This study concludes my study of Matthew’s women. There are five. Four, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and ‘her who had been the wife of Urias’ or Bathsheba, are found in Matthew 1:3-6. Bathsheba is the only unnamed woman of the four, which may indicate that Bathsheba was a name given her by the author of 2Samuel 2 and 1Kings 1, in the same sense that Simon, son of Jonah, was called Peter (Matthew 16:17; cp John 1:42) by Jesus and Joseph was called Barnabas by the Apostles (Acts 4:36). The name Bathsheba means daughter of the oath. These four women were gentiles, and each lived either before David reign or during it. Thus, including these women tarnishes the royal ancestry, foreigners, cursed women, prostitutes, adultery and murder, the proverbial skeletons in the royal closet! Yet, the story that these women bring to God’s people show them to be redeemers, in a time when men failed in their faith and responsibilities.
We meet Ruth during the era when judges ruled Israel. A certain Jewish family of Bethlehem-Judah left Israel and settled in Moab, a foreign country and one of Israel’s early enemies. The reason they left was famine (Ruth 1:1-4), which probably indicates one of the neighboring lands made war on Judah and seized their produce from their farmlands, as was done during the days of Gideon, one of the judges of Israel (Judges 6:1-6). In other words, Elimelech and his wife, Naomi and their two sons fled Israel during the days when the Lord was disciplining his people. Instead of humbling themselves in the sight of the Lord and, perhaps, being used of him to help break off the oppression of their enemies, they fled their homeland to seek refuge and better treatment in the land of Moab.
Instead of prospering, however, the family was destroyed there. Elimelech died and both his sons, after they had taken wives of the women of Moab, one of whom was Ruth (Ruth 1:3-5). After learning that the Lord was prospering his people, Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law, decided to return to their homeland, and her daughters-in-law left with her. Nevertheless, after explaining that she was returning without any power of support and that the younger women might fare better by returning to their father’s houses, one left, but Ruth refused and stayed with Naomi, going with her to the land of Judah.
Long-story-short, Ruth was faithful to Naomi and unknowingly worked for grain in one of Naomi’s relatives. Eventually, Ruth was able to marry the land’s owner, Boaz, a near kinsman to Naomi. She was able to do so through the law of the levirate marriage, which ultimately made her David’s ancestor.
The point is this. The men failed in their responsibilities of protectors and providers for their family. They may have thought leaving Israel and settling in Moab was a wise decision, but it proved them wrong. Each of the males died without producing an heir, and it seemed their branch had withered and died with them. Nevertheless, a woman, Ruth, a Moabitess, belonging to a cursed race (Deuteronomy 23:3), was able to do what the males in the clan couldn’t do. She produced a son in the name of her husband, Chilion, Elimelech’s son. Thus, bringing life to Elimelech’s branch and continuing his line of descendants to David the king.
Once more, the Lord shows himself unimpressed with patriarchy. A woman, not the men, was able to save the day. Ruth becomes the heroin, when the males fail. I say this not meaning to find fault with the men per se, but, rather, to show the failure of the doctrine of patriarchy and complementarianism, false doctrines, which work to abase women and unduly praise and empower men. The doctrines come out of the tradition of men and make the word of God of no effect (cp. Mark 7:13). The doctrines failed in ancient times, just as they do today. There is absolutely no scriptural proof for the doctrines being divine ordinances.
The fifth and final woman in Matthew’s genealogy of Christ is, of course, Mary (Mtthew 1:16). Joseph’s royal genealogy, through Solomon, is found in Matthew, but Mary’s genealogy through Nathan, the son of David, is found in Luke 3 (cp. verse-31). What seems to be taking place is another arranged marriage in the levirate tradition, and once again, the males are powerless to do what needs to be done. The royal line through Solomon ended as eunuchs in Babylon, cursed by God and unable produce a king (Jeremiah 22:24-30). No power of men can change that. Nevertheless, the Lord promised David a son out from his loins, who would reign as Messiah (2Samuel 7:16; 1Chronicles 17:12-15).
According to the levirate tradition, the Spirit of the Lord caused Mary to become pregnant (Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:30-38). The scriptures tell us that the city of Jerusalem is viewed as an adulterous woman and a widow (Lamentations 1:1-2). The royals are eunuchs, unable to produce a king (Lamentations 1:6; cp. 2Kings 20:16-18; Jeremiah 22:24-30). Solomon’s line had become dead in Babylon. How could the line continue? How could the Lord’s promise to David be fulfilled? The Lord fulfilled his promise to David by becoming the kinsman Redeemer to Israel’s royal line (Isaiah 54:5). Through Mary the cursed royal line is healed and life is breathed back into it and the Messiah is born.
The Lord has always treated women as men’s equals. The tradition of men is what abases women, but it wasn’t so from the beginning. The Lord dealt with his people in the traditions they embraced, but his doing so doesn’t mean he approved of those traditions. The facts show that whenever the Lord dealt directly with women, he did so as men’s equals, showing male/female hierarchy (patriarchy) is not a divine ordinance.
Smoodock's Blog 