Orthodox Reflections

The Tale of Four Women

The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judah and his brethren; And Judah begat Phares and Zara of Tamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram; And Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon; And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse; And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Uriah (Matthew 1:1-6, bold added).

Interestingly, St Matthew places four women into his official lineage of Christ—Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba, and Ruth. By God’s sovereignty only these four are listed and we must ask “why?”^[1] It is not customary to include women in genealogies according to Jewish tradition. Of these four, three especially stand out in stark contrast to the men who are listed. All of the men are very godly, but three of the women are known more for scandal than holiness.  God often emphasizes peculiarities this way. It’s His way of getting our attention; “let us attend”. Exceptions to a rule are often Divine appointments.[2] Each of the four women can teach us something about life from a covenant perspective; all teach us the value of living generationally.

Passing on the Faith goes beyond just raising children in godly ways. There is also transference of the substance of virtue from generation to generation and to some extent, the receiving generation picks up where their parents left off; to whom much is given, much is required. Substantive grace—God’s Presence— is the currency in the Economy of God. Like any physical estate, the riches of grace can pass generationally.

Generational Increase and the Holy Virgin

The Incarnation was in “the fullness of time”. Meaning that other things had to come first.[3] The stage had to be set. While she is not listed with the four women by Matthew, later Fathers would elaborate on how the Holy Virgin stands out as the apex of generational grace as the most prominent of Christ’s ancestors. Her connection to Christ was much more intimate than that of any other woman, or man for that matter. All of Christ’s humanity pivots on her; it was “without corruption she gave birth to God the Word”.

St Gregory Palamas points out the virtue of the Holy Virgin was “the pinnacle of virtue in a succession of chosen and hallowed generations.”^[4]  In other words, virtue—or grace—increased generation after generation through a selected line of progenitors until her birth. Faithful to what she had received from her pious parents, from childhood, she further increased that eternal capital (grace) until her purity was so fine, it corresponded to her role as the Divine portal, the Eastern gate of access, mediating within her flesh God and Man by way of one Holy Child. The means, her purity, must have been in agreement, on par with, the Incarnation. No other way did the fathers see both sides of this equation; they understood all things must be in equilibrium.

Like a physical estate, generational grace can be, should be, inherited wealth. Examining the lives of the saints bears this out, nearly all had godly parenting, either by primary parents or other fathering figures. This does not mean every child in a home automatically becomes a beneficiary, only those do who are worthy—trustworthy—of that endowment.

Taking the capital-grace she had received, she further increased it until she became renowned as “Mary full of Grace, blessed art thou among women…” In other words, this role in human salvation was offered her because of her purity. She was worthy, trustworthy, of bearing The Savior “without corruption”. The scale was balanced with her in every way.

In this sense, every single pious ancestor of the Holy Virgin had a part in her attainment—their piety is in her generationally speaking. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba were all within that lineage. As was Joachim—a descendant of David and of Judah. Anna was from the tribe of Levi.^[5] The Virgin stood on the shoulders of pious ancestors to reach even beyond the highest angels.^[6] That seems clear enough. But what to make of those ancestors who, not renowned for their piety, are still included in her lineage and that of Christ?

Marking Progress; Moving the Metanarrative Foreword

Matthew’s genealogy works the list back through Joseph, because covenant is stronger than physical lineage, and the betrothal covenant rendered the Holy Virgin an heir of that line. She is grafted in automatically, and everyone with a covenant perspective would clearly see that. In modernity, we put too much emphasis on blood lineage as opposed to covenant lineage. By virtue of the covenant between her and St Joseph, her standing was equal to his in that lineage.

Of the four women listed by St Matthew, three have legacies that are usually focused on the salacious nature of their sins. Yet focusing on their sins alone is to miss the larger point; virtue—grace/capital—is always in the positive. It even has positive substance—not just an absence of moral lapses. Assessing the virtue accrued by a person requires marking where she starts in life—what she has received—and how far things progress before the torch is passed to the next generation. This grace is the collective treasure of the Church.

All four of these women are mentioned for a reason. Each can teach us something. Each has a unique role in the Incarnation. They are all in the lineage pushing forward the Covenant Everlasting. Before focusing on St Ruth, who alone among these women is known for holiness, let us look at the others for context on how even the imperfect can be used generationally.^[7]

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Tamar

These women reflect narratives of recovery, which feeds into the metanarrative of the Incarnation which is the recovery of everything.

