The Expositor's Bible: Judges and Ruth

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Robert Alexander Watson. The Expositor's Bible: Judges and Ruth

THE BOOK OF JUDGES

I. PROBLEMS OF SETTLEMENT AND WAR

II. THE WAY OF THE SWORD

III. AT BOCHIM; THE FIRST PROPHET VOICE

IV. AMONG THE ROCKS OF PAGANISM

V. THE ARM OF ARAM AND OF OTHNIEL

VI. THE DAGGER AND THE OX-GOAD

VII. THE SIBYL OF MOUNT EPHRAIM

VIII. DEBORAH'S SONG: A DIVINE VISION

IX. DEBORAH'S SONG: A CHANT OF PATRIOTISM

X. THE DESERT HORDES; AND THE MAN AT OPHRAH

XI. GIDEON, ICONOCLAST AND REFORMER

XII "THE PEOPLE ARE YET TOO MANY."

XIII "MIDIAN'S EVIL DAY."

XIV. GIDEON THE ECCLESIASTIC

XV. ABIMELECH AND JOTHAM

XVI. GILEAD AND ITS CHIEF

XVII. THE TERRIBLE VOW

XVIII. SHIBBOLETHS

XIX. THE ANGEL IN THE FIELD

XX. SAMSON PLUNGING INTO LIFE

XXI. DAUNTLESS IN BATTLE, IGNORANTLY BRAVE

XXII. PLEASURE AND PERIL IN GAZA

XXIII. THE VALLEY OF SOREK AND OF DEATH

XXIV. THE STOLEN GODS

XXV. FROM JUSTICE TO WILD REVENGE

THE BOOK OF RUTH

I. NAOMI'S BURDEN

II. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

III. IN THE FIELD OF BOAZ

IV. THE HAZARDOUS PLAN

V. THE MARRIAGE AT THE GATE

INDEX

Отрывок из книги

It was a new hour in the history of Israel. To a lengthened period of serfdom there had succeeded a time of sojourn in tents, when the camp of the tribes, half-military, half-pastoral, clustering about the Tabernacle of Witness, moved with it from point to point through the desert. Now the march was over; the nomads had to become settlers, a change not easy for them as they expected it to be, full of significance for the world. The Book of Judges, therefore, is a second Genesis or Chronicle of Beginnings so far as the Hebrew commonwealth is concerned. We see the birth-throes of national life, the experiments, struggles, errors and disasters out of which the moral force of the people gradually rose, growing like a pine tree out of rocky soil.

If we begin our study of the book expecting to find clear evidence of an established Theocracy, a spiritual idea of the kingdom of God ever present to the mind, ever guiding the hope and effort of the tribes, we shall experience that bewilderment which has not seldom fallen upon students of Old Testament history. Divide the life of man into two parts, the sacred and the secular; regard the latter as of no real value compared to the other, as having no relation to that Divine purpose of which the Bible is the oracle; then the Book of Judges must appear out of place in the sacred canon, for unquestionably its main topics are secular from first to last. It preserves the traditions of an age when spiritual ideas and aims were frequently out of sight, when a nation was struggling for bare existence, or, at best, for a rude kind of unity and freedom. But human life, sacred and secular, is one. A single strain of moral urgency runs through the epochs of national development from barbarism to Christian civilization. A single strain of urgency unites the boisterous vigour of the youth and the sagacious spiritual courage of the man. It is on the strength first, and then on the discipline and purification of the will, that everything depends. There must be energy, or there can be no adequate faith, no earnest religion. We trace in the Book of Judges the springing up and growth of a collective energy which gives power to each separate life. To our amazement we may discover that the Mosaic Law and Ordinances are neglected for a time; but there can be no doubt of Divine Providence, the activity of the redeeming Spirit. Great ends are being served,—a development is proceeding which will by-and-by make religious thought strong, obedience and worship zealous. It is not for us to say that spiritual evolution ought to proceed in this way or that. In the study of natural and supernatural fact our business is to observe with all possible care the goings forth of God and to find as far as we may their meaning and issue. Faith is a profound conviction that the facts of the world justify themselves and the wisdom and righteousness of the Eternal; it is the key that makes history articulate, no mere tale full of sound and fury signifying nothing. And the key of faith which here we are to use in the interpretation of Hebrew life has yet to be applied to all peoples and times. That this may be done we firmly believe: there is needed only the mind broad enough in wisdom and sympathy to gather the annals of the world into one great Bible or Book of God.

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The explanation we find is this: that for a human life in the present stage of existence the opportunity of struggle for moral ends—it may be ends of no great dignity, yet really moral, and, as the race advances, religious—this makes life worth living and brings to every one the means of true and lasting gain. "Where ignorant armies clash by night" there may be in the opposing ranks the most various notions of religion and of what is morally good. The histories of the nations that meet in shock of battle determine largely what hopes and aims guide individual lives. But to the thousands who do valiantly this conflict belongs to the vital struggle in which some idea of the morally good or of religious duty directs and animates the soul. For hearth and home, for wife and children, for chief and comrades, for Jehovah or Baal, men fight, and around these names there cluster thoughts the sacredest possible to the age, dignifying life and war and death. There are better kinds of struggle than that which is acted on the bloody field; yet struggle of one kind or other there must be. It is the law of existence for the barbarian, for the Hebrew, for the Christian. Ever there is a necessity for pressing towards the mark, striving to reach and enter the gate of higher life. No land flowing with milk and honey to be peaceably inherited and enjoyed rewards the generation which has fought its way through the desert. No placid possession of cities and vineyards rounds off the life of Canaanitish tribe. The gains of endurance are reaped, only to be sown again in labour and tears for a further harvest. Here on earth this is the plan of God for men; and when another life crowns the long effort of this world of change, may it not be with fresh calls to more glorious duty and achievement?

But the golden cord of Divine Providence has more than one strand; and while the conflicts of life are appointed for the discipline of men and nations in moral vigour and in fidelity to such religious ideas as they possess, the purer and stronger faith always giving more power to those who exercise it, there is also in the course of life, and especially in the suffering war entails, a reference to the sins of men. Warfare is a sad necessity. Itself often a crime, it issues the judgment of God against folly and crime. Now Israel, now the Canaanite becomes a hammer of Jehovah. One people has been true to its best, and by that faithfulness it gains the victory. Another has been false, cruel, treacherous, and the hands of the fighters grow weak, their swords lose edge, their chariot-wheels roll heavily, they are swept away by the avenging tide. Or the sincere, the good are overcome; the weak who are in the right sink before the wicked who are strong. Yet the moral triumph is always gained. Even in defeat and death there is victory for the faithful.

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