Handout #20: Scroll of Ruth (Heb. מְגִלַּת רוּת), Shavu’ot, Torah, restored priesthood/Jewish women, Elimelekh, Ruth, Boaz, Naomi, Elkanah and Hannah, Samuel, seer
Shavuot commemorates the acceptance of the Torah by the Jewish people, and the Book of Ruth by a single individual through an act of conversion. Stories of Naomi, Ruth and Hannah are told in this scroll. Shavu’ot – Festival of Weeks – second of three major festivals (2 days).Commemorates time when first fruits harvested, brought to Temple. Seven weeks between this holiday and Passover (when Jews physically freed from bondage) redeems us spiritually from bondage to immorality and idolatry. Also known as Pentecost – falls on 50th day.
Comparison to restored priesthood/role of women in the LDS church comes from Torah. Rashi, a great Hebrew rabbi of past ages, explains the seeming redundancy “House of Jacob,” and “Children of Israel.” The House of Jacob refers to Jewish women — The ideas of Judaism come to life in the Jewish home and are translated into reality by the guidance of the Jewish woman. The Jewish man carries the obligation of learning Torah, but it is the Jewish woman who translates its ideas into the realities of everyday living.
During the Holiday of Shavu’ot, we read in the synagogue the Book (or Scroll) of Ruth (10th century b.c.) During the rule of the Judges, Israel suffered a serious famine which was deemed to be one of the punishments visited upon the people when they had sinned (Lev 26:14, 16). The story tells about the Jewish family of Elimelekh (God is my king) who moved to Moab (waste, nothingness) due to the drought in the land of Judea. Elimelech belied the name he bore when he left Bethlehem—“the house of bread”—for Moab. With his family he went from a place where God was honored to another land heathen in its ways.
Although the land of Moab may sound remote it was only some 30 miles from Bethlehem-Judah—when they had no transportation. The sons of the family married Moabite-Gentile – women. After some years the father Elimelekh and his sons died. Ruth the Moabitess who was married to one of the sons decided to join her mother-in-law Naomi when she decided to go back to Judea. She told her: “thy people shall be my people and thy God my God;”(1:16) .She becomes a convert to Judaism. They arrived at Judea during Harvest time (around Shavu’ot) and Ruth went to collect the leftover wheat in the field of Boaz. This is the right of the poor to collect the leftovers according to Mosaic law of gleaning – (Lev 19:9,10, Deut 24:20-21) yearly. No one could discriminate between the poor or prevent their gleaning.
Although the provision was made in the interest of the Jewish poor only, and such Gentiles as had adopted Judaism, in order to establish peaceful relations among the various inhabitants of the land, the poor of other nations were permitted to glean together with the Jewish poor, no one being allowed to drive them away.
Boaz (בֹּעַז, בּוֹעַז), was a family member of Elimelekh who is impressed first by Ruth’s appearance and second by her loyalty to Naomi. Eventually, Boaz and Ruth get married and they are the great grandparents of King David. Ruth’s saver and second husband and the great grandfather of King David may have received his name from being strong, powerful, courageous and brave.
Boaz, related to Naomi’s husband, was therefore connected by marriage to Ruth, and by Jewish custom, Boaz, as next of kin, could be regarded as Ruth’s rightful betrothed. Naomi took a lively interest in the kindness of Boaz to Ruth, and advised her in the steps leading to her marriage to Boaz. The idyllic conclusion was reached as Elimelech married Naomi. He is thought to have belonged to one of the outstanding families in Israel, being a brother of Salmon, prince of Judah, who married Rahab. Naomi and Elimelech belonged to Bethlehem-Judah. Their two sons were Mahlon and Chilion.
Naomi (נָעֳמִי) comes from the Hebrew root which refers to being pleasant, lovely, and gracious, my joy, pleasantness of Jehovah, Although her character came to be purged and enhanced by her suffering, Naomi had an innate nobility that gave her personality an irresistible charm. For Naomi such an uprooting from her native home must have constituted a real sacrifice. Sincere in her faith, she loved the people of God and was strongly attached to the wonderful traditions of her race.
Naomi saw Ruth lifted out of obscurity and poverty into marriage with a godly man, as well as a mighty man of wealth. The family she thought she had seen perish has been restored to the genealogies of Israel; baby Obed lives to become the father of Jesse, and Jesse is father of the great King David. And in the genealogical tables of Matthew, the Moabitess who left her people for love of Naomi is an ancestor of the Messiah.
