Women in the lineage of the Savior

Many years ago there was a painting featured in the Ensign. It was called something like "The Women in the Lineage of the Savior", and it was just five women in a line, with no real distinctions in dress or facial features.

I didn't get the point of the painting, but it stuck in my memory. Later on I realized that it referred to the five women who are specifically mentioned in Matthew 1: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary.

Obviously, there were as many women as men, and these are not the only ones whom we could name. Starting with Abraham, we know the names of the first three women: Sarah, Rebekah, and Leah. If we dig around in the Chronicles, we can find other names: Azubah, Maacah, and Naamah, just to start. This is a royal lineage, and so we know more about them then we would know of other lines. Often in the Chronicles they say whether the king did evil or righteously right after the mother is named, which I think shows an acknowledgment of the influence, but it is still not traditional to list mothers in genealogies.

I thought the significance might be in the stories of these women. Back when I was teaching Sunday School it was common that at the end of the year you would have a week or two left after the lessons in the manual had run out, and one year (I think 2001) I devoted a class to the topic.

I would think about it from time to time, but recently a Twitter contact, Pastor Daniel Hill, has been writing about what we learn from Matthew, including the lineage:

http://pastordanielhill.com/

It is worth checking out.

His tweets reminded me of the lesson I taught, but they also included aspects that I had missed. It also reminded me of something that I did wrong in my lesson. I addressed it later with the person involved, but it still felt insufficient. Perhaps it is time to revisit that as well. Finally, at a different point in my life now than I was then, I find new meaning in the genealogy. Nothing detract from the old meaning, but there is more than I realized. Scripture reading should be like that.

In the original lesson I did not focus much on Mary, but talked about the other four, and their circumstances, and then used scriptures to illustrate the blessings and promises that were found for them.

It was common for them to be widows. Tamar and Ruth had both been left widowed and childless. At the time I only thought of the loneliness in that, but it was also a very dangerous financial position. A woman would be supported by her father, then her husband, then her sons, because they were the ones who would inherit. Males provided security.

Rahab would have been more independent, supporting herself as a prostitute - it is not a coincidence that when Tamar decided to take matters into her own hands she disguised herself as a prostitute - but there are ways in which that is not ideal, and it would not have given her high status. In addition, Rahab and Ruth were not Israelites, in a society where that was very important.

(Yes, I am talking around the sex. It will be more important in the other posts.)

Bathsheba was widowed as well. She gained a new husband right away, and he was a husband with higher status, but even if you disregard any feelings that she would have had about the rape, the loss of Uriah, and the loss of the child, her new environment was not really that secure. There were many other wives and heirs and palace intrigues, for which she seemed ill-equipped. No sooner was David dead then another son, Adonijah, tried to use Bathsheba in his plotting to take the throne away from Solomon. That could have placed her own life in peril as well.

The point of my original lesson was that each of these women survived their circumstances, but also that the Lord had compassion on their circumstances. He had regard for widows and orphans, for strangers and sinners, and that there would be a path for them.

I do not still have my original list of scriptures used. I probably used Ephesians 2:19 for the foreigners, because then they were no more strangers and foreigners. That is something that we can do now, even if do not always choose to. If we have faith, that should be motivation enough to find no such thing as a stranger based on their birth.

For the widowed and childless, the scriptures were probably from Isaiah, and talking about the covenant of Israel. He used the symbolism of a bride who sinned, and her children were lost, and she was sold into slavery and alone, but then restored.

Inside that promise, though, are individual promises. There is resurrection. There is reunion. There is forgiveness. That is the work that the Savior came to accomplish. It was not appreciated at the time, and the work is not fully done, but there is faith now, and strength and comfort from that.


I may have used some verses with Mary too. There is a theme in her exclamation to Elizabeth:

"He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree."
-- Luke 1:52

These were Women who were not of high stature, who were not even supposed to be part of the covenant in some cases, women who were sinners (and aren't we all), women who had such bad things happen to them that they could have been regarded as out of favor with God. They endured. They not only survived their hardships, but they played a role in bringing about the salvation of the world.

There are moving and powerful lessons in that. There is also more.