The Bible Women We Love the Most: Part 3

Today we will be looking at three more Bible Women You Love: Ruth, Deborah and Jael.

I know, from your feedback, that you are enjoying this series. And so am I . So far, we have looked at favourites Mary of Nazareth, Naomi and Rachel, followed by Noadiah, Abigail and the Daughters of Zelophehad. Today, by popular request, we have Ruth, Deborah and Jael. So, here goes:

The Bible Women We Love the Most, Part 3

RUTH

Ruth 1-4

Mary H picked Ruth because she chose to, “love and support her Jewish mother-in-law and make Naomi’s God her God. Off she went into strange territory.”

Esther W says, “She was amazing to turn her back on her family and people, going into a strange land among a strange people. She was also not afraid of hard and menial work in order to support both herself and her mother in law.”

I previously chose Naomi from the Book of Ruth because she is one of the most transformed women in the Bible. The cause of her redemption from loss and her renewed hope for the future is Ruth.

A Moabite foreigner, Ruth demonstrates some amazing qualities, showing true loyalty to her mother-in-law after all their menfolk die, and Naomi is left without support or protection. Like several other Bible women, she is given a song, a beautiful testimony to that loyalty:

“Entreat me not to leave you,
Or to turn back from following after you;
For wherever you go, I will go;
And wherever you lodge, I will lodge;
Your people shall be my people,
And your God, my God.
Where you die, I will die,
And there will I be buried.
The Lord do so to me, and more also,
If anything but death parts you and me.”

(Ruth 1:16-17 NKJV)

Their short story twists and turns. Early on Ruth is disobedient when Naomi would have her return to her family. Instead, she sticks like glue. But her sacrifice is hardly appreciated: “When (Naomi) saw that she was determined to go with her, she stopped speaking to her,” Ruth 1:18.

In Bethlehem, when Ruth suggests going out to glean among the harvesters, Naomi reaches rock bottom: “Go, my daughter,” she replies, her head bowed in shame. 

God has a solution for both women that will involve a further act of courage on Ruth’s part. This time, she is obedient to her mother-in-law’s outlandish plan to go in secret to Redeemer Boaz at the threshing floor. At night!

Yet things work out, which is all to the good, since Ruth would become great-grandmother to King David and, through his line, an ancestress of Jesus.

DEBORAH

Judges 4-5

Melissa M says, “She was a woman who stood as an equal and a leader amongst men at a time in history that it was more than likely not welcome. She was obedient to God, and was a woman of strong character… I admire her courage.”

Linda K says, “She was a strong woman who stood her ground on what God was directing. It shows that God elevated her to show women can be used by God.”

Zola quotes Judges 4:9 where Deborah talks to her officer, Barak: “Because of the course you are taking, the honor will not be yours, for the LORD will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman.”

Deborah is a wife, a warrior and the only Judge in the Book of Judges we see actually judging:

She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided.

Judges 4:5 NIV

She is the original Mother in Israel, a role model to many observant Jewish women who prioritize motherhood to this day: “Being a mother in Israel was the mirror image and foundation of Deborah’s strength and wisdom,” writes The Jewish Woman section of Chabad.org.

“Village life ceased, it ceased in Israel, until I, Deborah, arose. I arose a mother in Israel.”

Judges 5:7 NKJV

Deborah was also a prophetess who foresaw the death of the enemy general, Sisera, at the hands of Jael. There could be no more humiliating death for a military man than at the hands of a woman.

JAEL

Judges 4-5

Zola says: “I also loved the partnership of Deborah and Jael, two different characters (a Judge and a Prophetess and Jael, a woman who lived in a tent).”

“Most blessed among women is Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite; blessed is she among women in tents. He asked for water, she gave milk; she brought out cream in a lordly bowl. She stretched her hand to the tent peg, her right hand to the workmen’s hammer.
“She pounded Sisera, she pierced his head, she split and struck through his temple.
At her feet he sank, he fell, he lay still; at her feet he sank, he fell; where he sank, there he fell dead.”

From The Song of Deborah Judges 5:24-27

There you have it— Jael’s story, (or Yael as she is pronounced in Hebrew, my beautiful new granddaughter Gigi having the Hebrew name Yaeli).

The story is also told in Judges starting 4:17. Sisera fled the battlefield on foot, a cowardly act. Boldly, Jael met him and invited him to her tent, where she covered him with a warm blanket and gave him milk to drink when he was thirsty. He asked her to stand watch: “And if any man comes and inquires of you, and says, ‘Is there any man here?’ you shall say, ‘No,’ ” Judges 4:20.

When he fell asleep, she took a hammer and drove a tent peg right through his forehead. Later, Jael came out to meet Barak pursuing Sisera. She invited him to come see Sisera’s body, which he did.

I have heard it said that Jael had no choice but to kill Sisera since, otherwise, tongues would wag of her dishonour at allowing herself to be alone with him. Yet, she invites him and later Barak to her tent. I understand that there is honour-shame in Israelite society, but courageous Jael does not seem to fear for her reputation.

I have also heard that Jael is an excellent lesson in making full use of what you have to hand, in her case a tent peg. I agree with that one.

There is a poignant ending to Sisera’s story as sung by Deborah. I find it moving: his mother, awaiting her son’s return:

‘The mother of Sisera looked through the window, and cried out through the lattice,
“Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why tarries the clatter of his chariots?”’

Judges 5:28

Her ladies try to jolly her with talk of the women he will have taken and spoils plundered. But we know that, very soon, there will be grief and tears.

Next time in The Bible Women We Love the Most, Part 4 – Esther, Huldah and Jochebed.

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