Judges 17 – Note: Judges 17 – 21 seem to be an epilogue describing earlier events in the time of Judges. Chapters 17 and 18, for example, describe how some people of the tribe of Dan went about getting some land for themselves. If these events had happened after the time of Samson, the allotment of land would have been long since complete. Chapters 19 – 21 describe a tragic event that led to the near annihilation of the tribe of Benjamin. In chapter 20:27, it says that Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, was the priest serving before the ark of the LORD at the time, further pointing to the fact that these events must have happened fairly early in the time of the judges.
Verses 1 – 2; In these verses, I believe we have an example of the difficulties of ancient recordkeeping. Since both ink and the medium to write on were rare and valuable, there was no such thing as a first draft, only the final one. It seems as if the writer of Judges is beginning to tell an account of Micah’s idols and realizes that a small detail should be included regarding where the money came from in the first place. Some people might wonder if this violates the concept of the inspiration of the Bible. If God is moving the writer to write, would such awkward sentences, like we see in verses 1 and 2, ever occur in the Bible at all? But God did not turn the Biblical writers into human dictation machines. Instead, he used their styles, vocabularies, individual strengths and weaknesses, etc., to get across the inspired concepts and teachings he had in mind. The writer of this part wants to get across this idea – a young man stole money from his mother, his mother cursed the person who did it causing the young man to feel remorse and decide to give the money back.
Verses 3 - 6; Presumably, the young man told his mother what his intentions were – to make “a carved image and a cast idol.” I’m not sure what the difference is between those things. Perhaps they were two different deities, intended to represent both Yahweh (the LORD) and one of the false Canaanite gods. I’m guessing he convinced his mom that this would be a good idea, thinking that having the idols would either bring them luck or money, as travelers would visit Micah’s shrine. The spiritual confusion of the time of the Judges is evident, as neither Micah nor his mother saw a problem with calling on multiple gods. As verse 6 said, everyone in Israel did as he saw fit.
Verses 7 – 13; Bringing blessing from the LORD seems to be Micah’s motivation for all this (verse 13). But the LORD wanted obedience to His word, not to be manipulated into blessing people as Micah was trying to do. The spiritual poverty is underscored by the fact that a Levite, who should have known better, agreed to this whole silly scheme.
Judges 18 – Verses 1 – 10; The Danites who had not yet come into an inheritance of the tribes of Israel points to the probability that this account occurred early in the time of the Judges while some of the land was still being allotted. The Danite’s travels caused them to cross paths with Micah and his young Levite priest. They scouted out a city where people lived “like the Sidonians.” This was most likely a settlement of people from Sidon who, some time ago, looked for a new place to live and found this town of Laish. The Danites decided that they would attack these vulnerable people and make the town their own.
Verses 11 – 31; It looks as if the writer of Judges does not approve of the actions of the Danites – attacking this unsuspecting city (see verses 27 and 28). The Sidonians were not one of the nations of Canaan designated by God for destruction because of their wickedness, so this attack by the Danites was not authorized or necessarily God-pleasing. Along the way, they decided to bring the young Levite who served as Micah’s priest and the idols along with them and set up a shrine in Laish, which they renamed Dan. The spiritual renegade mentality of the people of the city of Dan continued throughout its history. When the people of Israel were later divided into two nations of Israel and Judah, Dan was one of the towns in which golden calves were set up for the people to worship so they wouldn’t have to go to the territory of Judah in order to visit Solomon’s temple. Though they called it worshipping Yahweh, the practice angered God greatly, as did what is recorded here in chapter 18.
Judges 19 – Judges 19 may have the distinction as one of the darkest chapters in the Bible. It demonstrates how low the Israelites had sunk in their moral depravity. They had become exactly like Sodom and Gomorrah, which had exhibited the same type of behavior (Genesis 19) and been destroyed for it. The similarities are striking. A high percentage of the men from Sodom and Gomorrah wanted to have sex with the two men who were visiting Lot (angels in disguise). In Gibeah, it was “wicked men of the city.” The Hebrew word for “wicked,” by the way, refers to some type of moral depravity.
