Judges 9-1 Samuel 3/Luke 14-17

Luke
14: Jesus continues to call the "status quo" into question. If you can haul your donkey out of a hole on the sabbath, why not heal someone? Do not presume; do not carry around with you a sense of entitlement (he nearly quotes Proverbs 25.6-7 here). Those who are first will be last and those last will be first. Jesus is setting up a new kingdom that will not be like the world you revere today.

15: This chapter is all about that parable. The Pharisees were appalled because Jesus was eating with (and therefore associating himself with) the wrong kind of people. The brilliance of the parable is not only because it is about the prodigal son, but the elder brother as well.

16: I'm interested to hear what you think about the story of the dishonest manager. What is the point Jesus is trying to make? What is Jesus trying to say about money and riches? The Pharisees, and most of the culture at the time, saw wealth as a sign of God's blessing. If you had lots of resources, you must have deserved them.

John's arrival herald's the coming of God's kingdom. How this relates to divorce is unclear, though Jesus may have specifically referred to divorcing in order to marry another, which is what Herod Antipas had done.

The story of the rich man and Lazarus is another tale of great reversal. The one who is blessed is cursed and the one cursed, blessed. Jesus is indicting a system where the poor could be allowed to suffer so much at the door step of the rich. The other point he makes is our own lack of trust. We sometimes think that an experience we have will convince us of something. Jesus points out that it is never that simple.

17: It starts with a collection of different sayings about obedience, forgiveness, leading others astray. We then have the story of 10 lepers. The one who returns is the Samaritan. That's not how it's supposed to be. Topsy-turvey again.

Jesus talks about the kingdom. The Pharisees are looking for political or military events. Jesus tells them to find the kingdom in his ministry.

He talks about one of the days of the Son of Man. He warns against false prophets who foretell it's arrival. He warns them that there will be no warning. People will be carrying on in life as usual - so you must always be prepared. That message would have been important for Christians at the end of the first century who expected Jesus to have returned by then.


Judges
9: The sordid tale of Abimelech. He convinces the people of the area of Shechem (the Lords of Shechem) to make him king - which is a bad idea. Shechem is an important place, where several covenants with Yahweh were ratified by the assembly. We learned last week that a wise man proclaims Yahweh as king. He has all his brothers (they would be rivals) executed, probably in one day. Seventy heads on one bloody stone. The youngest escapes and pronounces a curse in a satirical story about Abimelech and those who would make him a king.

The Shechemites come to dislike Abimelech. They side with Gaal who is bragging. Zebul, who ruled that city, sends word to Abilmelech, who attacks. Gaal asks for help, but doesn't get any; he and many Shechemites are defeated.

Abimelech then does three things. He slaughters the people who come out to work the next day. He destroys the tower of Shechem and sows the ground with salt (so nothing would grow there). He besieges the city of Thebez, where he is killed by a woman who hurled a stone over the wall. When he dies, everyone seems to lose resolve and goes home.

How does the writer/editor evaluate this tale: snakes fighting snakes.

10: Two minor judges followed by the story of Jephthah. This story begins with the setup. It is the only story to take place in the Transjordan and the only one where the people repent. The people chased after other gods. They become oppressed by the Ammonites. The people cry out, and God could not longer bear to see them suffer.

11: Jephthah was no pillar of virtue. He was shrewd and accomplished as a military leader. Think if the local government turned to the Mafia for help in dealing with a threat.

Jephthah has no motivation to help except that he is made "head," which is apparently better than being a commander.

Jephthah attempts diplomacy and argues from history and the result of battles that the Israelites have a claim to the land. This might sound familiar; it is the same type of argument that we hear from both Jews and Palestinians today.

Jephthah's vow and its fulfillment should not be seen in a positive light. It is, rather, another story showing the downward spiral of the Israelites. Their enemies in this story, the Ammonites, worshiped Molech who demanded child sacrifice. The Law speaks about this specifically as a hideous abomination. Yet here the Israelite who defeated them is sacrificing his own daughter.

