Women of the Bible
The women of Scripture, studied carefully
Each study opens with the exact passages, read in your own translation. The explanation comes after the text, and it keeps three things apart: what Scripture says, what it allows us to infer, and what it simply does not tell us.
Before the studies, the text
Loading Galatians 3:26-29…
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Testament
Book
Theme
Where to begin
Featured studies
Eve
The first woman, made from the man and given to him as a partner, whose account holds both the first sin and the first promise of a deliverer.
Ruth
A Moabite widow who bound herself to Naomi and to Naomi's God, and whose story ends with a genealogy running to David.
Hannah
A childless woman at Shiloh whose vow and whose song stand at the opening of the books that give Israel a .
Mary of Nazareth
The woman to whom Gabriel was sent, who asked how, the word, sang of God's mercy, and was still with the disciples after the .
Every written study
A to Z
Anna
Three verses in Luke 2, read carefully: her tribe, her long widowhood, her fasting and prayer, and what she did the moment she saw the child.
Deborah
Judges 4 and 5 read together, prose and poem, with attention to what the text says about her office, Barak's request, and the God who is the subject of the song.
Elizabeth
Luke 1 read in order, the deliberate echoes of Israel's earlier childless women, and what she says when Mary arrives.
Esther
Esther read in its Persian setting, the reversals that structure the book, and how to speak carefully about providence in a book where God is not mentioned.
Eve
Genesis 2 and 3 in full, then what the text says and does not say about Eve, and how Paul and John later read her story.
Hagar
Genesis 16 and 21 read closely, the God who sees and hears the afflicted, and how Paul later uses her name in an argument about two .
Hannah
1 Samuel 1 and 2 read in place, her song as theology rather than sentiment, and the themes it shares with Mary's words in Luke 1.
Mary of Nazareth
Luke 1 and 2 read closely, her song set beside Hannah's, the hard sayings in the gospels, and where Scripture leaves her at the end.
Miriam
Her four appearances in the Pentateuch, the song at the sea, the events of Numbers 12, and the place she holds in Micah 6:4.
Rahab
Joshua 2 and 6, then the three New Testament passages that name her: Matthew's genealogy, the roll of faith in Hebrews 11, and the argument of James 2.
Ruth
The book of Ruth in its legal and social setting, the kinsman read carefully, and the line from Bethlehem to David and to Matthew 1.
Sarah
Genesis 12 to 23 read in order, then the five New Testament passages that reason from her story, including Paul's difficult argument in Galatians 4.
Read several together
Learning paths
Women named in the line of Christ
Matthew 1 names four women in the genealogy before Mary. Two of them have written studies here, and the trail follows the line from the promise to Abraham down to the birth in Matthew 1:16.
Their accounts are not variations on one theme. Rahab confesses the LORD before Israel enters the land; Ruth acts under the law of . Matthew names them without explaining why, and this path does not supply a motive the text withholds.
- Joshua 2:11. Her confession about the LORD, before the city falls.
- Ruth 4:13. The redemption completed, and a son born to the line.
- Ruth 4:17. The book ends by naming David.
- Matthew 1:5. Both women named in the descent to Christ.
Songs of reversal
Two women sing about a God who overturns the order of the world, centuries apart. Reading them together shows how much they share about God's character.
Hannah's song looks forward to a Israel does not yet have, 1 Samuel 2:10. Mary sings because the is already coming. Luke never names Hannah, so the connection rests on the overlap itself, not on a citation.
- 1 Samuel 2:8. The poor raised from the dust.
- 1 Samuel 2:10. A king and an anointed one, before Israel has either.
- Luke 1:52. The mighty put down, the lowly exalted.
- Luke 1:55. Her song ends in the mercy promised to Abraham.
Waiting without an answer
Several accounts here involve years of waiting that Scripture never explains. Read together, they close off the idea that unanswered means God is displeased.
The outcomes differ sharply. Sarah and Hannah and Elizabeth receive children; Anna's long widowhood is never reversed, and Luke still records her life as service. The pattern is not a formula.
- Genesis 18:11. The promise given anyway.
- 1 Samuel 1:10. Grief brought to God without arranging it.
- Luke 1:6. Righteous and childless in consecutive verses.
- Luke 2:37. Decades of fasting and prayer, and no reversal recorded.
Still being written
Named now, studied later
These accounts are not linked yet, because a thin page is worse than an honest wait. The passages are here so you can read them now.
- Jael · Judges 4:17-22
- Naomi · Ruth 1:20-21
- Abigail · 1 Samuel 25:23-31
- Bathsheba · 2 Samuel 11:2-5
- Tamar · Genesis 38:26
- Rebekah · Genesis 24:58
- Rachel and Leah · Genesis 29:31-35
- Huldah · 2 Kings 22:14-20
- Mary Magdalene · John 20:15-18
- Martha of Bethany · John 11:25-27
- Mary of Bethany · John 12:3-8
- The Samaritan woman · John 4:28-30
- Lydia · Acts 16:14-15
- Priscilla · Acts 18:26
- Dorcas · Acts 9:36-41
- Lois and Eunice · 2 Timothy 1:5