Tag: Morning Musings

Morning Musing: Ruth 1:3-5

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“But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons.  These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth.  They lived there about ten years, and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Ruth is one of the most beautiful stories in the Bible.  This is for several reasons which unfold over the course of its telling.  It takes place during the same time period as Judges.  And, in the beginning, it figures to be about as dark as its companion narrative. Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Judges 21:6-7

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“And the people of Israel had compassion for Benjamin their brother and said, ‘One tribe is cut off from Israel this day.  What shall we do for wives for those who are left, since we have sworn by the Lord that we will not give them any of our daughters for wives?'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

You would think that here at the end of the book we would get some kind of a happy ending.  And as this chapter starts, it looks like we might.  The people collectively realize what they have done in nearly completely eliminating the tribe of Benjamin by civil war.  They also consider the gravity of having sworn an oath to the Lord together that they would not give their daughters as wives to the surviving men, thereby guaranteeing their eventually disappearance.  It leaves the reader finally cheering a bit: “Here, now they will finally turn back to the Lord and get back on the right track.”  But, that’s not the kind of book this is. Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Judges 19:12

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“And his master said to him, ‘We will not turn aside into the city of foreigners, who do not belong to the people of Israel, but we will pass on to Gibeah.'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

This judgment on the part of the Levite is fraught with irony.  He doesn’t want to stay with these foreigners because of how his party might be received.  Instead, he insists on traveling a bit further at a time of day that was no longer safe for traveling, so that his party could find shelter among their own people.  And yet, when they arrive in Gibeah, all hell breaks loose. Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Judges 19:1

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“In those days, when there was no king in Israel, a certain Levite was sojourning in the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim, who took to himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Here we arrive at what is arguably the darkest narrative in all of the Scriptures.  The Passion sequence is bad, to be sure, but it at least ends with hope.  From nearly the first words of this chapter through the end of the story in chapter 21 not a single thing goes right.  Everything is wrong. Read the rest…