Daily Bible Reading Podcast

RUTH 1-2:The incident of the Levite and his concubine at Gibeah resulted in the civil war that we heard about yesterday. About 24,000 men died and many women and children as well. In certain things the army inquired of the Lord, and the Lord gave answers at his sanctuary. In the way they found wives for the decimated tribe of Benjamin, the men of Israel were repeatedly so concerned that they not break their vows. Paradoxically, they did many other things without any concern whatsoever about acting according to God’s revealed will. Let’s consider that story as a warning. Beware of the human tendency of myopic obedience to a prefered list of rules, while living like a pagan in other respects. Again the theme statement is repeated in the last verse of the book, “In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.” And now we turn to the book of Ruth. The Talmud attributes the authorship of this book to Samuel. The story of Ruth took place during the same time as the book