As with the antediluvians, so with Israel, God, leaves not Himself without witness. Among them He called out Abel, Enoch and Noah, and now He elects Ruth, having given her a position in a family of Israel. The time was not come for a Gentile testimony independent of the ancient people. But this little remnant—Elimelech and his family—is marked off from the nation, their history is not given incorporated with that of the guilty people but in a little book by, itself. It hints at the purpose of God to separate His own from among the mass of the ungodly. He has a separate book where He writes the names of His saints, even the book of life. This family failed in faith, they lost sight of the fact that the land they were leaving was God's gift to them, and let the famine be ever so grievous, He knew how to provide. Elimelech looked at the famine and had faith enough to perceive that it was judgment upon Israel, but forgot the power that was able to keep those that trusted in Him. This man and his household depart into a foreign land to dwell among the enemies of God. Would it not have been far better to have abode where God placed him? to have suffered even with guilty Israel, than to flee, as it were, from His presence and seek relief where surely the want of faith led him? To him, as an Israelite, the consequences were most distressing; he died away from his inheritance, in the midst of a people that of old sought Satanic aid to destroy Israel. And his two sons, sinking deeper in disobedience, marry daughters of Moab. The chastening hand of God finds them out, and they die. Naomi is left alone with her daughters-in-law. Husband and sons gone, who are now to provide for Naomi? All is lost, what can she do in a strange land? In these distressful moments did she regret the want of faith which led them so far from home? Ah, it was with her as with many another of God's chosen ones. Far better wait to bear heavy trials where God, has east our lot, than to seek a way of escape by human means, which are always the fruit of lack of confidence in God, and bring spiritual loss. Naomi left the land because of famine. Husband and sons die, and though there be no famine in the land of Moab, it is still famine for her.
The God of mercy steps in, the news comes that Jehovah hath visited His people in giving them bread, and she is brought back to the land which ought never to have been left. The loving-kindness of God never fails, His mercy endures forever. Mark the overruling wisdom of God; if the chosen witnesses fail in testimony for God, His grace raises up a brighter witness for Himself in the person of a Gentile. One of the daughters of Moab will leave her kindred, and her people, and her nation's gods, to follow Naomi into a strange land, saying, “Thy God shall be my God.” Here was a witness for the true God raised up from among the idolatrous Moabites to be His brightest witness among the feeble remnant in the land. Truly not one of them had made such sacrifices as Ruth made. And how great the reward! she enters the line of David's ancestry, yea, of David's greater Son. But what a rebuke in the simple faith of Ruth for Naomi who left the land not submitting to God! yet a rebuke in the form of restoring grace, crowning her in her widowhood with tender mercies and loving-kindness. It is the manner of His love; and saints now bear testimony to the same manner. Ruth comes in among the people, who, though so guilty, were still owned as God's people. He visited His people with bread. (1:6.) She knew them to be His people, and though her faith was veiled under strongest attachment to Naomi, she says not merely, “thy people shall be my people,” but adds, “thy God shall be my God.” Thus, amid the violence and corruption of Israel, a little company bears testimony to the God of Israel. It is but a brief sketch, yet is the hand of God as visible in marvelously providing for the well-being and honor of Ruth—and through her for Naomi—as it was in the judgments that fell upon Israel. In the midst of the darkness God gives a bright scene of family and household piety, to which we turn with gladness from the surrounding national and social wickedness. What a contrast to the impiety of the idolatrous household of Micah's mother! (Judg. 17) The book of Ruth, however, is but a passing and transient gleam. Still it proves that in the worst times God never left Himself without witness, it declares His faithfulness to the weakest of saints, it manifests His power that all things must bow to His will and subserve His purpose of grace; for a Moabitess is brought in, through Elimelech's failure, to partake in the highest honor which could then be conferred upon any woman of Israel.
