LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Five Women
Five women appear in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 1, and each one of them has her story. The first is Tamar, who had the misfortune of seeing two husbands die, both sons of the patriarch Judah, whom God took their lives because they were wicked. Then, by means of a ruse, Tamar managed to conceive from her own father-in-law -Judah- Pharez, through whom she followed the genealogical line of the Lord.
The second is Rahab, the prostitute of Jericho. She occupies in the gallery of men of faith in Hebrews 11 a place that not even Joshua, her contemporary, has. She received the Hebrew spies, and hid them, by whose faith she was saved from the destruction of the city, together with all her family.
The third is Ruth, the Moabite. An exemplary woman, who left her land and her kindred to be close to the people of God. Faithful to her mother-in-law Naomi, she was united in an honorable and happy marriage to Boaz, an exemplary biblical character.
The fourth is Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, mother of Solomon. A beautiful woman, but not very demure. While bathing on her roof, she provoked King David, who, in order to possess her, had Uriah, one of his bravest men, killed.
The fifth is Mary of Nazareth, the most blessed woman of all who ever walked the earth, more blessed than Hannah, the mother of Samuel, than Jochebed, the mother of Moses, more blessed than Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, the greatest of the prophets. Yet she was a modest woman from a small town in Galilee. In her lap lay the Blessed One, and from her breasts sucked the One who came to save the world.
Forty-two women are implied in that genealogy, but only five are mentioned. Among them, three gentiles, all of them long-suffering, one of them a prostitute by trade, another a prostitute by occasion; women, in short, that a king would not have chosen, much less mentioned, in his genealogy.
But of such persons the Lord had mercy. He who is not ashamed to call us brethren, nor to be born as an outcast, chose these five women to be part of his special family.