man of wealth, and she became an an cestress of our Lord. Thus grace exalted a Gentile and a Moabitess to this high estate; and not only is there a whole book about her in the Old Testament, but her name appears again in the genealogy in the New Testament. So we see in the life story of Ruth how grace triumphed over law, as in the case of Tamar it triumphed over sin; for it was the law that no Moabite should enter into the congregation of the Lord.
cessful, but Nabal, who drank to excess, died soon after. His widow seems to have taken over the business, and was at Carmel when David sent his proposal of marriage. She set out with a small train of five damsels which was her ordinary retinue, and became the wife of the man who was to become Israel’s greatest king. She knew God as her Father and as her Judge, and she commemorated her faith in Him in the names of her two sons: Chileab, Sustained of the Father, and Daniel, My God is Judge.
complete lack of resource and her total inability to provide for her necessities, the prophet said to her “fear not,” and explained how the Lord had promised that her barrel of meal should not waste nor her cruse of oil fail. Then he went home with her and sojourned with her, abiding in the loft of her house many days, or a full year. Then the widow’s son became ill and died and she re proached the prophet; but he only said Give me thy son. Oh, no, this is all she has now, her little dead son. But Elijah took him from her and carried him up to his own bed, and there he cried unto the Lord. And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah and sent the child’s soul into him again. And Elijah took the child and delivered him to his mother. What an experience! “ Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias . . . but unto none of them was Elias sent” (Luke 4:26). This widow of a Gentile city, afflicted by poverty and bereaved by death—to her it was given to sustain such a man of God as Elijah and to witness such miracles as he performed; and thus was her faith strengthened and rewarded. Abigail was a very great lady and a very remarkable person. In her was the marvelous combination of physical beauty, superior intelligence and un usual spiritual discernment. At the time the record opens, she was the wife of a Calebite named Nabel, a churlish man and evil in his doings. He was of the house of a dog (Caleb) and his name meant folly. Abigail means Source of Joy which we can well believe she was —this lovely creature with her good sense, grace, and extraordinary pru dence. They lived at Maon, but Nabal who was a very great man, did business at Carmel. These places, habitation and fruitful field were both cities, not one a suburb of the other, though they lay near together some fifteen miles west of the Dead Sea. Nabal’s sheep alone numbered 3,000, and at shearing time, David sent ten of his young soldiers to ask recognition of his services. With his force of 400 men he had been “ a wall about the sheep of Nabal,” as his own shepherds testified. But this churlish, cynical man answered the polite request with rude insults, which seems to have been his customary mode of response when spoken to, according to the testimony of his household servants. Fortunately one of them reported the matter to Abigail. She who had the wisdom and the faith to recognize David as the Lord’s anointed even when he was “ hunted as a flea or a partridge on the mountains,” acted with her usual deli cacy and skill, and set out with a pres ent for David’s men to plead for her husband’s life. Her mission was suc Abigail First Samuel 25
Elijah and the widow of Zarephath
The Widow o f Zarephath First Kings 17
More than nine hundred years before Christ, the Lord commanded a widow to sustain one of his servants. At that time and for centuries afterward this was considered an honor and the Apostle Luke classes it as a blessing comparable to that of being cleansed from leprosy (Luke 4:25). She was of an alien race and very poor, and at the time was en gaged in the humble task of gathering firewood at the gate of the city. She and her little son had eaten the last of the meal-cakes, and she meant to make more from the very last of the meal and oil. As she went about with a heavy heart, the prophet called to her, re questing a drink of water. She seems to have recognized him as a prophet of Israel, but whether she did or not, she meekly started to fetch the water for him, and he called to her again to bring him a little bread as well. But this she could not do. She stopped, and with all the intensity of despair she confessed her dire poverty and utter hopelessness. But she used the words, “ as the Lord thy God liveth,” and though this may have been merely in recognition of his being a servant of Jehovah, it would seem to have implied something more—a personal belief in the God of Israel, for men do not swear by a god in whom they do not themselves believe. In a Christian country, no one swears by the beard of the prophet, Mohammed, or by Buddha or Confucius, but by Christ. The widow swore by the living God; so we may believe she had some faith in Him and that this faith was not first begotten in her by the miracles which followed, but that they strengthened a belief already in her heart. After the avowal of her poverty, her
John and Mary, the mother of Jesus
The Virgin Mary John 1 9 :2 5
Mary is Greek for Miriam and means their rebellion. During our Lord’s min istry He seems not to have officially or legally recognized her—she was always repelled during His service here below. Now that His service is finished, His affection is free, and with what tender ness He shows it! John is the only evangelist who records this incident of that stupendous, cataclysmic scene. By the cross of Jesus stood His mother and “near to her” as the French version reads, stood John. Mary seems to have been a widow for Jesus said to her “Woman, behold thy Son,” and to John “ Behold thy mother,” “ and from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.” If space permitted, we would discuss many other well-known widows of the Bible, some good and some bad, whose names appear in the sacred text “ for our learning.” “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Cor. 10:11).
Pag* Seventeen
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