Chapter 3
Women in the Old Testament
The Bible gives us not only a vision of what ought to be but also a record of what, in fact, occurred. It is clear that most of biblical history reveals an unquestioned acceptance of a patriarchal social hierarchy in which women were under the dominion and rule of men. That, however, is neither the original ideal nor the only model of male-female relationships to be found in the Scriptures.
THE CREATION STORIES
All attempts to justify male dominance and female subordination biblically are grounded in the Genesis accounts of creation and fall. One of the foundational convictions of the "Danvers Statement," cited earlier, is that "Adam's headship in marriage was established by God before the Fall, and was not a result of sin." Elisabeth Elliot, missionary and author, writes, "I understand that women, by creation, have been given a place within the human level which is ancillary to that of men, and I am glad of this."1 In their 1984 resolution excluding women from ordination and leadership in the church, the Southern Baptist Convention's rationale was "to preserve [the] submission God requires because man was first in creation and woman was first in the Edenic fall."2 Augustine taught as much in The
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Good of Marriage when he stated that the union of man and woman is "a kind of friendly and genuine union of one ruling and the other obeying."3
We must question, however, whether such a conclusion is justified. There are two separate and quite different accounts of creation in the first two chapters of Genesis, reflecting differing traditions. The first (Gen. 1:1-2:3) reads in part: "Then God said, 'Let us make humankind [adam] in our image, according to our likeness' . . . So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male [zakar] and female [neqebah] he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth'" (vv.26-28).
Adam is a generic noun in Hebrew that means "human beings." Before differentiation according to gender, the man and the woman share an identical essence as "human beings." Male and female are created together, both having equal standing before God and between each other. The woman, like the man, is created in the image of God. Encompassed within God is that which corresponds not only to maleness but to femaleness as well. It is true that in speaking of God, biblical writers most often use masculine nouns and pronouns. Yet we ought no more to imagine that God is male than to assume He has a corporeal body because He is also described as having eyes, ears, arms, hands, legs, a back, and even wings. Such anthropomorphic descriptions of God reflect the limits of human comprehension and language and are to be regarded as metaphors. As one woman asked, "If God is a male and Jesus is a male, then where does that leave me?"
"God is spirit" (John 4:24) and thus beyond all gender classification.4 Yet His image is equally represented in both
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male and female. Mary Hayter puts it this way: "It must be recognized that it is the 'Personhood,' not the 'sexuality,' of God which is the central point of the figure . . . The God of Israel is more than any sexual appellation or image that may be used."5 Male and female , then, are needed in order to fully reveal the nature of God and reflect His image. Aida Spencer further notes: "Even the New Testament writers are always careful to describe Jesus with the generic Greek term 'human' or anthropos rather than the term 'male' or aner. Although God became a male, God primarily became a human; otherwise, in some way males would be more saved than females. At creation, conversely, male and female form a unity. It is that unity which mirrors God's likeness."6
The woman receives the same blessing of God as the man: "God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good" (Gen. 1:31). Sinful man may demean, dehumanize, and despise woman, but God does not. She is by creation a choice and chosen human being and is by revelation as capable as the man in bearing and reflecting the image of God. Did the fall into sin so damage the relationship between male and female that the woman no longer reflects the image of God? Not according to the first genealogy recorded after the Fall: "This is the list of the descendants of Adam. When God created humankind, he made them in the likeness of God. Male and female he create them, and he blessed them and named them 'Humankind' when they were created" (5:1-2).
Again we see the parallel clauses, "he made him" and "he created them." Their name together was Adam, "human being." Neither their essential nature nor their ability to reflect God's image was changed. To both the command is given to be "fruitful and multiply." Both have equal responsibility in parenting, and to both is given the charge to exercise dominion over the earth. It is important to note
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that in the first creation account, there is no discussion — not even a hint — of status or role differentiation between the two.
There is, then, a full equality of personhood between the man and the woman standing before God. Each is to the other at once a horizon and a point of focus by which they realize and rejoice in their own individuality. There is not even a hint of hierarchical ordering between the sexes. To the contrary, such arbitrary differentiation distorts their spiritual nature as created in the image of God. Furthermore it damages their ability to discover their own self identity. When the woman is devalued, the man's reflection of himself in her is thereby also diminished. When the woman is restricted from achieving her full potential and denied the exercise of her unique gifts, the image of God reflected through her is truncated.
