warlike age. But Ruth seems altogether out of place in such rough times. No historian would ever think of writing such a domestic story as Ruth, as an episode in the history of such a period.1 The scenery of the story is the time of Judges, so far as the author's antiquarian knowledge goes; but it is an ideal picture of primitive simplicity and agricultural life in Bethlehem, separated from all that was gross and rude and rough in the real life of those times. The author invents the scenery for his actors, and leaves out of it all that would mar its simplicity and detract from its main interest. The lesson of this idyll is given in the words of Ruth and the words of Boaz. says to Naomi : 2 "Thy people shall be my people, And thy God my God." Boaz says to Ruth: 3 66 May Yahweh recompense thy doing, And may thy reward be ample from Yahweh (God of Israel), Ruth The Moabitess has left her native land and her father's house, as did Abraham of old; and she has sought refuge under the wings of Yahweh, the God of Israel, and she has received her reward. This story of Ruth and Boaz is all the more striking that it comes into conflict with a law of Deuteronomy, and its enforcement by Nehemiah. Deuteronomy gives this law: "An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the assembly of Yahweh; even to the tenth generation shall none belonging to them enter into the assembly of Yahweh for ever."4 This certainly excludes Ruth, a Moabitess of the first generaNehemiah enforced this law against women. He tells tion. us: "In those days also saw I that the Jews had married women of Ashdod, of Ammon, of Moab; and their children spake half in the 1 Some have sought a reason in the fact that she was an ancestress of David. But there is nothing in the character of the monarchs of the Davidic dynasty that would lead us to suppose that they would encourage a writer to trace their descent from a poor and homeless Moabitess, however excellent her character. 4 Deut. 238. 2 116. 3 212. speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people. And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons, or for yourselves."1 Now how shall we reconcile the story of Ruth and Boaz with the law of Deuteronomy and the history of Nehemiah? We are reminded of another law of Deuteronomy,2 that the eunuch shall not enter into an assembly of Yahweh. And yet the prophet of the exile says: "For thus saith Yahweh of the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and hold fast by my covenant: Unto them will I give in mine house, and within my walls a memorial and a name better than of sons and of daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off." 3 The book of Ruth and the great prophet of the exile take essentially the same position. They see that the grace of God to eunuchs and Moabites overrides legal precepts, and their zealous enforcement by painstaking magistrates. This seems to give a hint as to the time and purpose of the book of Ruth. It was written probably soon after the return from exile under Joshua and Zerubbabel, in the spirit of the great prophet of the exile, to encourage Israelites to take advantage of the imperial decree, and return to the Holy Land; and with the special purpose of encouraging those who had married foreign wives, and also the foreign widows of Israelites, to return with their children, and seek refuge under the wings of Yahweh, in rebuilt Jerusalem. Although the book of Ruth is a work of the imagination, it is not necessary to deny that Ruth and Boaz were historical characters. The historic persons, Ruth and Boaz, and the events of their courtship and marriage, were embellished by the imagination in order to set forth the great lessons the author would teach. Just as Zerubbabel was used in the apocryphal literature to set forth the lesson that truth is mightier than wine, women, and kings, so Ruth is used to 1 Neh. 1323-25 2 Deut. 231. 8 Is. 564.5. teach us that the grace of God pushes beyond the race of Abraham and redeems even the Moabitess, for whom no provision was made in the law code of Deuteronomy or in the discipline of Nehemiah. VIII. THE STORY OF JONAH The book of Jonah is inserted in both the Hellenistic and Rabbinical Canons among the Minor Prophets, and yet the book does not contain discourses of prophecy as do the other Minor Prophets. If the book of Jonah were history, its place ought to have been among the historical books. It is among the prophetical writings with propriety only so far as the story which is contained in it was pointed with prophetic lessons. For this prophetic purpose it is immaterial whether the story is real history or 'an ideal of the imagination, or whether it is history idealized and embellished by the imagination. 1. It was not the aim of the writer to write history. The story is given only so far as it is important to set forth the prophetic lessons of the book. There are two scenes, - the one on the sea, the other at Nineveh. The story begins abruptly; it closes abruptly after giving the lessons. The transitions in the story are the rapid flight of the imagination, and not the steady flow of historical narrative. 