Before recounting the means whereby this was brought about, the Sacred Narrative presents us with a little history, which strikingly illustrates the repose and peacefulness which characterized some of the calmer intervals in the disturbed period of the Judges. From Bethlehem-Judah there went forth during a season of famine[222] two Ephrathites of the place, Elimelech and Naomi, with their sons Mahlon and Chilion, to seek a home across the Jordan in the land of Moab. Here Elimelech died, and his two sons married two of the daughters of Moab, Orpah and Ruth.
After a period of about ten years his sons also died, and Naomi hearing that the famine had ceased in the land of Israel, prepared to return to her native town accompanied by her daughter-in-law Ruth, whom no entreaties could induce to remain amongst her own people. It was the beginning of barley-harvest[223] when they returned, and Ruth went to glean near Bethlehem in the fields of Boaz, a man of wealth and a kinsman of Elimelech. The appearance and the story of the beautiful stranger, which he learnt from the townspeople, attracted the attention of Boaz to the Moabitess, and he permitted her not only to glean in his fields, but to share with his labourers the provisions supplied them. By the advice of her mother-in-law, Ruth afterwards claimed kinship with the wealthy Boaz, and he was not slow to acknowledge it. A nearer kinsman, however, was first asked to discharge these duties, which included not only the redemption of the land that had belonged to Elimelech, but also the taking of Ruth in marriage to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance (Deut. xxv. 5–10). On his declining to perform the latter duty, Boaz redeemed the land inthe presence of ten elders of Bethlehem and the assembled people, and married Ruth, by whom he became the father of Obed, the grandfather of King David[224].
A more pleasing picture of Hebrew country life can hardly be imagined than the story of “the gleaner Ruth,” illustrating, as it does, “the friendly relations between the good Boaz and his reapers, the Jewish land-system, the method of transferring property from one person to another, the working of the Mosaic Law for the relief of distressed and ruined families, but above all handing down the unselfishness, the brave love, the unshaken trustfulness of her, who though not of the chosen Race was, like the Canaanitess Tamar (Gen. xxxviii. 29; Matt. i. 3) and the Canaanitess Rahab (Matt. i. 5), privileged to become the ancestress of David, and so of great David’s greater Son” (Ruth iv. 18–22).
BOOK VIII.
FROM THE TIME OF SAMUEL TO THE ACCESSION OF DAVID.
CHAPTER I.
ELI AND SAMUEL.
1 Sam. i.–iv. B.C. circ. 1171–1141.
DURING the twenty years that Samson judged Israel, the High-priesthood, diverted for reasons not revealed from the line of Eleazar to the younger line of Ithamar (1 Chron. vi. 4–15; xxiv. 4), had been filled by Eli, who henceforth appears to have discharged the united duties of High-priest and Judge. The Tabernacle with the Ark was now at Shiloh, where a town had rapidly grown up. Inside the gateway leading up to it was a “seat” or “throne” (1 Sam. i. 9; iv. 13), on which Eli used to sit, and thence survey the worshippers as they came up on high days to the Festivals.
Year by year, as he sat there, he would see amongst the pilgrims coming up to the Feast of Tabernacles the family of Elkanah, a man of Ramathaim-Zophim[225] inMount Ephraim. Though a Levite in the line of Kohath (1 Chron. vi. 27–34), he affords one of the few instances of polygamy in the ranks of the lower orders. By his wife Peninnah he had several children; by Hannah, his favourite wife, he had none, which was to her a source of much trouble, and brought down upon her many taunts from her rival. On one occasion, as Eli sat on his throne at the gate, he was led more particularly to notice one of this little family group. At the close of the sacrificial Feast, unable any longer to endure the mockery of her rival and her own bitterness of heart, Hannah remained long in silent prayer at the Sanctuary. The High-priest saw her lips move, but heard no sound of her voice, as she prayed. Thinking that she had indulged to excess at the feast, he rebuked her, and bade her put away her wine from her. Then Hannah told him of her secret grief, and the aged priest, convinced of his error, quickly made amends by bestowing upon her his blessing, and expressing a hope that the God of Israel might grant the petition she had preferred (1 Sam. i. 17).
The story of the wife of Manoah was, probably, not unknown to Hannah, and she too prayed that if the Lord would grant her a man-child, she would devote him as a Nazarite to His service all the days of his life. Her prayer was heard. Before the Feast of Tabernacles came round again, she had become the mother of a son, to whom she gave the appropriate name of Samuel, “the Asked or Heard of God.” When he was weaned, she brought him to Shiloh, with three bullocks, an ephah of flour, and a skin bottle of wine, and having poured forth her thankfulness in an inspired hymn, presented the boy to Eli, as the child for whom she had prayed, and whom she now wished to return to the Lord (1 Sam. ii. 1–11).