Those who appeal to a pre-Fall male-female hierarchy do so, not on the basis of the first but the second creation account, which reads in part:
Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life: and the man became a living being.... Then the Lord God said,"It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner."... So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.' Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh (2:7, 18, 21-24).
This passages suggest an "order of creation" by which the hierarchical superiority of the man over the woman is
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defended. Traditionalists, from rabbinic Jews of pre-New Testament times to the framers of the "Danvers Statement," have concluded that since the woman came after the man and from the man, obviously she was inferior to the man. We must ask, however: Is this the clear teaching of the second creation account? Or is it an interpretation imposed upon it by patriarchal presuppositions? It is true that according to this passage the man was formed first and then the woman. However, if this implies male superiority, then it could be argued that since man came after the ground and from the dust, obviously he is inferior to dirt! If first in creation establishes a hierarchical ranking, then on the basis of the first creation account; we would have to conclude that fish, birds, and animals are superior to man.
The apostle Paul does acknowledge the unchallenged rabbinic assumption of his day, that male "headship" is based upon the belief that "man was not made from woman, but woman from man.' However, he goes on to say, "Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman. For just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman, but all things come from God" (1 Cor. 11:8, 11-12, emphasis added). In other words, after forming the original woman out of the first man, God reversed the order: from that time forward all men are born of women! So much for the "order of creation"!
God was not bound by any wooden hierarchy in terms of His gracious election. He chose Jacob, the second born rather than Esau to become the ancestor of the Hebrew people. He chose Moses rather than his older brother, Aaron, to lead the children of Israel. He directed Samuel to choose David, the youngest rather than the oldest of Jesse's sons to be king. Jesus demolished all social structures based upon artificially imposed hierarchies when He said,
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"If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all, and servant of all" (Mark 9:35, NASB; see 10;43-44).
God formed man out of the dust of the earth. In order to show special kindness to the woman, however, God formed her out of the living flesh of the man. They are both "one flesh" (Gen. 2:24): not a superior flesh for the man and an inferior flesh for the woman. The woman was not created as a subordinate creature, a "help meet" as the KJV inaccurately translates it, but as a "helper like unto himself" or a "helper corresponding to himself" (see 2:18).7 The Hebrew word ezer, "helper," refers to God in most instances where it is used in the Old Testament, who obviously is not in a subordinate position to the one He helps. Consequently, "helper" does not convey any implication of a gender-determined hierarchy whatsoever. When the Hebrew text was translated into Greek around 250 B.C., the Septuagint translators were careful to render "helper corresponding to himself" in such a way as to indicate a horizontal relationship rather than vertical hierarchy. Donald E. Gowan comments: "Indeed, this is the only creation story known from the ancient Near East that gives to a woman such an important role. It has stood for centuries . . . as a radical challenge to the assumption of male supremacy. Jesus clearly heard it and acted upon it, and in our day we may rejoice in new efforts to understand its implication for life in family, church, and society."8
God's original intention for humankind, then, was that the man and the woman would together bear and reflect His own nature, would share with him as vice-regents governing the earth, while freely partaking of its bounty. Each would, in their intimate relationship and mutual partnership with each other, mirror the fellowship that he enjoys within himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The man could not fulfill the destiny for which he was created by himself. He needed someone "corresponding to himself."
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In work, marriage, and church, man and woman are to stand together, side by side, rendering mutual assistance to each other as together they actualize God's purposes and their own potential. In their spiritual development, they are to celebrate their unity as "one flesh" human beings by equally sharing in worship, leadership, and service. This is the exalted vision of the Hebrew prophets to whom was given the revelation of humankind as God intentioned it to be.
THE FALL
Though both Adam and Eve are implicated in the disobedience that brought sin and death into the world (Gen. 3:1-24), Eve has borne the brunt of the blame. Generations of Jews and Christians have unjustly assigned to the woman the greater responsibility for the Fall for these reasons. First, the woman was deceived and not the man. This has been interpreted to mean that women are the weaker sex and by nature more susceptible to sin than men. Second, since the woman was the first to eat of the forbidden fruit, she was the one who introduced sin into the world. After all, she did admit her culpability: "The serpent deceived me, and I ate" (v.13, NASB). Third, she was the one who invited (seduced?) Adam to eat.