2. The prophet Jonah is mentioned in the history of the book of Kings,1 and a prediction of minor importance is mentioned as given by him. It seems very remarkable, on the one hand, that the book of Jonah should omit this ministry in the land of Israel; on the other hand, that the author of the book of Kings should mention such comparatively unimportant ministry, and yet pass over such important prophetic ministry as that given in the book of Jonah. 3. The two miracles reported in Jonah are marvels rather than miracles. There is nothing at all resembling them in the miracle-working of the Old Testament or the New Testament. They are more like the wonders of the Arabian Nights than the miracles of Moses, of Elijah, of Elisha, or of Jesus or His 1 2 K. 1425. apostles. It is true that there are great sharks in the Mediterranean Sea which are said to have swallowed men and horses and afterwards to have cast them up. But this being so, the chief difficulty remains. How can we explain the suspended digestion of the fish, and the self-consciousness of Jonah as indicated by his prayer? And even if we could overcome this difficulty by an unflinching confidence in the power of God to work any and every kind of miracle, the most serious objection would still confront us. It is not so much the supernatural power in the miracle that troubles us as the character of the miracle. There is in it, whatever way we interpret it, an element of the extravagant and the grotesque. The divine simplicity, the holy sublimity, and the overpowering grace which characterize the miracles of biblical history are conspicuously absent. We feel that there is no sufficient reason for such a miracle, and we instinctively shrink from it, not because of a lack of faith in the divine power of working miracles, but because we have such a faith in His grace, and holiness, and majesty that we find it difficult to believe that God could work such a grotesque and extravagant miracle as that described in the story of the great fish. So the story of the wonderful growth and withering of the tree is more like the magic of the Oriental tales than any of the biblical miracles. It seems to be brought into the scene as an embellishment rather than for any real purpose of grace. A careful study of all the miracles of Holy Scripture excludes this magic tree from their categories, and, to say the least, puts it in a category by itself. 4. The repentance of Nineveh, from the king on his throne to the humblest citizen, the extent of it, the sincerity of it, the depth of it, is still more marvellous. Nineveh was at that time the capital of the greatest empire of the world. It was a proud and conquering nation, least likely of all to repent. The history of the times is quite well known, and this history seems to make such an event incredible. Some have endeavoured to minimize the repentance as a mere official one, such as were ordered by monarchs during the Middle Ages. But these apologists of traditional theory forget that according to the story God recognizes the sincerity and the extraordinary character of the repentance. God granted His mercy, and recalled His decree of destruction on that account. This repentance is a marvellous event. Nothing like it meets us in the history of Israel or in the history of the Church. It is an ideal of the imagination. Our Saviour uses the story of the repentance of Nineveh to shame the unrepenting cities of His time. There was no historical repentance so well suited to His purpose. 5. The prayer given in the book is not suited to it if the story be historical, but it is entirely appropriate if it be regarded as ideal and symbolic. This prayer is the prayer of thanksgiving of a man who, either in fact or in figure, has been drowned in the sea. He has gone down to the bottom, the seaweed is wrapt about his head; he has then, in his departed spirit, gone down to the roots of the mountains, has entered into Sheol, the abode of the dead, and has been shut up in its cavern by the bars of the earth. His deliverance has been a resurrection from the dead. Such figures of speech to represent great sufferings of an individual or of a nation are found in the Psalms and the Prophets.1 If the descent into the belly of the fish, the abode therein three days, and the casting up again are simply a poetic symbol, a devouring of Israel by the great sea-monster, Babylon,2 it is entirely appropriate for the author to use in the song the symbol of death, Sheol, and resurrection, as a parallel symbol to that of the narrative, the swallowing by the fish, abiding three days in the fish, and casting forth by the fish. 6. The whole style of the piece is such as we find in the Jewish Haggada, of which this may be one of the earliest specimens. 1 Hosea (1314) uses the same figure of speech for the exile and the restoration. “I will ransom them from the power of Sheol; I will redeem them from Death." Isaiah and Ezekiel also represent the restoration as a resurrection from Sheol, the abode of the dead, and as the rising up of the dry bones from the battle-field of the slain. 2 The author probably had in mind the words of Jeremiah: "Nebuchadnezzar . . . hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his maw with my delicates; he hath cast me out" (514). And he may have been thinking of Hosea's words: "After two days will he revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live before him" (62). |