12: Again we have civil war as in chapter 9. God is not mentioned nor apparently involved. The motivation of the Ephraimtes are not clear, but they seem to be portrayed as scavengers looking for an easy meal. They battle with Jephthah and his Gileadites and lose control over the Jordan crossing. The Ephraimtes couldn't say the "sh" sound and so were found out. You can imagine Americans having to pronounce an Italian or a French "R" sound - or an Asian trying the same. These civil conflicts anticipate the further downward spiral that climaxes at the end of the book.

Finally there are a few minor judges.

13: This begins the story of Samson. He is the final judge and really reaches into the moral dregs. Samson is perhaps the mightiest but also the worst judge: He breaks his nazarite vow; he sleeps with non-Israelite women; never works with the other Israelites in his fight with the Philistines. And of course, he never really liberates the people from oppression. On the whole this is a tragic story of failure.

Samson is a Danite. They were along the Philistine border at the time of Samson but later move north. Samson's birth is accompanied by signs and appearances; it can be compared with the birth of Isaac, Samuel, John the Baptist and Jesus. Manoah does not come off as well as his wife, but neither of them know what the nazarite vow was anymore, and they don't seem to understand whether they should worship the angel or whether it is another kind of god. Eventually Samson is born and becomes strong.

14: Samson finds a foreign wife and demands his parents get her for him. He kills a lion. Later he takes the honey from the corpse, breaking his vow and defiling himself as well as his parents. He shoots his mouth off at the wedding. He gets fooled by his wife. He murders thirty men in another town to pay his debt. His wife is given to his best man. Quite a start.

15: When he cannot get his wife back he burns down the local grain fields. The people respond by burning his wife and her family. He gets so angry he kills these people. This escalating revenge is exactly what the law "eye for an eye" was meant to prevent.

Samson flees, but his fellow Israelites want nothing to do with him. They bind him and bring him to the Philistines, but he breaks loose and kills them with the jawbone of an ass. His poem plays upon the similarity in Hebrew between jawbone and heap.

Samson's first prayer is a demand for water - much like the Israelite's in the desert when they tested God.

16: Samson's weakness and foolishness reaches it's height with Delilah. You think he would have caught on. He is shaved, blinded and shamed with forced labor. He is made to perform like a monkey at the Philistine feast. His final prayer and his final act, like all the others he had performed, were for personal revenge. Samson was never concerned about anyone but himself and his appetites and pride. Again: snakes killing snakes.

17: We begin to hear the phrase, "there was no king in Israel, everyone did what was right in their own eyes"(as opposed to following the law). 17-21 form a kind of double conclusion that describes the final and utter disintegration of the society of the 12 tribes. It begins with a man who takes stolen money and builds an idol and shrine and sets up his own worship center instead of the tabernacle (which likely resided primarily at Shiloh). Later he hires a priest who is not dwelling in a Levitical town, as he was supposed to.

18: The Danites (Samson's relatives) leave, probably because they are being oppressed by the Philistines, whom Samson failed to defeat. They go to the far north of the Israelite territory and set upon a town with no walls (they were living there securely v. 8). On the way they capture the idol and priest from Micah and set up an alternative temple (likely to Yahweh) far to the north in Dan - take a look at a map - Dan is directly north of the Sea of Galilee (or Chennereth). The description of their apostasy is an echo that resonates into the later history of the northern tribes of Israel after the kingdom is split at the end of Solomon's reign.

19: Not a pleasant story. The Levite is put on the road to retrieve his concubine. Remember familial relationships were often a matter of survival. The man in Bethlehem, of Judah, is hospitable to a fault. When the Levite leaves, he travels and skips Jerusalem (Jebbus) because he expects hospitality from his own kindred, his fellow Israelites. He stops at Gibeah, which belonged to the tribe of Benjamin. The Benjemanites do not show hospitality and take him in. It is an Ephraimite, living in the city who takes him in. What unfolds is an unseemly tale that reminds the reader of the story of Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah.

The Levite shows callousness to the concubine the next morning. We are not even sure when she died. The implication is that it was in the night, but it is possible that she finally died when he cuts her up. The Israelites have hit rock bottom here.

20: In all the book of Judges no one has been able to muster all of Israel until now (Dan is to the far north, Beer-sheba to far south and Gilead is the Transjordan). The callous Levite, his honor besmirched, gives his account, and based on the testimony of one witness (and not two) the assembly decides to apply the ban or herem on the people of Gibeah.

