We have just finished the book of Judges, and in the last five chapters of the book of Judges, we’ve had a couple of insights to the conditions of the nation of Israel during the time in which the judges ruled. The one insight was concerning a priest that had come from Bethlehem-judah, and was hired out to the house of Micah, who was later enticed by the men of Dan, and he ripped off from Micah some of the artifacts of worship that Micah had in his house. He went with the man, men of Dan, to be their priest, as they established the city of Dan in the northern part of the country. Religiously, a confusing incident. I mean, the priest should be guilty of ripping off his friend of the various artifacts and so forth, is uncongenial.

The next incident that is recorded, and the last one recorded in the book of Judges is that tough, tough incident that we had last Sunday night, where a priest from mount Ephraim, went down to Bethlehem-judah, to retrieve his concubine who had committed whoredom, and had left him, to entice her to come back home to him. How that as they stayed at the city of Gibeah, a Benjamite city, the men of the city, as the men of Sodom came and beat at the door, and wanted the host to release this priest, in order that they might have homosexual relationships with him. How that instead, they sent the concubine out, who the men raped all night, and who was lying at the doorstep dead in the morning.

The civil war that took place between the tribes of Israel, and the tribe of Benjamin. That horrible incident, the horrible things that were happening. During the time of the Judges, it was a time of moral decay, as is evidenced by the stories. It was a time of religious confusion. It was marked by the fact, you remember, and at that time there was no king in Israel, and every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Period of anarchy.

In this black background, God was at work. God was preparing a family through which the Messiah would come. God often times works when we cannot see His work. When we look around and we see the moral decay, and we see the corrupted conditions, it seems that God has forsaken man, and God has forsaken His program. Yet, God is at work, and God was working.

So the book of Ruth, chronologically, fits back in the time of the Judges. And, God is at work. It is really a, a book that fits really between the Judges, and Samuel. Because it is not only giving us things that were happening during the time of the Judges, to show that God was at work, but also, it is an introduction for the book of Samuel. For it will bring to us the introduction of David, who became the great king of Israel, who was crowned in the book of Samuel, as the king over Israel. So it’s sort of a bridge between the book of Judges, and the book of Samuel.

However, it does not appear in that place in the Hebrew bible. In the Hebrew bible, there are five books known as the Miginoth. They are read at the feast times, and they are in a section by themselves. One is the book of Esther, one is the book of Lamentations, another one is the book of Ruth.

The book of Ruth was traditionally read at the feast of Pentecost. Probably, in a sense, that would be a very fitting. Because the feast of Pentecost does celebrate the gathering in at the harvest, at the time of the grain harvest, it really celebrates the harvest being gathered in. Ruth has to do with the time of the grain harvest. So the book is traditionally read among the Jews at the time of Pentecost.