Judges, Ruth, and Samuel
By Editor
Six chapters in Judges complete the book,—chapters 11 to 16 inclusive, chapters 17 to 21 having fallen chronologically into our last week's readings. Chapters 11 to 16 portray exceedingly unsatisfactory conditions in Israel, unsatisfactory judges, subjection to the heathen, despoliation of country, tardy repentance, and partial delivery in God's mercy. What a sad ending came to the house of Gideon! How nobly Jephthah fought for his people, and died without posterity! How nobly his daughter acquiesced in his vow, and relinquished her hope of being a mother in Israel! CHAPTERS 13 to 16 are occupied with the checkered career of the strong weak man Samson, so strong physically, so weak morally. God used him; he seems to have been about the only available timber that God could then use; but it is sad to see one who had such splendid opportunities in training and grace so sell them all for companionship with harlots. But the story is often repeated in modern life. THE book of Ruth is a beautiful little narrative, a pastoral romance, a sketch of customs, a revelation of a Redeemer, a link between Judges and Samuel, giving an abbreviated ancestry of David. THE books of Samuel originally formed but one book, and appear as such in ancient Hebrew manuscripts. The first division seems to have been made by the Septuagint translators. The book is a sequel to that of the Judges, beginning with the last of the line, Eli, carrying us forward through the connecting administration of Samuel, uniting in one both prophet and judge, to the establishment of the kingdom under David. The narrative seems to be drawn from various sources, but woven together under the Spirit into one progressive whole. Our reading of this week carries us past the death of the kindly but weak Eli, to the kingship of Saul, already disappointing, and the victory wrought through the valor of Jonathan.