None reflects this more than Tamar, who recovered the family covenant obligation for another (Judah) and preserved the Divine lineage^[8]. On the surface, her deception appears to be sinful and immoral. However, history, the Hebrew community, and Scripture speak very favorably about her, seeing her behavior in a different light than cast by modern morality. Her motivation to prostitute herself to her own father-in-law was not driven by desire for pleasure, or vengeance, or money. Rather, she acted to secure the seed of deceased husbands, and inevitably, to secure the messianic lineage that was to come through Judah—Christ the “Lion’s Cub”.^[9]

The deaths of Judah’s older sons—both in succession betrothed to Tamar—were not accidents. Through their sinful lives, they had grieved the Lord, thus disqualifying themselves from the high honor of participating in the lineage of Christ. Untrustworthy, they broke covenant. Had these men been born into other families, their lives would not have been in such peril; their position in history—their connection to their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob— held them to a different standard than the rest of the world. This family had cosmological import. They could not afford to be careless, and God could not afford their liabilities in the generational progression of His plan.

Judah thought Tamar a bad risk, so he withheld his third son from her, afraid he too would die. He failed to discern both the ill character of his sons, which had drawn forth God’s judgement, and the virtue of Tamar. (Poor parenting indeed.) His failure was to be absent-minded about the family purpose that started with Abraham. Posing as a prostitute, Tamar conceived by Judah himself, circumventing Judah’s unworthy sons. In the end, Judah admitted his mistake and never had further relations with his daughter-in-law. Ironically, through a woman’s deception, the Incarnation metanarrative moved forward unbroken. This is counted to her credit, as Tamar is an indispensable link. Her glory is in her understanding of covenant and of the significance of Judah’s family.

Rahab

Rahab—a prostitute by trade—had the foresight to see the handwriting on the wall regarding her hometown Jericho. Judgement day had arrived and it was time to get out, before it was too late. Her covenant loyalties came to rest upon God’s people, and the future they had in the Promised Land. Honoring her faith, God placed her as a link in the unbroken chain. In assessing Rahab, it would be a mistake to use Jewish or even Christian values. In her native pagan culture, prostitution was normal, perhaps even respected. Keep in mind, there was a reason Jericho had to be destroyed. This is her starting point in life. Even though a prostitute, she had very good relations with her father, mother, and siblings. She was able to bring them with her into the Hebrew community. This reveals more about her than the fact she was a prostitute. Inherently, our relationships with our earthly fathers closely relate to how we view father-figures in general, including Father God.

Bottom line: for Rahab, she lived honorably within her own community, within her blood family, until she experienced a new and higher revelation, brought to her by the people of God. With that, she broke out, transferring her allegiance to the Hebrew people and the Hebrew God, living by covenant bonding. The measure of her virtue comes by comparing where she started, to what she became, and whom she brought with her; extraordinary indeed! She is one who originated outside the faith and joined the metanarrative that we are all a part of.

Bathsheba

Coming to Bathsheba, we have a very different and difficult story. While we would love to overlook her, we cannot. St Matthew mentions her, and St David chose her. For any Christian teaching biblical stories, she always presents a dilemma. How do you speak about her in respectful terms, without conveying an endorsement of her actions? That is a lesson all by itself; people are defined by their deeds.

While listed as an ancestor of Christ, the stigma fittingly remains in the manner in which she is remembered. St Matthew does not dignify her with a name, but only refers to her as the “wife of Uriah”. Why does he not call her by name? A person’s name is synonymous with his or her face; the embodiment of identity. Without a name, she is without a face, without an identity of her own, only that of her husband. Her beauty that seduced David is hidden from us. This seems cruel, but it is appropriate; St Matthew cannot bear to name her. He cannot look her in the eyes; it is too painful, too shameful. Calling her “wife of Uriah” is identifying her indirectly, and avoids the mention of her name. She is the nasty family secret we wish to hide in the back room.

Perhaps another important reason Matthew refused giving her name, is that Bathsheba means “Daughter of an Oath”.^[10] She is unworthy to be called such, as she egregiously broke covenant. Without name, without face, she—and her story of recovery—are largely hidden from us. We can only speculate how such a deficit of character could be transformed into the grace of being the mother of the next king of Israel, over and above David’s other wives. In our review of Bathsheba, we cannot make too many conclusions, but only point some things out that manifest God’s infinite wisdom, grace, and redemption of human error.

As an element to ponder, our embarrassment for David’s adultery is mostly ignored as his sainthood is categorized among those with spotless histories. No one hesitates to mention his name or to name a son “David.” Nobody even considers naming a daughter Bathsheba. While to us this might seem unfair, in God’s judgement and Matthew’s, it is not. So wonderful is the capital-grace of David, that Christ’s rule is based on David’s throne and God’s covenant with David. At the same time, the consequences to David and his family of his egregious sin were very costly.

No doubt, it adds to the seriousness of Bathsheba’s sin that it was with the king, God’s anointed. David was enticed by a naked body—the temptation of all men. Bathsheba was enticed by David’s position, status, and wealth. One is weakness of the flesh. The other is deviousness of the mind.