This provided more than enough biblical warrant for the Jewish males of Jesus' day to justify their debasing treatment of, and oppressive discrimination against, women. A century before Christ, Jesus ben Sirach wrote: "From a woman sin had its beginning, and because of her we all die" (Sirach 25:24).9 This sentiment is echoed in a non-canonical Jewish writing, The Life of Adam and Eve 3, in which Eve is portrayed as saying to Adam: "My lord, if you want, kill me. Perchance the Lord God will then lead you back into Paradise, for it was only through my fault that the anger of the Lord God was kindled against you."10
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Women were regarded as so corrupted — and corrupting — that a separatist Jewish sect fanatically devoted to holiness, the Qumran communities of Essenes who live in isolated Dead Sea desert compounds around the time of Christ, forbade marriage or cohabitation. The men segregated themselves from the women. They shunned all contact with them lest they, too, be corrupted. Likewise, Tertullian based his disdain for women upon Eve's deception and sin: "God's sentence hangs still over all your sex and His punishment weighs down upon you. You are the devil's gateway; you are she who first violated the forbidden tree and broke the law of God. It was you who coaxed your way around him whom the devil had not the force to attack. With what ease you shattered that image of God; man! Because of the death you merited, the Son of God had to die."11
There is no question about the biblical fact that Eve was the first deceived, as Paul reminds Timothy (1 Tim. 2:14). However, does this justify holding that the "curse" directed specifically to Eve was intended to be perpetuated upon all of her female — and not male — descendants? Or are there other ways of reading the story of the Fall that deal more even-handedly with both Adam and Eve. Many scholars think so. It is important to note that the command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil came to Adam and not to Eve, since she had not yet been created (Gen.2:17). She only learned about it secondhand. It is likewise clear that both Adam and Eve were present throughout the dialogue with the serpent (3:6). The Hebrew text clearly shows that when the serpent speaks to the woman, the plural "you" is used rather than the feminine singular "you." The text also has the serpent saying, "For God knows that when you [plural] eat of it your [plural] eyes will be opened" (3:5).
Many have asked: Was Eve totally wrong in what she desired? One well-known undergraduate institution of
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higher learning wrote in a fund-raising letter: "Eve had the right idea. Surrounded in Eden by an infinitely varied, deliciously fascinating environment, she rejected the haven of blissful ignorance and reached for knowledge — of herself and the world around her."12 The idea of a "happy fall" was embraced not only by the Gnostics but by some in the orthodox church tradition. A hymn survives from the sixth or seventh century that has this line, "O fortunate crime which merited to have such and so great a redeemer." The Roman Catholic missal represents the Fall as "fortunate" in that it necessitated the coming of Christ.13
It is obvious that there was much about the tree that was good and right: "The woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise" (Gen. 3:6). Surely there is nothing inherently wrong with food. Neither is it evil to appreciate that which is beautiful. Much less does the Bible discourage the quest for knowledge and understanding (e.g., the Book of Proverbs). According to Gen. 2:9, Eden was full of trees pleasant to the sight and good for food, from which Adam and Eve could freely eat. So there was nothing intrinsically evil in Eve's desire for nutrition, aesthetic enjoyment, and knowledge.
Eve's sin, and Adam's, was the underlying motivation behind eating of this particular fruit — to be as God, knowing good and evil (Gen. 3:5). Consuming the fruit became a means by which they both sought to transcend their creaturely limits and ascend into the heights where they could enjoy godlike attributes, including the right to make the rules defining "good and evil." It is abundantly clear that women have no corner on an inordinate lust for godlike powers and uninhibited, self-willed autonomy.
In his analysis of the origin of sin, Paul breaks with traditional rabbinic exposition of the Fall and holds Adam, rather than Eve, responsible: "Therefore, just as sin came
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into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned" (Rom. 5:12; see 1 Cor. 15:21ff.). Paul never mentions Eve as having anything to do with the Fall. While Eve may have been deceived, Adam was not. His sin was greater because it was a knowing and deliberate action of the will.
THE CURSE
For those seeking to justify gender hierarchy, invariably they cite God's curse upon the woman: "To the woman he said, 'I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you'" (Gen. 3:16, emphasis added).