At the close of this book (Ruth) God unfolds His purpose, the end He had in view, and the means thereto—to bring in David. But two more generations must come and go, for the time was not yet come, the iniquity of Israel not yet ripe, ruin beyond human remedy must be visible ere God sets His king upon His holy hill of Zion. David closes his chapter of God's dealings with Israel, giving a foreshadowing of even greater iniquity and of a mightier deliverance, when the Son of David shall sit upon His throne. Israel's sins and sorrows will then be over.
The elders and people (4: 11.) pronounce a blessing upon Boaz, but the Spirit of God leads them to use words which can only be fulfilled when Messiah comes. “Build the house of Israel.” Their Messiah is our Lord Jesus, He will build their house and in the future day do infinitely more than restore the glory of Solomon, so that the nations shall be amazed, and say, like the queen of Sheba, that the half had not been told.
The book closes with the genealogy of David. Is it not remarkable that this record should begin with Pharez? That the elders and the people should take the house of Pharez as a pattern of blessing for the house of Boaz? “Let thy house be like the house of Pharez”? Who was Pharez? Let Gen. 38 answer. Why not begin with his father, Judah? His was the greatest of the tribes of Israel. But it was through Pharez, son of Tamar, the promised blessing must come. God led His line of promise through base things of the world, and took up those that man would spurn. This was to magnify His grace and exalt His name. How unlike man, by whom the greater the object before him, the better the means used. Not so with God; base things, and things that are not, characterize the instruments, or the channels, to accomplish His word. Truly, “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith Jehovah” (Isa. 55) At that moment, Israel, according to the righteousness of law was ruined, and could have no valid title to any one thing on the ground of obedience and fidelity to God. They had joined themselves to idols; they were then morally in the condition of Pharez, children of transgressions, as the prophet said long after (Isa. 57:44Against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue? are ye not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood, (Isaiah 57:4)). Their own ordinances shut them out, for God had said by Moses, “A bastard” shall not enter into the congregation of Jehovah” (Deut. 23:22A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the Lord. (Deuteronomy 23:2)). But in a world of sin, where even saints fail, there can be no other ground, save judgment, than absolute grace, and then sovereign grace. It forms and carries out its own purposes, and chases its own way; and so it comes to pass that, if the beginning be Pharez, the end is David.
At this point, according to the book of Judges, we see the nation as such, to be idolaters; in the book of Ruth, a little remnant failing in faith, and the grace of God abounding and pointing onward to greater blessing.
We may consider this the first stage in the preparation for the coming kingdom. What is the second?
The Holy Spirit leads through scenes of greater evil and worse abomination, yet ever keeps before us the increasing necessity of His kingdom; His great object, the in-bringing of God's King. The next downward step is the failure of the priesthood. The sons of Eli were a greater abomination before God than that recorded in Judg. 19. The priest was the connecting link between Jehovah and the people, he was the appointed means, and no other dare assume his functions. But when the priest wickedly departed from God, and used his position to increase the dishonor of God, then the appointed means of communication with God, and of restoration to Him, were gone. Hophni and Phinehas made the people sin. The indulgence of the father was as fatal as, if less criminal than, the iniquity of the sons. Judgment overtakes the wicked sons: they are slain in battle; the father dies under the hand of God. Yet sinfully lenient as he was to his sons, his heart was true to God. Not their death, but the loss of the ark, is the immediate cause of his death. The dishonor to God was more to him than family sorrow and disgrace, and he felt that there was no possibility of approaching God in the appointed way while the ark is in the hands of the Philistines. Ichabod is pronounced upon the people: what is to become of them? There was another beside Eli who felt the extreme gravity of Israel's condition; the wife of Phinehas would not be comforted, and the name of her son bears testimony to her grief. How could they any longer be called God's people? God steps in and provides a new link between Himself and them. Samuel appears, a prophet, the only possible means of recalling guilty Israel, and of communicating to them the word of God. Such means were not needed so long as the normal link of the ark and the officiating priest subsisted. The advent of a prophet was proof that all else was gone. A prophet came to Eli (1 Sam. 2:2727And there came a man of God unto Eli, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Did I plainly appear unto the house of thy father, when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house? (1 Samuel 2:27)), but his was a special message to one man, not to supply the place of the lost ark and of the guilty priest. This was the position of Samuel, who stands out prominently as the first of the prophets, as it is said, “All the prophets from Samuel” (Acts 3:2424Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days. (Acts 3:24), of Psa. 99:66Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel among them that call upon his name; they called upon the Lord, and he answered them. (Psalm 99:6)), God thus naming him as the first of that line of messengers to a people utterly rebellious, as “Moses and Aaron among the priests.” For the first time the prophet is the link between God and Israel.
