A Tale of Two Ruth's

My mom was a quiet hardworking woman named Ruth.

When she was a young girl she met my father, a man eighteen years her senior.  They married and she was rescued from a life in a packed two bedroom shack that she shared with her parents and six siblings.  Mom was always close with her family, but they had a tough life.  So tough that she didn't like to talk about it and didn't even like looking at the rare pictures that existed from her childhood.  Dad provided stability and a way to get out.  The romantic side of me says they fell deeply in love and were married solely because of this love.  The realistic part of me thinks that while she probably did love him, marriage was also an escape.  Either way, they built a family; and that family would go on to do things neither of them would have imagined.

Mom reminds me a lot of Ruth from the Bible.

The book of Ruth takes place during the time of the judges.  Because of a terrible famine in the lands of Caanan, Ephrathites, an Israelite, moved his family from Bethlehem in Judah to the foreign land of Moab.  There he had two sons with his wife Naomi.  These sons married Moabite women.  After some years, the husband and then the two sons died.  It could not have been an easy time for a widow in a foreign land.  If she was ever going to leave, now was the time.

Naomi heard there was food in her home land and decided to move back.

She told her daughters-in-law that they should stay in Moab with their families, find husbands and build a new life.  One daughter-in-law, Orpah, did as she was asked and left.  Ruth, however, decided to stay with Naomi and worship the God that Naomi had so often spoke about.  The trip could not have been easy.  Two women, on foot, with no-one to protect them.

But, they made it to Bethlehem.

When Ruth and Naomi arrived they were greeted by the women of the town and Naomi told her tales of woe to anyone who would listen.  She explained who Ruth was and that she would be staying with her.  The two women had a place to stay, but no livelihood.  So, Ruth went to the fields to glean grain left on the ground after the workers had gone through.

It just happened she gleaned wheat from the fields of Boaz.

Boaz was a member of Naomi's clan.  He was a God fearing man and landowner, fair to his workers.  Boaz noticed Ruth in the fields and asked about her, heard she was taking care of his relative Naomi and instructed the men to leave her plenty of grain to glean.  He also instructed the men to leave Ruth alone, invited her to eat lunch with him and his workers, and told Ruth she should join the other women and glean everyday until harvest was over.

Naomi was thrilled and had a plan.

She instructed Ruth to go to the threshing floor one night and find Boaz, after he was a bit drunk and asleep.  She was to "uncover his feet" and lay by him.  Boaz, upon finding Ruth, had a plan of his own.  He was going to take care of Ruth, marry her and buy the land so the family line would continue.  But first, there was another man he had to go through.  This other man was the first in line to be Naomi's guardian redeemer and he had to first say he did not want the land or the women that came with it.  Once that was done, Boaz could do as he wished.

Boaz, through some tricky manipulations, got both the land and Ruth.

Ruth and Boaz were married and had a son named Obed.  Obed was the father of Jesse who was the father of David.  David is in the lineage of Jesus, as listed in both the Gospel of Mathew and the Gospel of Luke. (Interestingly, after David the two gospels differ on how we get to Jesus.  Maybe one is the line of Joseph and one of Mary?)  I think what is important about this union is that Jesus came from a lineage that united a son of Israel with an outsider.  Was this to show the world should be united, regardless of where the people began?

Something to think about.

Judges - Disobedience and Violence

This was a messed up time for the Israelites.

Moses was gone; Joshua was gone; there was no one to lead the Israelites in a God fearing life.  And they behaved terribly.  They did everything God asked them not to do.  But, God took pity on the Israelites as they begged for forgiveness and assigned judges to guide them. During each judge's lifetime, God was with the people and they generally toed the line. When the judge died, the people fell back into old habits and God punished them.  The cycle continued over and over again.

The fourth judge was Deborah.

Yes, you read that right.  Deborah was a woman and a leader of all the people of the tribe.  They listened to her, deferred to her, followed her.  Let me say that again.  God chose a woman to lead the Israelites.  Deborah was a prophet, a judge, a military leader and a poet.  Pretty amazing.  After the fighting ended and victory was in hand, Deborah lead the Israelites through forty years of peace.

Then Deborah died and conflict returned.

During approximately the next one hundred seventy years there were times of peace and times of conflict.  God chose several judges throughout the years to lead, some who were better than others.  It really didn't matter because the Israelites kept falling away from God.  In the end, God saw the tribes of Israel spend the last forty years of this time frame oppressed by the Philistines.

Then came Samson.

I thought I knew the story of Samson, but mostly I knew the story of Samson and Delilah.  Samson was a Nazarite, dedicated to God from the womb, because an Angel of the Lord came to Samson's parents prior to his birth and decreed this to happen.  (Numbers Chapter Six talked about the Nazarite vow in great detail if you would like a refresher.)  There are several bazaar Samson stories. From the lion he killed bare handed who grew honey in its belly (which Samson strangely ate and fed to his parents), to the odd riddle he told about it which ultimately resulted in his wife and her father being killed.  Then he meets Delilah and apparently loses his mind.  She clearly tries to trick Samson so the Philistines can subdue him, yet Samson keeps falling for her ruses.  She finally learns the true secret of God's gift of strength to Samson and cuts his hair. Samson consequently loses his strength, is captured, has his eyes gouged out and later destroys the city (after his hair grows back in) and gives his life back to God in death.

