INTER-CHAPTER-THE HISTORY OF ABIMELECH. (For the Elder ones only.)

Among the many mothers of Gideon's children was a woman of Shechem. Her son Abimelech was not supposed to have equal rights with his seventy brethren, but was thrust out by them from the home of Abi-Ezer, at Ophrah. Meantime, the Israelites disliked the heirs of Gideon, and not only forgot the benefits he had done them, but fell away from the true faith, and worshipped, at Shechem, Baal-berith, the Baal of the covenant, as if with a strange remembrance of the covenant with the true God that had been made at Shechem. To Shechem, his mother's home, Abimelech repaired with his complaints of his brothers, and the men of the city gave him in compensation seventy pieces of silver out of the shrine of Baal-berith. By this means he hired a party of ruffians, with whom he went to Ophrah, and then slaughtered the whole of his family. except Jotham, the youngest, who found a hiding-place.

Thereupon the Shechemites, struck by the ferocity they took for courage, made Abimelech their king—theirs alone-not of the whole commonwealth of Israel. And the place of his installation was the plain of the pillar of Shechem, the very monument Joshua had left of the covenant they were so flagrantly breaking. But in the midst of their rejoicings a voice was heard. It came from one of the cliffs of Gerizim, the mount once of blessing, far above and out of reach, yet so near that the clear tones could be distinctly heard by the assembly around their new king. It said—

Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you. The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us.

But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? And the trees said to the fig tree, Come thou, and reign over us.

But the fig tree said unto them, Should I forsake my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees?

Then said the trees unto the vine, Come thou, and reign over us.

And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?

Then said all the trees unto the bramble,* Come thou, and reign over us. And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me king over

* Buckthorn.

you, then come and put your trust in my shadow: and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon.

Now therefore, if ye have done truly and sincerely, in that ye have made Abimelech king, and if ye have dealt well with Jerubbaal and his house, and have done unto him according to the deserving of his hands;

(For my father fought for you, and adventured his life far, and delivered you out of the hand of Midian :

And ye are risen up against my father's house this day, and have slain his sons, threescore and ten persons, upon one stone, and have made Abimelech, the son of his maid-servant, king over the men of Shechem, because he is your brother ;)

If ye then have dealt truly and sincerely with Jerubbaal and with his house this day, then rejoice ye in Abimelech, and let him also rejoice in you:

But if not, let fire come out from Abimelech, and devour the men of Shechem, and the house of Millo;* and let fire come out from the men of Shechem, and from the house of Millo, and devour Abimelech.

The speaker was Jotham, the one son of Jerubbaal who had escaped, and who, by this poetical apologue or parable, taken from the very plants that still surround the spot, showed them how authority is apt to be shunned by the most worthy, and grasped at by the most weak and mischievous. It is the bramble that makes

itself king of the trees, and calls on them to come under its shadow! As if that were possible! Moreover, as the crackling straggling thorn is the first to catch fire, and thus lead to the burning of a whole forest, so Jotham foretold that the savage Abimelech would be the destruction of Shechem, and Shechem of Abimelech. He left it to their own consciences to judge what they deserved, and then was gone, disappearing among the cliffs and thickets of Gerizim !

For three years Abimelech reigned in Arumah, a place near Shechem, leaving the city itself to his lieutenant, Zebul. Then a man named Gaal, who seems to have been of the old Canaanite blood, invited the Shechemites to a vintage feast, and there worked them up to admit him into the city in readiness to rise against Abimelech. However, Zebul gained intelligence, and sent word to Abimelech to come and surprise the city before the insurrection was matured. Accordingly Abimelech lay in ambush outside the gate, while Zebul held Gaal in conversation, and prevented him from taking measures for defence till it was too late. When Abimelech's whole force had * Citadel or fortress.

mustered, Zebul laughed Gaal to scorn for his intended rebellion, and closed the gates upon him and his adherents. Abimelech fought with them outside the walls, killed Gaal, and then punished the city with utter destruction, even sowing the ground with salt, the token of annihilation. Still some men remained shut up in the Millo, ¿.e. the citadel where was the shrine of Baal-berith. There they held out till Abimelech caused branches to be cut in the forest, and, setting fire to them, suffocated all within the tower. He then went to Thebez, a town about thirteen miles off, which seems to have joined in the revolt. The inhabitants took refuge in a tower, which he was going to have burnt, like the Millo of Shechem, when a woman threw down from the top of the tower the upper one of the two millstones wherewith the women were wont to grind the corn. It fractured his skull, but in his pride he could not bear to die by a woman's hand, and bade his armour-bearer give him his death-stroke. So easily did Israel, whenever they forsook their God, lapse into the wildest and most horrid violence!