What is of vital importance to note, however, is that man's domination over woman is part of the curse of sin after the Fall and does not represent God's original intention for male-female relationships! It is a prediction of the consequences of the Fall, rather than a prescription of God's ideal order. Also, the statement describes man's aggressive action as the one who will overpower and dominate the woman. The woman's submission is not voluntary but forced. If the curse is taken as representing a new and permanent divine decree as to how men and women are to relate to each, then we would be duty-bound to treat all parts of the curse in the same manner: that is, women are forbidden to use anesthetic or modern gynecological techniques to decrease their pain in childbirth. Likewise, men are prohibited from devising any sort of technology to ease their toil in wresting a living from the soil. To do so would be to violate a divine mandate to "toil" and "sweat" (Gen. 3:17,19).
Since no interpreter insists that all parts of the curse are binding in perpetuity, it is purely arbitrary to focus upon one part of the curse and universalize it as an eternally
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established decree governing male-female relationships in perpetuity. A consistent dimension of God's revelation of himself, throughout the Scriptures, is that neither judgment nor curse will have the last word. What began in grace (creation) will end in grace (redemption). We see this wonderfully demonstrated in the promise included in the curse directed to the serpent: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel" (Gen. 3:15, emphasis added).
The good news of the protevangelium — the prophecy of salvation — is that from woman will come a Savior who will smash the serpent and liberate humankind from the bondage of sin. Through one woman's deception sin made its entrance into the world: by another woman's obedience the Savior was born into the world. Through one woman the shadow of the curse fell upon all: through another woman the shadow of the curse is lifted for all (Gal. 3:10-13). Yet it was through the "seed" of the woman under the curse that the messianic line was preserved until the coming of Jesus Christ. As Aida Spencer notes, "The very seed which bruises the serpent becomes the seed which saves Eve."14
As a final touch of grace, we note that "the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them" (Gen. 3:21, NASB). God himself offered up the life of an animal in order that the man and the woman He had made might be clothed with the "garments of righteousness" and that they might once again stand before Him, without shame, in a relationship of intimate union and holy communion. Even as both were one in creation and one in responsibility for the Fall, so now both are one in redemption. We have here a clear prefigurement of the exalted vision of the apostle Paul when he describes believers, "male and female," as "all . . . one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28).
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THE BITTER CONSEQUENCES OF THE CURSE
Unfortunately, humankind chose not to live in the light of God's grace but in disobedience and thus under the shadow of the curse. Consequently, the man who was created to rule and have dominion over the earth became enslaved to the earth. And the woman who was formed to be a ruling helper "corresponding to the man" found herself under the domination of man. The intimacy and fellowship of mutuality gave way to the distance and tension inherent in all hierarchies. From this point onward, history played out this distortion of relationships in a rigid patriarchy of male supremacy that, in the main, debased women and dehumanized men. No matter what may be said in support of patriarchy, it institutionalizes discrimination against women. This sad consequence of the Fall is not glossed over in the Scriptures but is reported in starkly brutal detail. We can only cite a few examples.
Women's identity would always be dependent upon and defined by men: their fathers, husbands, and sons. Genealogies followed the male line. All social institutions were ruled by men. Only men could inherit property and carry on the family's name: hence, the urgency for every man to have a son (see the Levirate law of marriage, Deut. 25:5-10). If sons survived the father, neither the widow nor their daughters had any share in the inheritance.
Only males were regarded as true Israelites, and only males bore the mark of their religious identity in circumcision. Women were purchased and owned as a possession of their husbands. Their justification for viewing women as "possessions" was based upon the 10th commandment: "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor" (Exodus 20:17).
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House, slave, ox, donkey, and wife were all regarded as property of the husband.
Only the woman was required to be chaste until marriage and submit proof of her virginity on her wedding night. If she could not, the Law required her to be stoned to death. If a husband suspected his wife of unfaithfulness and a "spirit of jealousy" overcame him, the wife could be forced to undergo an "adultery test." She was brought to the priest who would write, on a scroll, a list of curses that would fall upon her if proven guilty. Then he would mix dirt from the tabernacle floor with water, dip the scroll in it, and make her drink it. If her abdomen swelled and her thigh wasted away, she was obviously guilty. If not, then she was absolved of guilt and would be able to bear children (Num. 5:11-31). There was no such adultery test, however, for husbands.
The social institution that not only permitted such dehumanizing treatment of women but gave to it the official sanction of legal and religious orthodoxy was patriarchalism. Webster defines it as the "social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line." Because the oneness between male and female was no longer affirmed or exhibited but was replaced by a gender-driven hierarchy, we can see how patriarchy not only debased women but demeaned the men who ruled over them.
