A wife of noble character who can find?
    She is worth far more than rubies.
Her husband has full confidence in her
    and lacks nothing of value.

• Proverbs 31:10-11

This is a quiz on Women of the Bible, L through Z, and missing a few letters.  I still have not found the book by that title, so I used the Internet to get me started.

Some of these might be obscure while others may be obvious.  This quiz is all my invention.

The answer to each question is a Woman in the Bible with the first letter of the name corresponding to the question’s letter.

The Questions:

	Question
L	Meaning of name, Cow.  Who was a wife and mother, a mother of someone in the genealogy of Jesus (not mentioned in Matthew), and who had ‘weak eyes’ and not a lovely figure like her sister?
M	Meaning of name, Lady.  Who complained about her sister sitting at the foot of Jesus when there was housework to do?
N	Meaning of name, Good, Pleasant, Lovely, or Winsome.  Who had two sons and lost both of them while living in Moab, but then returned to Judah, with one daughter-in-law in tow?
O	Meaning of name, Neck or Fawn.  Who followed her mother-in-law, but when given her leave, turned back?
P	Meaning of name, Venerable, Ancient, Classic or Primordial.  Who is mentioned seven times in the New Testament, but never without also mentioning her husband, a tentmaker, and who had a name that rhymed with her husband’s?
R	Meaning of name, Friend.  Who faithfully followed her mother-in-law from her homeland and affected the redemption of her mother-in-law to the family, and who is a mother in the genealogy of Jesus (mentioned in Matthew)?
S	Meaning of name, Lady, Princess or Noblewoman.  Who laughed when the visitor, identified as “the Lord,” said that she would be pregnant and bear a son in her advanced years, and who is a mother of someone in the genealogy of Jesus (not mentioned in Matthew)?
T	Meaning of name, Date (fruit), Date Palm, or simply Palm Tree.  Who was married to a grandson of Jacob and had to trick her father-in-law in order to produce a son, actually two sons, and who is a mother in the genealogy of Jesus (mentioned in Matthew)?
V	Meaning of name, Beautiful or Best.  Who was Queen of Persia, wife of Ahasuerus, who lost her position by refusing to show her beauty and crown at a drunken party held by the king?
Z	Meaning of name, Bird.  Who is the Midianite who married Moses?

Bible References:

	Bible Reference
L	Genesis 29
M	Luke 10:38-42; John 11 and 12
N	Ruth 1
O	Ruth 1:11-14
P	Acts 18; Romans 16:3; 1 Corinthians 16:19; 2 Timothy 4:19
R	A book named after her, but also Matthew 1:5, but do not get confused, since there are two women with names starting with “R” in the same verse.
S	Genesis 17-18
T	Genesis 38
V	Esther 1
Z	Exodus 2:15-22

Regarding the “M” answer, you may be disappointed that I did not ask a question regarding “Mary” – I know, spoiler alert in eliminating that possible answer – but which Mary?  The mother of Jesus, the mother of James and Joses, the mother of John Mark, the sister of Lazarus, the wife of Cleophas, a woman who greeted Paul, or the woman from Magdala?  Hmmmm.  You might want to write those down; they feel like a quiz all of their own.

Also, the “O” was the only one that I found.  The name will be very familiar, if you misspell it.  The famous person by this name had an aunt who entered the name properly on the birth certificate.  And then everyone in the family had a hard time saying it, and two letters became reversed.

The “Z” answer makes me think if this is where they got the idea for the cigarette lighters, and they were happy about is, so “Rah!!!”  Sorry, that was a weird rabbit hole.

When I looked over the possible names, I chose four of them who birthed sons in the genealogy of Jesus, which became a secondary theme of this quiz.  Like the “Mary” quiz idea, a list of the known mothers in Jesus’ genealogy would be a nice quiz also.  Great!!  More research!!  I love it!!

The Answers:

1.  Leah
2. Martha
3. Naomi
4. Orpah (for those who missed the hint, Oprah is the famous ‘misspelling’ of the name, and Oprah likes the misspelling since it spells Harpo backwards.)
5. Priscilla, wife of Aquilla
6. Ruth
7. Sarah
8. Tamar
9. Vashti
10. Zipporah

Since you did so well, and because we know that most of these women were mothers, how about a video from Chonda Pierce, “My Mother Scares Me.”

And as long as we are on the subject of Mothers …

I agreed with Allan Sherman regarding most of my trips to camp, not liking camp, except for my trek through Philmont Scout Ranch.  Oddly, the scoutmaster would have us all write a letter home during the first full day of camp so that it had some chance (but rarely) to get home before we did – but like Allan Sherman, we had not done anything yet.  Remember that back then, we only had snail mail.

But once, I went with a bus load of scouts to Philmont Scout Ranch for a three-week trip including the ride out and back.  At one point in our journey, the adult leader for our trek said for us to write home, because the next three days was going to be at primitive campsites, followed by not having enough time for the letter to reach home before we did.  We had already been eating nothing but dehydrated food for nearly a week.  Of the guys on our trek, the food attacked me the worst, giving me gas.  I was consigned to be at the end of the line as we walked the trails as a result.  We all wrote the same thing in our letters.  We wanted to eat a big steak dinner at the restaurant across from the bus station in Tupelo, MS when we got back home.  We all wanted the sensation of something that you had to chew.  When I arrived at the bus stop, my mother announced in her dictatorial tone, “I GOT your letter.  Do not be so ridiculous!  We are not eating out.  You have been eating out for nearly a month.  I am taking you home, and because I wasted half my day waiting on you at the bus stop, we are having Hamburger Helper.”  My Dad saw the pain on my face and tried to console me, but I just sat in the back seat of the car banging my head against the upholstery.  My mother thought that picking me up at the bus stop was a “waste of time” and Hamburger Helper was the same thing that I had eaten for nearly two weeks with a little hamburger mixed in, nothing that needed to be chewed.  And I had turned sixteen during the trek, not even a birthday cake or present when I got home, not even sixteen candles. But in a strange way, it did not matter; I was home.

And if you did poorly on the quiz, at least you did not have to teach Robin Williams how to eat fish.  Here Martha (a name from our quiz) Stewart tries to teach Robin Williams.  Now that took patience.

One of the women in the quiz was Sarah, a common name today.  Saran McLachlan wrote an arrangement of The Prayer of St. Francis.

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred, let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
And where there is sadness, joy

O Divine Master, grant that I may
Not so much seek to be consoled as to console
To be understood, as to understand
To be loved, as to love
For it is in giving that we receive
And it’s in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it’s in dying that we are born to Eternal Life
Amen”

• Traditional & Sarah McLachlen, The Prayer of St. Francis

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.