In Sodom, Lot offered his daughters to the men in place of his guests. In Gibeah, the visiting Levite offered his concubine to them, and the man with whom he was staying offered his virgin daughter. There was virtually no difference between Lot’s twisted morals and those of these men of Israel to callously offer defenseless women to be abused in this way rather than them.
The Levite then showed a complete lack of introspection as he cut up the body of his concubine (after she had died from her abuse at the hands of those men all night) to be sent to the twelve tribes of Israel to either (1) awaken them from their moral lethargy, or (2) call them to action against the people of the town who did this terrible thing. Yet the Levite is the biggest hypocrite of all, pointing the finger at the men of Gibeah, when he was just as guilty for abandoning his concubine to such a terrible fate.
Judges 20 – Verses 1 – 11; in response to the Levite’s ‘message’ to the 12 tribes of Israel, 400,000 soldiers showed up. After the Levite had related his story (without including the fact that he had willingly subjected his concubine to the abuse), those who had assembled decided that the evil should be purged from Israel.
Verses 12 – 17; trying to avoid a civil war, word was sent throughout the tribe of Benjamin, encouraging them to surrender Gibeah and not get involved. Benjamin responded with 26,000 swordsmen and 700 “slingers,” who could sling a stone at a hair and not miss. As a parenthetical note, some Bible skeptics have said it would be impossible for David to bring Goliath down with a sling. However, slingers could be deadly fighters, learning to sling their stones (some peoples developed the technology to use iron ball bearing type projectiles) with deadly force and accuracy.
Verses 18 – 25; twice the Israelites inquired of the LORD and were told, by use of the Urim and Thummim (a way of casting lots that God had given them) that they should go into battle. Twice the Benjamites beat them back, inflicting heavy casualties. That tells me that though the what the inhabitants of Gibeah had done was terrible, the rest of Israel was not without guilt either. Certainly the Levite, who had called everyone together to do his dirty work for him, was lacking in his moral compass.
Verses 26 – 48; finally the vastly outnumbered Benjamites were defeated and very nearly wiped out.
Judges 21 – The aftermath of the civil war was horrible. The Israelites grieved that the Benjamites had almost been wiped out. It was very important to them that all 12 tribes stay in tact. (Similarly, it was important to the disciples that a twelfth disciple be chosen to take the place of Judas Iscariot, in Acts one. There’s something significant about the number 12. In the book of Revelation, there are 24 elders, representing the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 disciples. There are also 12 gates and 12 foundations of the heavenly Jerusalem, also representing the tribes and the disciples.)
The Israelites were in a quandary. They were distraught that the Benjamites could possibly cease to exist, but they had taken an oath not to let any of the Benjamites marry their daughters. What to do? Their solution was to kill the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead because they had neglected to assemble with the rest of the Israelites (and the penalty for doing that was death), but spare the young virgins among them as wives for the Benjamites. That still wasn’t enough wives to go around, so they encouraged the Benjamites to kidnap wives for themselves. This was a far cry from the care Abraham took to select a wife for his son Isaac. Obviously, this was not the ideal way to get a wife. Imagine the fear and resentment of those young girls! But the time of Judges was a lawless time. “Everyone did as he saw fit.”
Ruth 1 – We’re not sure when the famine was that is mentioned in this chapter. It was severe enough to cause people to look for another place to live. It is mentioned that Elimelech was an “Ephrathite” from Bethlehem. In Micah 5:2, Bethlehem is called “Bethlehem Ephratha” in a prophecy about the birth of the Messiah there. It’s possible that Ephratha was the name of the patriarch of Elimelech’s clan, and it was Ephratha’s region in which Bethlehem was situated.
Tragedy struck Elimelech’s household, as he and his sons died, leaving his wife and two daughters widows. Verses 13 and 20-21 make it very clear that these tragedies brought great sadness to Naomi.
