In fourth-century-BC Athens, there was a curious legal case involving an elderly immigrant woman who had been savagely beaten in an assault that took place at the home of a respectable citizen. Six days later, she died of her injuries. She was this citizen’s former nurse, whom he had invited to live with his family after she had been widowed. What makes her case so curious is that no one could be held accountable for her death; in a city that prided itself on its legal system that protected its citizens, this woman turned out to be a legal loophole, a nonentity who could be murdered at will.footnote

What was it about this woman that made her life so worthless in the eyes of the law that her death could go unnoticed and unavenged? It was her lack of family protectors: she was a foreigner, rather than an Athenian; she had been widowed; and she appears to have had no other family who could bring a lawsuit against her killers. In a democracy that valued citizens over noncitizens and considered the pursuit of justice to be the responsibility of the relatives and close friends of the injured party, a widow like her fell through the cracks of the legal system.

We can criticize the classical Athenian legal system all we want, but the people of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament did not treat widows much better. Just think how often the plight of widows comes up – or, rather, think how often people refuse to see the plight of widows. The entire story of Naomi and Ruth revolves around the precarious condition of childless widows. They are afraid that they will starve to death because no one cares enough to see them and help them. Their only recourse to staving off starvation is the practice of gleaning. This meant gathering leftover grain on the edges of the field during harvest – hardly a reliable source of food. This provision was originally proposed for the very purpose of providing for widows in Deuteronomy 24:17–19. Strikingly, in that provision Deuteronomy groups widows together with orphans and immigrants, reminding us of the similar difficulties of the “useless ones,” people without protectors in society.

Ruth’s story ends happily in marriage to Boaz, a redeeming kinsman. This story prefigures another redeemer, of course – Jesus. But the successful outcome she and Naomi achieved was the exception rather than the rule for childless widows in the ancient world. Naomi’s fears throughout this story are no mere paranoia, as we see just how many things could have gone wrong in this case. Indeed, we learn when Ruth asks Boaz to redeem her that there was another, closer kinsman who could have redeemed her. That kinsman, who must have known of Naomi and Ruth’s difficulties, at no point was in contact with them since their return to Bethlehem. It was easy to ignore the destitute, even if they were relatives, even if they were living in the same small town.

Jean-François Millet, Harvesters Resting (Ruth and Boaz), oil on canvas, 1853.

We might add that Ruth was not only a childless widow but also an immigrant from Moab. No one kills or harms Ruth. Yet Boaz twice offers cautions that gently hint at the lawless reality that loomed over anyone in her situation – someone could have easily assaulted her and would likely have gone unpunished.footnote More generally, unmarried or widowed women with no protector in the ancient world were always at risk of harm. As the Athenians once reminded the Melians, the law of nature is that the strong do as they will, and the weak must submit.

Widows feature prominently in the New Testament as well. Each time, there is an emphasis on the need to value them and care for them in a society where they were otherwise considered nonentities. For most people, they were invisible. As we consider what we see in the New Testament that other sources from the period prefer to ignore, widows are in this category as well. They appear repeatedly in the Gospels, where Jesus goes out of his way to notice them – at the temple, at a funeral for a widow’s only son.

Beyond the Gospels, we see widows mentioned throughout the Epistles, in admonitions to churches to take care of them, especially those among them who are childless (see in particular Acts 6:1–6; 9:39; 1 Tim 5:3–16). These repeated reminders would not have been necessary had the communities involved been doing this already. Indeed, Acts 6:1–6 involves a repudiation of serving widows on the part of some leaders in the church and a recommendation instead to delegate this task, so lacking in prestige, to others specially appointed for the purpose. We see even the church struggling to ensure that this important ministry of mercy was completed, despite the resistance of some.

The difference between the model of care that Christianity proposed for widows and the utter disregard for their lives in the pagan world is salient in Jesus’ interactions. The story of the Samaritan woman Jesus meets at the well in John 4:6–30 is particularly illuminating. In this incident, Jesus arrives with his disciples at Jacob’s well in Samaria around noon. Herman Ridderbos notes the significance that Jesus took this road at all, as he could have avoided going through Samaria.footnote Tired, he decides to rest by the well at this time when it is abandoned – no one in their right mind, after all, would be out in the heat of the day. At that point, Jesus, the one able to provide bread at will, sends his disciples into town for food. Why? It is clearly a ruse. Indeed, when the disciples return later with the food that Jesus presumably sent them to buy and offer him some, he tells them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about” (John 4:32). He has orchestrated the whole thing just so he could spend time alone talking with … a disreputable Samaritan woman.

The woman arrives at the well at this time when no one else is getting water. We can easily read the situation between the lines, especially as we learn more about her: the community does not approve of her, so she is trying to avoid conflict and perhaps all-too-common words of abuse from others by getting water at a time when she was just about guaranteed not to be noticed. Except for Jesus. The woman is surprised, in fact, when he speaks to her and asks her to give him water. Again, the Son of God has no need of this well water, for (as he tells the woman right after) he can provide living water. But the ruse has a purpose, yet again: it breaks the proverbial ice.

