"Susanna: The Lost Heroine of the Old Testament"

Last night, I was lying down in my bed trying to read my daily readings, something I've neglected to do for far too long.

I struggled with the readings, as my focus kept changing. For some reason, the thought kept creeping into my mind "Read Daniel". Over and over again, that's all I could think about. "You should read Daniel." My eyes were scanning the words on the page, but I wasn't absorbing anything.

So I turned to Daniel in my Orthodox Study Bible and read the very first part of the book, about Susannah.

Susannah was a faithful woman, to God and to her husband. She was blackmailed by two elders; they attempted to seduce her by threatening to condemn her for adultery with another man. She refused, stating that she was condemned either way. She would rather be condemned by men than condemned by God for sinning against Him. So the elders accused her of adultery, bearing false witness against her, and were "caught in the act" so to speak, by Daniel, a then 12 year old boy, enlightened by the Holy Spirit through Susannah's silent prayers.

I read through the footnotes as well, after reading through the story of Susannah and her courageous acts.

1,2 "Susanna...can be seen to typify the Church, and Daniel...typifies Christ."

7 "Susanna in the garden echoes Eve in the Garden of Eden, but her righteousness surpasses Eve's because she resists temptation."

After reading these footnotes, I looked to my husband and told him the story, and explained that Daniel, Susanna's deliverer, who "typifies Christ" was the same age that Jesus Christ was when he preached to the rabbis in the Temple. I told him how interesting it is when you find these subtle foreshadowings of future events, and how the Old Testament, while seen by many as a complete contrast to the New Testament, was actually a way of preparing the way for Christ.

In this story, Susannah herself even says that God knows the future:

"O Eternal God, Reader of secrets, who know all things
before they come to be."

So much foreshadowing in this one little story about Susannah. Bathing in the garden (baptism), asking her maids to bring her oil (chrismation).

After reading this story and coming to these realizations, and being sidetracked by a religious debate with my husband, I decided to go online and look for some more information, but not on Susannah or the book of Daniel. I just wanted some more study guides or study materials to help me in my quest to understand the Bible better.

I looked up "Orthodox Bible Study Guide", which led me, naturally, to the Orthodox Study Bible Web Site, where I happened upon this article, about "Susannah: The Lost Heroine of the Old Testament." Naturally, this caught my attention immediately. I printed it and read through it. It's truly an interesting read, and if you haven't already, you should visit the link and check it out. It's a great article, written by Patrick Henry Reardon, pastor of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church, Chicago.

http://www.orthodoxstudybible.com/index.php/articles/susannah/

In the article, he discusses how Luther decided to remove books from the Old Testement that were not included in the rabbinical canon. Susannah's story at the beginning of Daniel was one of these stories.

How unfortunate for Protestants in this world that they aren't presented with such a wonderful story and such a wonderful Biblical figure. As I said, this relatively short story about Susannah is almost all encompassing of what God's people were to expect in the future. It was a foreshadowing of so many plans, and a message to the people that goodness and righteousness would prevail and their souls would be saved.