Back to more destruction and cringe worthy stories.

First, the Danites destroy a peaceful town just because they felt entitled to the land.  Next, a terrible story of a Levite and his concubine wife.  As he is bringing her home they stop for the night in Gibeah, as Israelite city controlled by the Benjamites.  There, a group of men want to have their way with the man and he offers them his wife to save himself.  After raping her, they left her to die on the doorstep of the house he is staying at.  The Levite cuts her into twelve pieces and sends a piece to each Israelite tribe.  All the other Israelites attack the Benjamites and kill all but the six hundred that run into the mountains.  Because the Benjamites are part of the tribes of Israel, it was arranged to get them wives through an intricate scheme so all the tribes can continue on.

With that, Judges finally comes to an end.

Joshua

Everything I knew about Joshua came from an old Sunday School song...

     Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho

     Joshua fought the battle of Jericho
     And the walls came a-tumbling down...

Well, Joshua did a lot more than fight one battle.

After taking over for Moses, Joshua sent two spies to the city of Jericho.  The spies encounter a woman, Rahab, who hides them. The king's men come looking for the spies and Rahab sends them on a wild goose chase outside the city walls.  She saves the Israelite spies and makes a proposal to them.  Since she protected them, will they protect her and her family during the attack?  Let them live.  The spies agree on the condition that she does not warn the king of Jericho about the impending attack.  

All the Israelites need to get to Jericho, which means crossing the Jordan river.

The Jordan is at flood stage, swollen and rushing.  How will they ever make it across safely?  Do you remember the parting of the Red Sea?  Well, God does it again.  He first sent the priests into the river with the Ark of the Covenant and as soon as they touched the water, it stopped flowing, backing up, creating a dry pathway.  They moved to the middle of the river opening it up from bank to bank while the rest of the Israelites walked across.  Just before the priests progressed to the other side, one man from each tribe carried a rock from the exposed riverbed in front of the priests and took it to the other side as a memorial to the crossing.  The priests stepped onto the other bank and the river started flowing again.

Then came the battle of Jericho.

God gave instructions for seven priests carrying seven horns to walk around the city wall one time and blow the horns once.  They did this for six days and on the seventh day they walked around the city wall seven times and blew the horns.  Joshua then gave the call for the Israelites to shout (not attack) and the walls came tumbling down, just like in the song.  True to the promise, Rahab and her family were saved while the rest of the city was burned to the ground.

God instructed the Israelites to take no plunder for themselves.

But one man did not listen.  He took a few items for himself and hid them.  Foolish man.  Because of that one person, God punished all of Israel.  When they went on their next battle they were soundly defeated.  No one could understand why.  Until God made it clear by outing the thief and sentencing him to be stoned and buried.  The lesson would not be forgotten...at least not in Joshua's lifetime.

After that, the Israelites proceed to destroy city after city.

God promised the land of Canaan to the tribes of Israel.  To fulfill this promise, he directed them in a violent, aggressive and vicious takeover of all the cities and their kings.  From this point on, when a city was subdued the Israelites were allowed to take livestock and other plunder, but they must kill all the people.  It was an extremely brutal time in Israel's history.

After the battles were done the lands were divided among all the Israelites.

If any people still remained in the embattled land, they became slaves of the tribe who now ruled the land.  Once the land was divided, the Ruebenites, Gadites and half of the Mannesseh tribes, who had fulfilled their promise to fight with Israel, were allowed to go to the other side of the Jordan and return to their families and the lands Moses had promised them long, long ago.  

On their way back, these tribes built an altar to God on the bank of the Jordan river.  

This almost caused their destruction, as God had been very clear they were not to build additional altars for burnt offerings and their fellow Israelites remembered the last time someone did not obey God's commands - they were all punished.  It was explained the altar was not for offerings, but was a symbol that, even though they did not have lands west of the Jordan, the Ruebenites, Gadites, and Mannessahs were still God's people.  This clarified, they were allowed to go back to their families.

Once the lands were divided among all the tribes of Israel Joshua knew it was time to say farewell.
  
He followed the lead of Moses and gave a history of their journey and reminders that the Israelites must follow the one God.  Do not worship any other god's.  Like Moses, Joshua is worried about the future of the Israelites.  Soon after, Joshua dies and is buried in the land of his tribe.  Joseph's bones, which had been brought from Egypt, were also buried in the promised land on the plot that his father Jacob had purchased long, long ago.

There was not successor named for Joshua - so what happens next?  Keep reading and find out...