The feminine form of naʿar (H5288). Refers to a girl, young woman, or female servant. Used of Rebekah at the well (Gen. 24:16), Ruth gleaning in Boaz's field (Ruth 2:5), and the servant girl who identified Peter (Mark 14:69 LXX equivalent).
The naʿarāh — the young woman or maidservant — appears throughout Scripture as an unlikely instrument of God's providence. The nameless servant girl in 2 Kings 5:2-3 who told Naaman about the prophet Elisha set in motion one of the most dramatic healings of the Old Testament. Her few words — spoken as a captive slave in a foreign land — changed a general's life and ultimately led to a declaration of Israel's God as the only true God (2 Kings 5:15). This is the theology of the naʿarāh: God uses the small voice of the young and powerless to accomplish massive redemptive purposes. Ruth, gleaning as a naʿarāh in a foreign field, would become the great-grandmother of David and an ancestor of Christ. No position is too small for kingdom significance.