In the modern office, we speak of the water cooler as the place where everyone can meet for brief conversations and socialization, even while meeting the basic human need to hydrate. Similarly, ancient fountains and public wells served this function, especially for women, whose task it was to fetch the water. In classical Athens, gatherings of women at the city fountains became a popular theme in decorating hydriai, vessels designed for fetching water. Anyone excluded from such gatherings was, quite simply, not part of the community. This meant much more than exclusion from social fun. It meant not being part of a care network; it meant being designated as the person about whose suffering no one was concerned.

By talking to this woman kindly and compassionately, Jesus welcomes this stranger into his kingdom and acknowledges her as worthy of being in community with him. She is, in the eyes of all others, a stranger twice over. As a Samaritan, she mentions the disdain she and others like her have experienced from Jews. At the same time, she has been ostracized by her own community and does not feel welcome to get water along with the other women of her city. It seems likely that this is connected to her difficult marital history – something over which she likely did not have much (if any) control but for which others judged her nevertheless. “Jesus said to her, ‘You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true’” (John 4:17–18).

What is going on here? It seems possible that this woman has been repeatedly widowed, although perhaps she was divorced instead or as well. We would not be remiss to see abuse as part of her story, Caryn Reeder suggests.footnote Through it all, she does not have any children, or at least none that are mentioned here. A woman’s inability to conceive was considered a legitimate reason for divorce in the ancient world, and after five husbands, whether ones who died or who divorced her, her infertility would have been well-known to all. Andreas Köstenberger notes two additional possible complications. First, the rabbis drew a limit at “three legal marriages at a lifetime, even in case of the death of previous husbands.” Second, the Greek word for husband is also generic for “man,” so it is not entirely clear that we are speaking here of legal marriages.footnote

At any rate, after five husbands (some or all of whom may have been more akin to domestic partners) and no children, this woman was undoubtedly damaged goods in the eyes of all around. And in a world where a childless widow was defenseless if living alone, she appears to have chosen the option of cohabiting with someone who has no intention of marrying her, just to have some security. At least, she is not likely to starve to death while living with this man – but how long is this union of convenience going to last? This decision also does not protect her from social ostracism and the disdain of all, both locals and anyone passing through town.

As soon as Jesus’ disciples return from town with the food they purchased, they are surprised to see Jesus talking to this woman. John has a poignant way of describing their reaction, cataloging their inner thoughts even as these thoughts remained unvoiced: “Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, ‘What do you want?’ or ‘Why are you talking with her?’” (John 4:27). Sure, no one asked these questions out loud, but they thought them loudly enough. Conditioned as they had been to see the world in categories, they pegged this woman accurately at first glance. No wonder that to be able to have a comfortable and comforting conversation with her, Jesus had to send the disciples away.

In their respective commentaries on this passage, F. F. Bruce and Andreas Köstenberger note that in Jewish tradition at the time, for any rabbi (or even a man in general) to speak with women, Samaritan or not, was considered a waste of time and, worse, improper.footnote This point is striking as we consider not only the time that Jesus literally went out of his way to spend with the Samaritan woman but also the time he had spent with Mary, Martha, and many more nameless women – widowed, single, physically sick, and heartsick. So many of his day saw no purpose in any of them. Worse, they might have seen women like these as threats to their reputation and thus to be avoided. But the open secret of God’s love for us is that we have all been made for God to delight in us. This purpose is enough.

Jesus’ ability to see, acknowledge, and treasure the ones everyone else saw as useless or didn’t see at all is a consistent theme in his interactions with the single people, the widows, and the sick and disabled all around. The landscape was full of them, we realize as we read the Gospels, but Jesus truly paid attention and saw them as valuable people, deserving of care, provision, and, most important, love. The stories of Jesus’ care for and attention to such individuals as Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and the Samaritan woman at the well show that revolutionary valuing of all humanity begins with seeing the ones everyone else refuses to see – the dishonorably divorced or widowed, the infertile, the unwanted and uncherished of all ages, and, whether in a world of limited medical care (ancient) or a world of overly expensive medical care (modern), the sick and disabled.

Taken from Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic by Nadya Williams. Copyright (c) 2024 by Nadejda Vladimir Williams. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com

Footnotes

1. Rebecca Futo Kennedy considers this case, discussed in Demosthenes 47, in her Immigrant Women in Athens: Gender, Ethnicity, and Citizenship in the Classical City (Routledge, 2014),102–3.
2. Boaz’s concern in Ruth 2:8–9, 15–16 hints at this.
3. Herman Ridderbos, The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary (Eerdmans, 1997), 153.
4. Caryn Reeder, The Samaritan Woman’s Story: Reconsidering John 4 After #ChurchToo (InterVarsity Press, 2022).
5. Andreas Köstenberger, John, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Baker Academic, 2004), 152–53.
6. F. F. Bruce, The Gospel and Epistles of John (Eerdmans, 1983), 112; Köstenberger, John, 148–49.