For instance, to save his own skin when he journeyed to Egypt, Abraham lied to Pharaoh about Sarah, his wife, fully understanding that in doing so he would compromise her morally (Gen. 12:10-20). He repeated this shabby deception later with Abimelech (20:1-18), and his son Isaac followed suit (26:1-11). Neither Abraham nor Isaac demonstrated sacrificial love for their wives. To the contrary, God had to intervene to save both Sarah and Rebekah. Abraham
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used Hagar, Sarah's handmaiden, solely as a means of getting an heir — a "birth machine." Surrogate motherhood has a long history. When tension arose between Isaac and Ishmael, and consequently between their mothers, Abraham forced Hagar and her son from the security of his family and sent her into a barren wilderness with only a loaf of bread and a skin of water for sustenance. She and Ishmael would have perished if an angel had not come to their rescue (21:8-21). Is there any wonder that the descendants of Isaac, the Jews, have been intractable enemies ever since?
Even though Jacob was deceived into marrying Leah, and cared nothing for her, he continued to have relations with her because she was successful in bearing him many sons (Gen. 29:31ff.). Two wives were not enough for him; he also had children by Rachel's and Leah's maidservants. In a patriarchal society, women were valued primarily for purposes of procreation.
Nowhere is the low estimate of women more tragically demonstrated than in the sordid saga centering upon Lot, Abraham's nephew. When depraved men of Sodom demanded that he deliver over the two male guests in his home so that they might violate them homosexually, Lot offered up his two virgin daughters to be raped instead. Since he treated his daughters as sex objects, they returned the favor following the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, by having intercourse with him while he was drunk. Both bore him sons through this incestuous relationship. One became the progenitor of the Moabites and the other of the Ammonites, both bitter enemies who harassed the Israelites for centuries thereafter.
A similar incident occurred during the period of the judges when a Levite offered his concubine to the wicked men of Gibeah. They raped her so brutally that she died.
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This in turn precipitated a civil war in which the tribe of Benjamin was almost exterminated (Judges 19-21).
Samson's womanizing led him to marry a Philistine woman whom he abruptly abandoned on their wedding night. When her father subsequently gave her to Samson's friend as a wife, he became so enraged that he went on a rampage destroying Philistine property. They in turn retaliated by burning Samson's former wife and her father to death. Samson was undone by another Philistine woman, Delilah, who was manipulated by the men in her life for their own nefarious purposes. It is clear that on both sides, women were treated as pawns to be used and abused at the whim of men.
There is so much that is praiseworthy about King David, but his relations with women are not. Though married to Saul's daughter, Michal, he took unto himself both Ahinoam and Abigail during his wilderness wanderings, then later added four more wives. We discover that these women were primarily important for their childbearing abilities when we note that their identity is secondary to that of their sons (2 Sam. 3:2-5). When David came to power as king, he demanded that Michal, his former wife, be brought to him, despite the fact that she was, by this time, married to Paltiel, who was an unusual husband in that he followed her (as he wept) all the way to David's palace (vv.12-16). And what of Michal? Not only was she taken unwillingly from a caring husband, but she sank into oblivion as just another member of David's growing harem (5:13-16). No wonder she despised David when she saw him dancing naked in the streets. For this lack of respect, David punished her by depriving her of the ancient world's most important female status symbol: "And Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death" (6:23; cf. vv.16-23).
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Not content with his many wives and concubines, David's eyes lit up with lust when he spied Bathsheba. In the historic manner of men who have no regard for the rights or feelings of women, he forcibly seized her, got her pregnant, and then deliberately arranged for the murder of her husband. It is interesting to note that God disciplined David and not Bathsheba. He was not allowed to justify rape by blaming the woman for being attractive, as is too sadly the case in our judicial system today.
Absalom's actions were indicative of the way women were viewed in ancient Israel. When he seized the throne from David, he showed his disdain for his father by having intercourse with his father's concubines on the palace roof in full view of the people, with no regard whatsoever for the hapless women (2 Sam. 16:20-22). Another of David's sons, Amnon, raped his half-sister, Tamar, and David showed no emotion — no outrage at the violation done her. However, when he learned that his rebellious son, Absalom, had been killed in battle, we wept loudly with bitter tears (18:33). Furthermore, when David returned to the palace after Absalom's rebellion had been put down, "the king took the ten women, the concubines whom he had left to keep the house, and placed them under guard and provided them with sustenance, but did not go in to them. So they were shut up until the day of their death, living as widows" (20:3, NASB) — as if it was their fault they had been raped and shamed by Absalom! Blaming the victim was not invented in the 20th century. This kind of despicable treatment of women, even one's own wives and daughters, was not regarded as reprehensible in a patriarchal society where women existed solely for the pleasure and purposes of men.