LESSON XXXII.

NAOMI AND RUTH.

RUTH i.

Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Beth-lehem-judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons.

And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Beth-lehem-judah. And they came into the country of Moab, and continued there.

And Elimelech Naomi's husband died; and she was left, and her two

sons.

And they took them wives of the women of Moab; the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth: and they dwelled there about ten years.

And Mahlon and Chilion died also both of them; and the woman was left of her two sons and her husband.

Then she arose with her daughters in law, that she might return from the country of Moab for she had heard in the country of Moab how that the LORD had visited his people in giving them bread.

Wherefore she went forth out of the place where she was, and her two daughters in law with her; and they went on the way to return unto the land of Judah.

And Naomi said unto her two daughters in law, Go, return each to her mother's house the LORD deal kindly with you, as ye have dealt with the dead, and with me.

The LORD grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. Then she kissed them; and they lifted up their voice,

and wept.

And they said unto her, Surely we will return with thee unto thy people. And Naomi said, Turn again, my daughters: why will ye go with me? Nay, my daughters; for it grieveth me much for your sakes that the hand of the LORD is gone out against me.

And they lifted up their voice, and wept again: and Orpah kissed her mother in law; but Ruth clave unto her.

And she said, Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister in law. And Ruth said,

Intreat me not to leave thee,

Or to return from following after thee:
For whither thou goest, I will go ;

And where thou lodgest, I will lodge:
Thy people shall be my people,

And thy God my God:

Where thou diest, will I die,

And there will I be buried:

The LORD do so to me, and more also,

If ought but death part thee and me.

When she saw that she was stedfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her.

So they two went until they came to Beth-lehem.

And it came to pass,

when they were come to Beth-lehem, that all the city was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi?

And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi,* call me Mara:+ for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.

I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the LORD hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?

So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter in law, with her, which returned out of the country of Moab: and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest.

COMMENT.-After Abimelech, the judges were Tola, a man of Issachar, and Jair, a Gileadite. It must have been in the time of one or other of these that these homely incidents happened, which have been recorded because they concern the ancestry of our blessed Lord and also because of their typical meaning.

It has been said by a traveller in the Holy Land, that a very striking feature in the view from Bethlehem is the apparent nearness of the mountains of Moab, which seem completely to overhang the Dead Sea. Bethlehem itself is built on a grey limestone ridge among the hills; in the valley below lie the famous corn-fields from whence it takes its name-the House of Bread. The view is very extensive; and beyond the broad sheet of the Dead Sea lie the purple hills of Moab, which have been described as looking like " a straight line traced by a trembling hand." Therefore, when there came a famine, and corn was wanted, even in the city which was called "Ephratah," the "fruitful," a man named Elimelech-of the noblest family in the tribe of Judah, being descended from Naason, the prince of the tribe—with Naomi his wife, and his two sons, went to seek bread in the near country of Moab. And so we are brought to know her whose name is given to this book-the young Moabitess, Ruth, who married one of the sons, and, together with her mother and sister-in-law, was left a widow in the land.

Whether it was right for Elimelech to go to a land of idolaters is not said; and where the Bible does not blame, we should take heed how we condemn. It may be, he did not sufficiently trust the God who has said, "Dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed;" and the family did not prosper in Moab; but God, for His own wise purposes, doubtless ordained that these members of the tribe of Judah should go forth, and bring back with them a Gentile woman, to be made one with His own people.

Ten years after their first settlement in Moab, Naomi, bereaved of her husband and sons, hearing that the famine was ended, desired to return to Bethlehem. Ruth and Orpah went some distance with her; how far we do not know, but it was perhaps down the mountains and pasture hill, until they came to the swift torrent of Jordan, "the descender." Then Naomi bade them return. Orpah loved her mother-in-law; but her own country and people were dearer, and after a tender farewell she went back; but Ruth clave to the desolate widow, and poured out, with all the warmth of her loving heart, the noble words which formed themselves into a beautiful chant of poetry upon her lips. This was a very solemn undertaking, for Ruth the Moabitess thus broke the tie with her