JUDGES XXI-DAYS OF DISORDER 477 23 And the children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives. according to their number, of them that danced, whom they caught: and they went and returned unto their inheritance, and repaired the cities, and dwelt in them. 24 And the children of Israel departed thence at that time every man to his tribe and to his family, and they went out from thence every man to his inheritance. 25 In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Introduction to the Book of Ruth The book of Ruth is placed by the modern Jewish canon among the Hagiographa, the unrelated body of holy writings which form the third section of the Bible. But the earliest Christian Bibles placed the book in its present position among the historical records; and the learned Josephus, who lived in the same century as Christ, tells us that this was customary among the Jews in his day. The book has sometimes been regarded as a mere appendix to Judges or even as an actual part of that book, a detached story similar to that of the migration of Dan or the war against Benjamin. The story of Ruth is represented as happening during the period of the judges, and has a direct historical bearing in that it tells of the ancestors of King David. The authorship is wholly unknown. Probably the work was composed in the days after the Exile as a protest against the exclusiveness of the anti-foreign party. From a literary standpoint the book is highly valued. It is a pastoral idyl, almost a poem, depicting the life of the Israelites in their days of peace. Jephthah's Daughter AFTER THE PAINTING BY KURT VON ROZINSKY, A CONTEMPORARY GERMAN ARTIST. + "And she was his only child.”—Jud., 11, 34. HERE is no story in all the Bible more pathetic than that of Jephthah and his daughter. Despite T his fierce and roving life, the outlaw was a man of tender heart, devoted to this his only child. Of her we gather from the story that she was strong and pure of heart, womanly and true, and that she had preserved some dim idea of the worship of God even amid all her wild and idolatrous surroundings. Jephthah's fame as a "mighty man of valour" had spread over all Israel; and when at length the Ammonites declared a formal war of extermination against Israel, the Gileadites sent to the noted outlaw entreating him to return home and become their general. Doubtless with his daughter's future in his mind, Jephthah reminded the messengers of the ill-treatment he had formerly received; and he demanded, "If ye bring me home again to fight against the children of Ammon, and the Lord deliver them before me, shall I be your head?" The elders of Gilead promised this gladly. So Jephthah brought his household back to Mizpeh in Gilead, where his daughter was as a princess in the land, while he himself went forth against the Ammonites. |