But how inveterate the evil of this people, and how unsparingly exposed! They soon reject him and avow their desire to be like other nations and have a king. They had broken the old connection, God brings in a new one. The old office of judge and priest was seen for the last time in Eli; a new position is seen in Samuel, who is judge and prophet. The people refuse the intervention of grace, and prefer connection with the world, and to have a king like other nations. In truth it was the rejection of God, not only of His prophet.
The intelligent reader of God's book cannot fail to see how every recorded sin has been the means of accomplishing God's predetermined will. The purposes of men have been only clay, and the divine Potter has molded it according to His own will. Everything—even wickedness—is made subservient to His purpose. And in the detail, what wisdom! yea, what grace!
Awful as it was to deliberately reject God as their ruler, desiring a man as their king, it is an immense step in bringing to pass the purpose of God. Only it must be man’s king first, then the King of God's choice. As priest he had failed, and after the short transitional period of prophet rule, his failure as king is still more evident. Indeed, whether priest, prophet, or king, there is only One Who could not fail. And the ruin before us in this sad history through the failure of man is the preparation for the coming of that One, and demonstrates the necessity of, it. Man must be tried in every way; every proof is given that nothing short of sovereign grace can bring in the promised blessing. Israel from the first were a rebellious people; but mark the controlling power and wisdom of God: He makes their rebellion now take the form of the blessing about to be given them, the form of Kingly rule. It was His deliberate counsel that a king should reign over Israel, but it must be His King, the Man of His right hand. Man's choice is sure to be worthless. God sanctions their choice for a time, but only to make manifest, that, however good apparently it may be, his failure is inevitable.
And so we have Saul, whose beginning was so auspicious and seemingly prosperous. A bright future lay before him; the providential acts of God clear the way to the throne, and the prophet anoints him. Success attends ere long his first essay in war, and there is great rejoicing among the men of Israel. All this but confirms the testimony against man, that with every advantage he invariably fails. Saul was raised to the throne of Israel to prove, among many other witnesses, the great fact of failure stamped upon human nature, as men put a trade-mark upon their goods and merchandise. I say for this purpose, as well as to prepare the way for David, the chosen of God. Again, look at the marvelous way of preparation: it was by treachery, hatred, and at last open persecution; just like what the world—the Jew—did to Christ, the Son of David.
Saul began to fail from the first. He had the witness of God's presence with him, he was told that if he were obedient his kingdom would be established; every motive was supplied for faithfulness; but he sank lower and lower till he reached the lowest depths. And when he sought aid from the witch of Endor, he hears his doom; he dies by his own hand and drags down the kingdom which God had entrusted to him into hopeless ruin. Then God intervenes, and the man who had been prepared of God comes to the rescue, and Israel is raised to power and glory more rapidly than they fell into degradation and servitude.
Apart from all human responsibility—for Saul was responsible for the right use of his advantages and high position—we can trace the over-ruling hand of God in bringing Israel to such a condition as would most of all exalt His own power and grace in establishing them as chief among the nations. No sooner does the man of His choice take the reins of government, than the enemies on every side are subdued; the Hebrews despised of the Philistines become the mighty kingdom of David. And what we see in the kingdom of Israel will be yet more gloriously displayed when the Son of Man takes possession of the kingdom of this world. All hangs upon the mighty arm of Him who will be not only God's King upon the holy hill of Zion, but the MAN ordained to rule over the world.