offspring back with the God of Israel.  Just as Boaz became kinsman redeemer to the Gentile bride, Jesus too came to redeem His Bride.  Ruth’s name is recalled in order to remind us that Jesus is redeemer.

Painting by Rosetta Jallow

MARY chosen to be mother of Jesus is the one woman in the Bible we all know most about so little needs written other to state that she was obviously raised by Godly Jewish parents who taught her the Torah as she burst out in praise when she visited her cousin Elizabeth, quoting 13 different scriptures when she said in Luke 1:46-55 “46And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, 47And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. 48For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. 49For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name. 50And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation. 51He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 52He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. 53He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away. 54He hath helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy; 55As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.”

While other Jewish women dreamt of birthing the messianic hope in the form of a mortal man, Mary did something so amazing that even those who believe on His Name think it is a miracle beyond our full understanding at times.  John puts it best when he wrote:  “1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 5And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”  The Jews still wait for a mortal messiah while their enemies are encamped around them and trouble is rife in the state of Israel, yet we who believe know that when He returns all will know He is Lord, as it is written in Revelation 1:7, “Behold, he comes with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also who pierced him: and all tribes of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.”