Day 90: Ruth and Boaz

Today's readings: Judges 4-5, Ruth 2, and Psalm 134.

I. Judges 4 tells the story of Israel's deliverance from oppression through Deborah and Barak, and the defeat of the Canaanite commander Sisera. The end of this chapter reads a bit like Judith, in that Jael kills Sisera in his sleep, or perhaps the other way around. It's almost as if there were female Jewish assassins of the oppressors of Israel!

In the next chapter, we find the Song of Deborah, one of the oldest poetic passages in the Bible. It celebrates the victory over the Canaanites and praises God for delivering Israel. After the song, the chapter ends with this:

And the land had rest for forty years. (Judg 5:31)

A very violent, brutal time, but it does show that God can use unexpected instruments and rules over all creation.

II. Ruth 2 tells how God begins providing for Ruth and Naomi through the kindness of Boaz. It is fitting that Boaz's compassion will become ancestral to Jesus. He serves as a type or foreshadowing of Christ.

III. Psalm 134 is, as the Ignatius Bible notes:

A liturgy for nighttime prayer in the Temple. Continuing the theme of "blessing" from 133:3, it invites worshippers to bless the Lord in prayer (134:1-2) and invokes the Lord's blessings upon them in return (134:3). (p. 946)

That's it for today!