It is not surprising, then, that David's son Solomon followed in his father's footsteps. He took unto himself 700 wives and 300 concubines. In his day these served as status
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symbols of both his wealth and his sexual prowess. As absolute monarch he had the power to collect as many women as he wanted, and the women involved were powerless to deny him. Once the principle of patriarchy was given religious sanction and social approval, there remained few external controls to prevent demeaning, debasing, and abusive treatment of women. As we see so clearly in Solomon's case, in the process of using and thus degrading women with impunity, he in turn was corrupted by them: "As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods" (1 Kings 11:4, NIV).
It may seem that these examples are isolated and atypical. Yet we are hard-pressed to find even one husband-wife relationship in the Old Testament that approximates the lofty ideal voiced by Paul when he wrote, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Eph. 5:25). There is, however, one marvelous example of genuine love and deep friendship in the Old Testament between two people. A long chapter is devoted to chronicling it in all of its lofty sentiment and tender emotion. The sad fact, however, is that it does not occur between a husband and a wife but between a man and another man: David and Jonathan (1 Samuel 20). Patriarchalism made it virtually impossible for a man to enjoy true fellowship with his wife because of the inferior and subordinate position in which it placed her.
Patriarchalism deprived both the male and the female of the wonderful human gift of friendship they were created by God to bestow on each other, because instead of a horizontal relationship of equality and mutuality, it forced them into a vertical relationship of master and slave. Gretchen Gaebelein Hull rightly observes that in patriarchalism "women cease to be partners in a 'one flesh' union and become possessions, treated as objects to be picked up or discarded at the will of the men who control their destinies.
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Perpetuating the family or the clan or even the institution of patriarchy itself becomes the overriding consideration, not justice — and certainly not the human rights of women."15
GREAT WOMEN OF THE BIBLE
In spite of the nearly universal subjugation of women to men in ancient Israel, faithfully documented in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures also celebrate a large number of women who transcended their lowly status and were recognized for great faith and exploits in their own right.16 The roll call begins with Sarah who is mentioned 35 times in the Book of Genesis alone. The heir through whom "all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (12:3) comes equally through Abraham and Sarah. To Abraham the promise of a son is given, but to Sarah the "miracle child" is born. Both male and female are necessary for the realization of God's covenantal blessing to all generations. Both Abraham and Sarah are eulogized by Paul and the author of Hebrews as models of faith (Romans 4; Hebrews 11).
A great deal of attention is devoted to securing just the right wife for Isaac, the "son of promise." Neither Isaac's wife, Rebekah, nor his son Jacob's wife, Rachel, were passive personalities but actively involved in carrying out the purposes of God through His people. Both are honored in the New Testament. Miriam, Moses' and Aaron's older sister, played a key role in the dramatic events associated with the Exodus. Miriam may have saved Moses' life when she stepped out of the shadows after Pharaoh's daughter discovered him hidden along the bank of the Nile and offered to find a nurse for the baby. By securing his own mother, Jochebed, for this task, she guaranteed that Moses would not only enjoy all the privileges of being raised in Pharaoh's court but also come to know and value his racial origins and religious heritage. This prepared him for the
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epic role he was to play in leading the children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage and establishing them as a "holy nation" to the Lord their God. Miriam is the first prophetess and poet mentioned in Scripture. She was also an accomplished musician who led Israel in a great post-Exodus celebration. Though she became involved in petty jealousy and criticism of her brother's leadership, she repented, was forgiven, and was restored to honor. Tradition indicates that Israel mourned her passing for 30 days.
Rahab, an Amorite harlot, exhibited great faith in Israel's God when she sheltered the two spies sent by Joshua into Canaan. She and her family were spared the destruction of Jericho. She became the wife of Salmon, one of the two spies. To her was born Boaz who married Ruth. Their son, Obed, became the father of Jesse, the father of David. Not only did God choose a woman to become a link in the royal line through whom Jesus would be born, but a most unlikely one: a Gentile harlot. In such a rigidly patriarchal culture, it is worth noting that four women are included in the lineage of Jesus: two were non-Israelites, Rahab and Ruth, and the other two were involved in moral irregularity, Tamar and Bathsheba (Matt. 1:1-11).
