#VII
Title: Ruth
Book: The Daily Bible in Chronological Order 365 Daily Readings, New International Version (NIV) with devotional insights to Guide You through God’s Word.
Commentary: F. LaGard Smith.
Genre: Religion
Challenges: 100+, Read & Review, Operation Actually Read the Bible
Rating: B+
Dates read: 3/22/09
No. of pages - 3
It never ceases to amaze me the extent of learning that happens when I’m doing Bible study. I’ve read the story of Ruth a number of times. In reading through the Bible chronologically now, though, I’m also referring to my Oxford Companion to the Bible to research other words, places and names that come up. For example, in reading the section on Ruth in the Oxford Companion the word “megillot” comes up. It refers to the five books for the Bible - Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Esther, and means scrolls, a name given to the collection of these shortest books of the Writings that comprise the third section of the Hebrew Bible. Each book is read on a particular feast day. The Song of Solomon is read on the feast of Passover; Ruth at Pentacost; Ecclesiastes on the Feast of Booths; Esther on Purim and Lamentations, a series of dirges commemorating the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, is read on the ninth of the month of Ab, a fast day on which these events are said to have taken place.
The Pentacost association (which comes between Passover and Tabernacles) with Ruth is probably due to the feast of weeks, an agricultural season consisting of counting off seven weeks and then presenting an offering of the first fruits of wheat. This celebration culminated on the fiftieth day of the period counting. The subsequent reading of Ruth in New Testament times would have been appropriate because Ruth went into the fields and picked up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes she found favor and gleaned and gathered among the sheaves behind the harvesters.
Even more importantly in the story of Ruth, chronologically set in the midst of Judges ca 1100 B.C. in Moab, is a woman who follows her widowed mother-in-law, Naomi and lives with the Israelites and their God. Her choice brings her the blessings of both a new husband and a son, through whom Ruth becomes the great-grandmother of David, who will be king of all Israel.
This beautiful love story shows the law of levirate marriage and foreshadows the grace which one day will extend to Jews and Gentiles alike through still another Descendant of this godly Gentile woman named Ruth.
Title: Ruth
Book: The Daily Bible in Chronological Order 365 Daily Readings, New International Version (NIV) with devotional insights to Guide You through God’s Word.
Commentary: F. LaGard Smith.
Genre: Religion
Challenges: 100+, Read & Review, Operation Actually Read the Bible
Rating: B+
Dates read: 3/22/09
No. of pages - 3
It never ceases to amaze me the extent of learning that happens when I’m doing Bible study. I’ve read the story of Ruth a number of times. In reading through the Bible chronologically now, though, I’m also referring to my Oxford Companion to the Bible to research other words, places and names that come up. For example, in reading the section on Ruth in the Oxford Companion the word “megillot” comes up. It refers to the five books for the Bible - Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Esther, and means scrolls, a name given to the collection of these shortest books of the Writings that comprise the third section of the Hebrew Bible. Each book is read on a particular feast day. The Song of Solomon is read on the feast of Passover; Ruth at Pentacost; Ecclesiastes on the Feast of Booths; Esther on Purim and Lamentations, a series of dirges commemorating the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, is read on the ninth of the month of Ab, a fast day on which these events are said to have taken place.
The Pentacost association (which comes between Passover and Tabernacles) with Ruth is probably due to the feast of weeks, an agricultural season consisting of counting off seven weeks and then presenting an offering of the first fruits of wheat. This celebration culminated on the fiftieth day of the period counting. The subsequent reading of Ruth in New Testament times would have been appropriate because Ruth went into the fields and picked up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes she found favor and gleaned and gathered among the sheaves behind the harvesters.
Even more importantly in the story of Ruth, chronologically set in the midst of Judges ca 1100 B.C. in Moab, is a woman who follows her widowed mother-in-law, Naomi and lives with the Israelites and their God. Her choice brings her the blessings of both a new husband and a son, through whom Ruth becomes the great-grandmother of David, who will be king of all Israel.
This beautiful love story shows the law of levirate marriage and foreshadows the grace which one day will extend to Jews and Gentiles alike through still another Descendant of this godly Gentile woman named Ruth.
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