The Benjamites, from whom will come the first Israelite king, Saul, decide to fight. They are very successful at first, but in the third encounter the armies of Israel use a classic tactic to get the Benjamite army to draw away from the city. They find themselves completely surrounded and flee. Of all the Benjamites only 600 escape, and the town of Gibeah, as well as a few nearby others, are put to the herem - men, women, children and animals. The city is burned to the ground.

How God fits in can be difficult to determine. When it says they "inquired of the Lord," this means by divination. What probably occurs is what is found later in the stories of Samuel and Kings - the Urrim and Thurrim are used, which was a basic "yes" or "no." We shouldn't think of this as a voice from heaven, but rather someone rolling dice.

21: The rash oaths of the assembly threaten the existence of Benjamin. The other oath provides a solution. They put the Israelite town of Jabesh-gilead to the herem, take the virgins from that town and give them to the Benjaminites to repopulate.

After this abhorrent act there are still not enough women. The second idea - go and abduct the dancers who are celebrating at the annual festival of Yahweh. If their fathers complain, we'll protect you from reprisal. They do not bother to consult Yahweh in any way.

The final judgment of this time echoes in v. 25.

Ruth
Ruth is a story of fertility and life. The themes of marriage and harvest meld together in its text. After the madness of Judges, it is a pleasant reminder that during the time of the judges people were still able to find happiness and blessing.

1: It starts out with some bad luck. Naomi's sons are sickly. They marry, but die soon and eventually Naomi's husband dies as well. Now Naomi finds herself with no hope and two daughter-in-laws. Remember, women of this time didn't own property. They had moved away from their family and so had no welfare safety net. Their likely future was one of starvation or prostitution.

Orpah goes her own way to try and find another husband, but Ruth decides to stick with Naomi. They return to Bethlehem, arriving at the beginning of the barely harvest. Notice a point is made that Ruth was a Moabite, not an Israelite. This is an important part of understanding the reversal of fortune that happens to her.

2: Boaz is introduced, a member of Naomi's extended family. Ruth goes to glean for Naomi and herself. If you recall the law, the farmer was not to go over their fields twice or harvest the edges of their fields. What was missed was for foreigners, the poor and widows. Ruth is all three.

Boaz notices Ruth and apparently has heard of her story. He is especially gracious to her, offering protection and water. He then invites her to the shared meal and tells the reapers to leave extra grain for her. Boaz is being generous far beyond what the law dictated. An ephah of grain is a very good day's work. Notice both men and women worked in the harvest. The chapter ends with the end of the harvest, as it began at the beginning.

3: Feet are often a euphemism for genitals, so there may be more going on than a purely literal reading would give. Boaz is not a brother-in-law, so there is no strict requirement that he marry Ruth. However, it would be seen as an appropriate and generous act. There is the added suspense of a nearer related kinsman - will that the get married and live happily-ever-after??

4: Boaz makes a shrewd deal and gets some land as well as Ruth's hand in marriage. It is likely that the family did not want the hassle of a land dispute, so Boaz aquires both. The live happily ever after, and we discover that Ruth the Moabite becomes King David's grandmother.

1 Samuel
1 &2 Samuel were originally one book, probably also connected with 1 &2 Kings. The viewpoint and themes are similar throughout. 1 Samuel is a book that focuses on three people. The first section is the story of Samuel. Then we have the story of Saul; then the story of David. Samuel is the last judge and is also a prophet who anoints both Saul and David as King over the Israelites.

1: We start with Samuel's mother, Hannah. She cannot have children, so the other wives made fun of her, but her husband liked her. She prayed for a child with the promise that he will be dedicated to service in the temple.

2: God hears her prayer and Hannah responds with her song. Notice how similar her song is to Mary's in Luke 1.46-55.

The second part of this chapter connects with chapter 3. Eli's sons are priests in the tabernacle, but they are crooked and making themselves rich. Eli seems powerless to stop it. A prophet comes to warn Eli. We don't know his reaction. However, later Samuel, when he is still young and serving in the temple hears this prophecy from God as well. He is worried about telling Eli, but when pressed he reveals the message. Eli seems to accept this judgment as just.

Samuel rises to prominence as one who speaks truly for God (his words do not fall). He becomes known and respected from Dan in the far north to Bee-sheba in the far south.