After repeated attempts, Naomi couldn’t get Ruth to forsake her and rejoin her own people, as her other daughter-in-law, Orpah, did. I can only assume that Naomi was a tremendous influence on Ruth, to the point where Ruth wanted to incorporate into her life everything that Naomi was, including Naomi’s God.
In verses 20 and 21, Naomi is very candid about the trouble the Lord has allowed into her life. But all the while, there is an implied truth that the Lord has the right to do or not do whatever he wants.
Ruth 2 – Apparently, Naomi was of an age and stage of physical health so as not to be able to glean wheat in the field. It was hard work and often hot. Ruth went to do it for her. She attracted the attention of Naomi’s relative, Boaz, who had heard how kind Ruth had been to Naomi. God rewarded Ruth’s kindness with a kindness Boaz showed back to her. He allowed her to stay in his fields (in fact, invited her to stay there and glean throughout the harvest) so she would be safe and he could make sure her gleaning was fruitful. A key turning point in the account of Ruth is Naomi’s restored hope. When she saw that God had lead Ruth to the field of one of her relatives, she was encouraged that they would be able to survive. It was very difficult for widows to make ends meet in that day’s society. Boaz, as a relative, was responsible for the protecting the interests of needy members of his extended family, like Naomi and Ruth. This could be done in a variety of ways, one of which was to marry a widowed woman in order to provide children, who would one day be able to care and provide for her.
Ruth 3 – All this seems strange to us, but it was the custom of the day. Ruth’s actions were not forward in a sensual way. She was simply laying claim to her lawful right to have a relative of her dead husband take her as his wife. Boaz, likewise, did everything to the letter of the law. He was impressed that Ruth kept Naomi’s needs as her top priority, and appealed to a man who had the means to provide for both of them rather than a younger man closer to Ruth’s age. However much he might have wanted to marry Ruth, he still went through the proper channels of checking to see if a closer relative would want to marry Ruth and fulfill that lawful obligation to provide for her and Naomi.
Why was Boaz sleeping at the threshing floor? I’m guessing that the harvest was an intense time of activity, and rather than go home (which might have been a few miles walk) it was more practical for workers to stay at the threshing floor so that they could work early in the morning and well into the evening.
Ruth 4 – It looks as if Naomi had retained a piece of property that she was wanting to sell to help make ends meet. The other kinsman redeemer was more than happy to acquire that property, but when he learned that he would also be obligated to care for Naomi and take Ruth for his wife, he refused, on the grounds that it would “endanger his estate.” In other words, if Ruth bore him his only male heir, Elimelech’s family would receive his whole estate by inheritance rather than his family. His refusal underscores Boaz’s generosity. He was very willing to help Ruth and Naomi, without concern for his family’s future assets.
In a sense, the child Ruth and Boaz had together was Naomi’s child, because it was Naomi’s relation to him that obligated Boaz to act as kinsman redeemer. The whole story of Ruth is a story of the power of God to restore. Naomi started out desolate, but ends the story blessed. Blessed beyond her understanding, as it turned out little Obed that she held on her lap (verse 16) would be the grandfather of king David and the ancestor of Jesus Christ.
1 Samuel 1 – The Birth of Samuel – On many occasions, a birth in which God intervened miraculously to bring a child for a woman who was previously childless resulted in a special servant of God. Isaac, Samson and John the Baptist come to mind, as well as Jacob’s son Joseph.
In her anguish of her soul, Hannah prayed to God, even vowing to him that her unborn son would be dedicated to the Lord. Even before she had any tangible proof of an answer to her prayer, she was uplifted (verse 18). That’s a benefit of prayer we all can enjoy. It encourages and strengthens us even before the answer to our prayer comes.
When Samuel was weaned (in those days, perhaps 2 or 3 years of age), Hannah brought him to be dedicated to the Lord as she had promised. I wonder if it was strange for Eli to accept a child as a gift to the Lord, but to his credit he did so (we can assume that Eli’s wife or his sons wives primarily cared for and nurtured Samuel in his youth). God had plans for this little boy, as we will soon see. |
