1Samuel 5:9 And it was so, after they had carried it about, the hand of the Lord was against the city with a very great destruction: and He smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerod’s in their secret parts.

First Book of Samuel: Hannah is barren and without children. She makes a vow to God, if she can have one child, she will dedicate him to the Lord. She becomes pregnant and gives birth to Samuel. She gives him to Head Priest Eli to be trained, as God’s own.

Meanwhile Eli’s own kids (who also serve as priests) are corrupt and abusing their position. Because of this and other issues, the Israelites suffer defeat at the hands of the Philistines. The Philistines take the Ark of God. Bad things happen to the Philistines because they took the Ark. This is what the above passage is about. (Note: emerods are hemorrhoids).

I don’t really have a comment on this… Perhaps it doesn’t need any of my comments.

Ruth 2:2 And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after one in whose sight I may find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.”

The Book of Ruth is an interesting story. Naomi and her husband leave Israel and move to neighboring Moab. In Moab, Naomi has two sons who marry Moabites.  As fate would have it, all the men (Naomi’s husband and both her sons die.) Naomi returns to Israel, her daughter-in-law, Ruth is steadfast and goes with her.  There, Ruth eventually marries a man named Boaz.  Ruth and Boaz have a son named Obed. Obed is the grandfather of King David.

In the above passage, Ruth asks Naomi for permission to go to the Boaz’s fields and glean.  Gleaning is going through the fields and picking up the remains of what is left after the crop has been harvested. It is barely enough food to live under normal circumstances. I imagine it is hard dirty work.

However, it is doing just that that allows Ruth to meet her destiny.  Though this menial work Ruth not only ends up with a vastly improved lifestyle but also becomes the Mother of Kings.

We might all learn something from that story. 

Judges 21:25 In those days Israel had no king; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Eventually not only did the people of Israel drift away from God, the tales of the atrocities that were committed get really bad.  The last stories of Judges are quite disturbing.

The story of Samson is indicative of a downward spiral.  Samson was chosen before he was born to be God’s anointed. However, his own selfishness and vanity and lack of concern for God’s calling become his own unraveling and in turn, he fails to accomplish much for the people. (Though the Bible says he led Israel for 20 years).

The downward spiral continues. By the end of this Book, the Israelites, themselves, nearly completely wipe out the tribe of Benjamin.  It seems sometimes, God’s people and their attitudes were the cause of a greater danger of decreasing God’s chosen than the threats from outside.

Makes me wonder: Are my words and actions more likely to contribute to an increase in God’s Kingdom, or a decrease?

Judges 6:13 And Gideon said unto Him, Oh my Lord, if the LORD be with us, why then is all this befallen us? And where be all His miracles, which our fathers told us of, saying, did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt? But now the LORD hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.

The people of Israel had fallen away and were being oppressed by the Midianites. The Angel of the Lord came to Gideon and told him that the Lord was with him.  However, Gideon’s reply was basically, “Why are all these bad things happening and the Lord hasn’t done anything about them? If the Lord is good, why doesn’t He do something about it?”

The Lord’s reply is in the next verse, “Am I not sending you?”

I wonder how many times we have asked similar questions of God. Many times, I believe God’s reply to us would be the same as it was to Gideon.