Deborah, a prophetess and a poet, became the first female ruler in Israel's history — and one of the first in antiquity. When Barak's heart failed him for fear, it was Deborah who led the Israelites into battle against Sisera's hordes (Judges 4). She judged Israel so well for 40 years that she was honored with the title "a mother in Israel." Jael, the Jewish maiden who drove a tent spike through Sisera's head, may well be described as the first to strike a mighty blow for women's liberation.
Huldah, a later prophetess, was consulted when the lost book of the Law of God was found in the Temple. She was the one whom Josiah sought out, rather than any male priest or prophet, to validate the authenticity of the scroll.
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Her prophetic message, followed by the public reading of the Law, precipitated the first great spiritual revival and social reform in Israel's history. Arlene Swidler observes:
This marks the first time any of the Hebrew scriptures were officially recognized as authentic. Josiah's acknowledgement of the Book of the Law, then, represents the first beginnings of our biblical canon. And the authority to pass judgment on this initial entry into the canon was given to a woman. At the beginning of the Bible we find Huldah; in her we discover the first scriptural authority, the founder of biblical studies . . . The early church recognized her greatness. The prayer for the ordination of a deaconess in the Apostolic Constitutions (4th century A.D.) begins: "Oh eternal God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator of man and of woman, who didst replenish with the Spirit Miriam and Deborah, and Anna, and Huldah."17
Many other women played key roles in Israel's salvation history, such as Hannah, Samuel's mother, and Esther, whose devotion to her people and personal heroism averted the total destruction of her people. It is ironic, and marvelous, that out of a patriarchal culture, so heavily weighted on the side of men, two books praising the faith and exploits of women not only were canonized as sacred Scripture but carry the women's names as well: Ruth and Esther.
We can summarize our overview of women in the Hebrew Scriptures as follows: first, women are coequal with men in all respects by way of God's creative intention. Second, disequilibrium entered the world through sin for which both the man and the woman are held equally responsible. Third, patriarchy, with its dominance-subordination hierarchy, entered the world as a consequence of sin and in no way represents either God's original or final intentions as to how men and women are to relate to each
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other. Further, patriarchy inevitably led to the devaluation and dehumanization of women, which in turn deprived men of the full measure of fellowship and companionship that they were created to enjoy. Finally, the Scriptures faithfully record the story of many women who rose above the narrow confines of culturally imposed subjugation and became heroes in their exploits for God and their people.
Chapter 4 || Table of Contents
1. As cited by Aida Besancon Spencer, Beyond the Curse (New York: Thomas Nelson, 1985), 18. [BACK]
2. Cited by Spencer, Beyond the Curse, 19.[BACK]
3. Ibid. [BACK]
4. See, for instance, feminine divine imagery in Isaiah 46:3-4; 63:9; Exodus 19:4; Deut. 32:18. [BACK]
5. Mary Hayter, The New Eve in Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1987), 39. [BACK]
6. Spencer, Beyond the Curse, 22.[BACK]
7. See Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, D.M.G. Stalker, trans. (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 1:149-50. [BACK]
8. Donald E. Gowan, From Eden to Babel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1988), 48. [BACK]
9. Spencer, Beyond the Curse, 30. [BACK]
10. Cited by Richard N. Longenecker, "Authority, Hierarchy, and Leadership Patterns in the Bible," Women, Authority, and the Bible, Alvera Michelsen, ed. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1986), 69-70. [BACK]
11. Julia O'Faolain and Lauro Martines, eds., Not in God's Image (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 132, cited in Gundry, Woman, Be Free, 20. [BACK]
12. Ibid., 31. [BACK]
13. Ibid. [BACK]
14. Ibid., 35-36. [BACK]
15. Gretchen Gaebelein Hull, Equal to Serve (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell, 1987), 87. [BACK]
16. For a thorough listing and description of great women throughout Israel's history, see Herbert Lockyer, All the Women of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1967). [BACK]
17. Arlene Swidler, "In Search of Huldah," The Bible Today (Nov. 1978), 1783. [BACK]