We readily see the ugliness in Bathsheba, but we must dig deeper to find the hidden nugget of beauty that she contributes to the collective metanarrative of the Incarnation.  Did she add anything to her generation and to the treasury of the Church? In fact she did. Reading the Proverbs, we find various references to the adulterous woman that seems to convey personal insight; it takes one to know one. Did her self-knowledge give insight about the loose woman we read about in Solomon’s writings? For certain, we know Proverbs thirty-one was from her hand, or at the very least from her mind, as instruction on what is vital in a good wife.^[12] She is probably the only woman author that made it into the canon of Scripture.

Her greatest contribution may have been creating within Solomon a desire for wisdom, which bringing approval in God’s eyes, secured his future rule. In the rearing of Solomon, no one would have had more influence than she. Bathsheba’s relationship with Solomon was so close, he gave her a throne next to his.[11] Using her closeness to him, did she try to inoculate her son against repeating her mistakes? Surely she did, as we have something of her repentant heart in the Proverbs. But in the end, her actions spoke louder than her words as her son succumbed to foreign women and fell away from God.

Bathsheba was brought into the lineage of Christ through her relationship to St David, sinful as it was at the beginning. Her story speaks of the sanctifying power of marriage, which can bring even a sinner into the Divine purpose. Even though unrighteously done, David chose her and God allowed that to stand.[13]  While she made her own contributions, including as a teaching mother to a king known for his wisdom, severe consequences of such sin were unavoidable.

Ruth

Of the four, our focus is now upon Ruth, whose shining character demonstrates the true beauty of a woman that lived by covenant. Up front, her only liability was where she came from—Moab. The Moabites were the product of incest between Lot and his oldest daughter. ^[14]  Because sin works generationally as does grace, the Moabites were steeped in incest. Further, they were pagans, and a perennial enemy of the Hebrews. Moab was firmly under God’s judgment. That anything could be recovered from among such a people is wonderous to behold.

For Ruth, there was nothing in the place of her origination that had any appeal; it was like escaping Egypt for the Israelites. After living with Naomi, she could never be at home in Moab again. What she became can all be attributed to Naomi. Naomi was Ruth’s path to freedom and a new life in the family of promise. She followed Naomi with a willing heart.

With no personal moral lapses mentioned, St Ruth might be the most shinning among the four women. Her story fills an entire book of Holy Writ. Like Abraham, her tale of recovery was about leaving where she was, in order to be where God needed her to be. St Ruth is woven into the fabric of our common Faith. Her pledge to Naomi is familiar to everyone, and is even included in some marriage services as an ideal of cutting off past ties to embrace a totally new life. For all this, we adore her as saint.

Fully appreciating Ruth comes by contrasting her with her ancestor, Lot’s wife. These two are totally, diametrically opposed. Ruth left it all behind and never looked back, while Lot’s wife—another woman who shall not be named—could not flee Sodom, because Sodom was in her.[15]

There is a lot more on Ruth, but let’s save that for another time.

John Lee – an Orthodox Christian

[1] Of course, the Holy Virgin is not mention here, as her story stands alone, above and beyond the rest.

[2] E.g. David ate the showbread (Matt 12:3 and the Holy Virgin entered the Holy Place.

[3] Galatians 4:4

[4] Please accept my apologies as I copied this from one of the many books that are still packed from my recent move, and failed to note which book. But its there.

[5] St. Nikolai Velimirovic, trans. Fr. T. Timothy Tepsic, The Prologue of Ohrid Vol. II,  (Alhambra, CA. Sebastian Press, 2002). P. 269; Sept. 9.

[6] “More honorable than the cherubim….”

[7] If unfamiliar, read their stories.

[8] Genesis 38

[9] Genesis 49:9. As an irony of Old Testament Scripture, it seems women—not so much men—, are blessed when using deceptive means to achieve a good end, but never to achieve a selfish end; Consider Jael (Judges 4, 5:24), Michal (1 Kingdoms 19: 12-6), and Rebekah (Genesis 27). Speaking of double standard, at the time of Jesus, the  Pharisees slanted justice against women, e. g. the woman taken in adultery (John 8). However, Jesus’ reply leveled the playing field. When Jesus said, “He that is without sin…”,—most scholars would agree— He was most likely speaking of that sin that brought the accusation of adultery, not sin in general; the accusers were guilty of adultery and convicted by Jesus’ words.

[10] Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary H1339.

[11] 1 Kings 2:19 KJV

[12] “Lemuel” is Bathsheba’s pet-name for her son (KJV). The Proverbs 31 woman sets family order in remarkable fashion.

[13] You are not king David, don’t get any ideas.

[14] Interestingly, church fathers gave the daughters of Lott a lot credit as their conspiracy and incest was motivated  by survival and not lust. See St Irenaeus Against Heresies Bk. 4, ch. 31, v. 1. The culpability of what happened to them rests with Lott because of where he chose to live, near and in Sodom. More than likely those decisions were motived by his wife, who seemed to have an inescapable attachment to Sodom and that way of life.

[15] Extra biblical texts says she was Egyptian.