Daily Old Testament Reading and Augustine's Confessions Will Resume in August

1 Samuel 3 – During Samuel’s childhood, the “word of the Lord was rare [and] visions were not widespread” (3:1). Samuel was lying down in the temple when he heard someone call him, “Samuel! Samuel!” (3:4) Samuel answers “Here I am!” and thinking the voice was Eli’s, he runs to see what Eli wants of him.  But Eli has not called.  Again, he hears the call and again he runs to Eli, and learns Eli has not called.

“Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of…

1 Samuel 2 - She prays a kind of canticle. It is thought by some to be the model of Mary’s Magnificat but is less personal, expressing the hopes of the lowly and poor more generally:

My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in my victory. There is no Holy One like the Lord, no one besides you; . . . There is no Rock like our God. For the Lord is a…

1 Samuel 1 – Elkanah of Ramathaim (or simply Ramah), an Ephraimite, had two wives—Peninnah and Hannah.  Peninnah had children but Hannah, whom he loved more, did not. 

When Israel still worshiped and sacrificed at Shiloh, Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phineas were priests there.  Hannah wept and prayed there to have a son, promising to make him a nazirite for his entire life if God would only grant her this.  God is addressed here…

Introductory Information on the Books of Samuel: The books of Samuel trace the last years of the judges and the first years of the monarchy.  While the monarchy provided strong government, “the religious meaning of kingship had to be worked out so as to preserve the more basic belief that Israel was a people subject to one king only, Yahweh himself” (Lawrence Boadt’s Reading the Old Testament, 227).  Samuel lived in the 11^th century BC.  He served the shrine at…

Judges 21 – The Israelites had also agreed at Mizpah that none of them present would give a daughter in marriage to the tribe of Benjamin. After the battle, they go to Bethel and bewail the loss of the tribe. They also swore at Mizpah to cut off any clan that did not come to the assembly at Mizpah—they carry out this threat now. 

They realize that not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead had come, so they are put to the sword (everyone, that is, except virgin…

Judges 20 – The outrage galvanizes the “sons of Israel” to action.  The whole community, from Dan to Beersheba and from Gilead in the east, comes out to Mizpah (near Ai and Jericho).  The Levite “husband” or “master” tells them what happened.  They agree to go to war with Benjamin.  They select the troops by lot—an equal number from each of the eleven tribes.  Then they go up into the land of Benjamin and try to get the people to turn over the wrong-doers, but the Benjaminites will…

Judges 19 – Again we start with a reminder that there was no king.  A Levite man living in the remote hill country of Ephraim takes a concubine from Bethlehem. She gets mad at him for some reason and returns to her father’s house, but he comes after her, pleading with her to return.  The girl’s father likes him and entertains him with food and drink.  Repeatedly when he gets ready to go, the father urges him to stay longer and he does.

Finally they do leave—the…

Judges 18 – There is no king, and the Danites need a territory to live in. This migration apparently took place before the time of the judges—the closeness to the generation of Moses is apparent from the identity of the Levite, the grandson of Moses.

They send out five men to scout for land.  They too arrive in Micah’s house.  They recognize the young Levite and ask him if the mission they are on is one with God’s favor.  He…

Judges 17 – A man in the hill country of Ephraim, who has taken 1100 pieces of silver from his own mother, returns it to her; and in gratitude (?) she gives him 200 to make an “idol” for him.  His name is Micah.  He sets up a shrine, makes an ephod and teraphim and installs one of his sons as a priest.  It’s as if he is starting his own cult from his own house.  The writer simply says “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in…

Judges 16 – Samson goes to Gaza and sees a prostitute he wants.  The men of Gaza lie in wait for him all night.  But he fools them by leaving in the middle of the night, taking the doors of the city gate with him to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron—another feat of strength.

Then comes the episode with Delilah.  Samson falls in love with her.  The lords of the Philistines come to Delilah and induce her to help them find out the secret…

Judges 15 - Samson goes back to see his wife, but her father will not allow it.  Believing that Samson has rejected her, the woman’s father has given her to the other man. Again angry, Samson goes and ties 300 foxes together by the tails and sets their tails on fire.  Then he sets them loose in the standing grain of the Philistines to burn it up. 

The Philistines learn why it is Samson did it and they go and burn both Samson’s wife and her father (15:6). …

Judges 14 – Samson, now grown and imbued with God’s spirit (13:25), falls in love with a Philistine woman and asks his parents to get her for him to be his wife.  They remonstrate with him a bit, but do his bidding after all. The writer implies that God was using Samson’s weakness here to foment a crisis with the Philistines that would lead to their liberation, but we must wait and see the story play out (14:4).

Going down to Timnah to see about the…

 Judges 12 – The Ephraimites are offended that Jephthah did not call on them for help in the fight against the Ammonites.  This brings the two clans into deadly conflict, a conflict which results in the defeat of the Ephraimites.  Jephthah ruled for six years

Ibzan, of Bethlehem, comes next.  He too had 30 sons and 30 daughters (this must be some kind of magic number at this time). He judged for seven…

Judges 11 – Jephthah (1070), a Gileadite and son of a prostitute, is the one called to save them. He had been driven away from his home by two legitimate sons of his father and he had gone to the land of Tob, where outlaws gathered around him and went raiding with him (11:3). When the Ammonites threaten the land, the elders go and try to get Jephthah to help them but he spurns them at first.  He finally agrees to come back if they will make him head over them…

Judges 10 – Tola is the next judge God raises up, a man of the tribe of Issachar, but nothing is said of the particulars of his 23-year rule.

Then comes Jair, the Gileadite.  He ruled 22 years.  He had 30 sons who rode on 30 donkeys and they had 30 towns in Gilead.

The Israelites backslide again, and the Lord sells them “into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the Ammonites, and they crushed and oppressed the Israelites. . .”…

Judge 9 – Abimelech goes to Shechem to get his mother’s clan’s support for going up against the 70 legitimate heirs of Gideon (Jerubbaal).  They give him money with which he hires “worthless and reckless fellows, who followed him” (9:4). Then he goes and kills all his brothers.  Only one survives the massacre—Jotham. 

When Jotham learns that the “lords of Shechem” are gathered “by the oak of the pillar at Shechem” (9:6) he goes up Mount Gerizim and cries out to…

Judges 8:4-35 - On the way through Succoth (pursuing the remaining Midianite kings—Zebah and Zalmunna), Gideon asks the people to feed his men, but they refuse.  Then the people of Penuel deny them too.  Gideon vows to return and punish them for their unwillingness to help.

Gideon finally defeats the last two, he returns and exacts the revenge he has promised on the leaders of Succoth and Penuel. 

Then he tells the kings he wouldn’t kill them had they…

Judges 6 – When the people turn again to what is evil, the Lord gives them into the hands of the Midianites (And Amalekites—people of the east).  They would come and pilfer whatever Israel grew or raised in the way of livestock.  They were like Locusts.  This time, the prophet the Lord sent is Gideon (c.1100).  The Lord comes to him and says, “The Lord is with you, you mighty warrior” (6:12). Gideon questions God. He ways, “And…

Judges 5 – There follows a poetic celebration of the victory of Deborah and Barak—it includes a brief retelling of “the story:

“[W]hen you marched from the region of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens poured, the clouds indeed poured water.  The mountains quaked before the Lord, the One of Sinai, before the Lord, the God of Israel” (5:4-5).

“The peasantry prospered in Israel, they grew fat on plunder, because you arose, Deborah, arose as a…