Old Sandals

And she made this vow: “O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, if you will look upon my sorrow and answer my prayer and give me a son, then I will give him back to you. He will be yours for his entire lifetime, and as a sign that he has been dedicated to the Lord, his hair will never be cut.”

Can a man (or a woman) really deal this way with the Almighty? The proper theological answer I suppose is no, of course not. But Hannah was not a proper theologian. Nor was her ancestor Jacob when he wrestled all night with the angel.

Studied theologians don’t necessarily make good wrestlers. Perhaps you can’t really be one without the other.

“So Boaz took Ruth into his home, and she became his wife. When he slept with her, the Lord enabled her to become pregnant, and she gave birth to a son.”

The Lord honored the integrity of Boaz and Ruth, and blessed them with sons and daughters, the first of whom became the grandfather of David, the future king of Israel.

Stay here tonight, and in the morning I will talk to him. If he is willing to redeem you, very well. Let him marry you. But if he is not willing, then as surely as the Lord lives, I will redeem you myself! Now lie down here until morning.”

That the Lord lives is the most certain thing in the universe. Boaz describes his determination to do the right thing in terms of this certainty. He does this for the sake of emphasis sake, I suppose, but also because of his strong desire to conduct his affairs in a way pleasing to the Lord.

“While she was there, Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters. ‘The Lord be with you!’ he said.

‘The Lord bless you!’ the harvesters replied.”

That’s the way it ought to be at every work place.

“Look,” Naomi said to her, “your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods. You should do the same.”

And to her gods.  Idols really. There is but one true God. There are many gods out there, ideas out there. Everything depends on getting it right.

“In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.”

They sure did. If ever one verse summarized an entire chapter (or an entire book for that matter), it is this one.

“For they had gone up to Bethel and wept in the presence of the Lord until evening. They had asked the Lord, ‘Should we fight against our relatives from Benjamin again?’

And the Lord had said, ‘Go out and fight against them.'”

Twice the Israelites marched out to fight against Gibeah, and twice they were defeated in battle, losing thousands of men. And yet the Lord had said, “Go out and fight against them.” It wasn’t until the third day that they were able to defeat Gibeah, killing all of its people and burning the city to the ground.

Although this ancient scene is very gruesome, it does teach us a lesson. We are called to obey the Lord, i.e., to center our lives around Him. If we do, we should count it a victory, our present circumstances notwithstanding.

“But they wouldn’t listen to him. So the Levite took hold of his concubine and pushed her out the door. The men of the town abused her all night, taking turns raping her until morning. Finally, at dawn they let her go.”

What a horrible, cowardly action! To save himself, he threw his concubine out into the street, where she was ravaged until morning. She collapsed on the doorstep and died. And this man was a Levite. And this happened in Gibeah, in the land belonging to the tribe of Benjamin. Could the pagan tribes whom the Lord drove out of the land have done worse than this?

“So Micah’s carved image was worshiped by the tribe of Dan as long as the Tabernacle of God remained at Shiloh.”

What a sorry tribe —this tribe of Dan. They mixed it all up. They did it their own way.

“He returned the money to her, and she said, ‘I now dedicate these silver coins to the Lord. In honor of my son, I will have an image carved and an idol cast.'”

This action, of course, was strictly forbidden. She may have wanted to honor her son, but she dishonored the Lord in the process.