Elkanah (Heb. God has purchased) was Hannah’s husband and father of her children, including Samuel. He was polygamous with Peninnah, who bore him more children. Came from Ephraimite lands, but was probably a Levite (1Chron 6:16-30).
When Elkanah took his wives and their families to Shiloh (where the tabernacle had been located after the tribes conquered Canaan) to offer sacrifices, a peace offering was made. After the fat, kidneys, and other parts were burned, the priest customarily received the breast and right shoulder. The rest of the sacrificial animal was given back to the offerer to be eaten in a special feast. From his part, Elkanah gave portions of the meat to his family. Hannah received either more than the others or else a more choice portion because of Elkanah’s love for her.
Hannah, wife of Elkanah, was childless. Each year at the temple she wept and prayed for a son (1 Samuel 1:1–7). Hannah told Eli that she had “poured out [her] soul before the Lord” .When Hannah brought Samuel to the temple, she made offerings and sang praises to the Lord (1 Samuel 1:24–25, 28; 2:1–2). Hannah waited many years before being blessed with children (1 Samuel 1:2; 2:21
Hannah’s covenant with the Lord that, if she were given a child, “no razor” would come upon his head seems to be a promise to raise Samuel as a Nazarite, one under a special vow to God never to cut his hair. In Samuel is a great contrast to Samson, the former keeping his Nazarite vows throughout life, becoming a powerful man of God, and the latter violating all his vows, becoming a wretched example of failure to serve God. Nazarites were vegetarians, chaste, drank no wine.
Samuel (Heb. Heard of God) The name was meant to serve as a lifelong reminder to both Hannah and Samuel of the special circumstances and commitments attendant on his birth. Weaning took place very late among the Israelites. Hebrew mothers were in the habit of suckling their children for three years. When the weaning had taken place, Hannah would bring her son up to the sanctuary, to appear before the face of the Lord, and remain there forever, i.e. his whole life long.
The Levites generally were only required to perform service at the sanctuary from their twenty-fifth to their fiftieth year (Num 8:24–25]; but Samuel was to be presented to the Lord immediately after his weaning had taken place, and to remain at the sanctuary forever, to belong entirely to the Lord. To this end he was to receive his training at the sanctuary, that at the very earliest waking up of his spiritual susceptibilities he might receive the impressions of the sacred presence of God.”
Hannah’s prayer shows her to have been a woman with great faith and love for God. The horn ( Sam 2:1) symbolized power and strength. God had given her the power to bear a child. The rock (see v. 2) was a representation of protection. Jesus Christ is the rock or stone of Israel, the protector from evil ( Matt 21:42–44). In 1 Samuel 2:10 both allusions are combined into one: the Messiah is “the anointed one” who will break all adversaries of the Lord in pieces (the Greek word for Messiah, Christos, also means “the anointed one”). He it was, Hannah said, who would be given strength in that his horn (power) would be exalted before men. This passage is a choice Old Testament reference to the future Messiah and shows that Hannah was blessed with the gift of prophecy.
1 Samuel 4-7. These chapters deal with Israel’s loss of the ark of God to the Philistines. The Israelites viewed the ark as the visible symbol of the presence of God, but bringing the ark from Shiloh on this occasion was a demonstration of Israel’s state of spiritual wickedness rather than a demonstration of their faith.
“They vainly supposed that the ark could save them, when the God of it had departed from them because of their wickedness. They knew that in former times their fathers had been beaten by their enemies, when they took not the ark with them to battle; as in the case of their wars with the Canaanites, [see Numbers 14:44–45]; and that they had conquered when they took this with them, as in the case of the destruction of Jericho, [seeJoshua 6:4]. From the latter clause they took confidence; but the cause of their miscarriage in the former they laid not to heart.” (Clarke, Bible Commentary, 2:219.)
Great disaster followed the appearance of the ark among the troops because of Israel’s wickedness. Israel suffered a resounding defeat, Hophni and Phinehas were slain, and the ark was captured. News of the capture of the ark and of the death of his sons caused Eli such consternation that he lost his balance on his seat (see Reading 24-4), fell over backwards, and died, thus fulfilling the prophecy that his house would come to a tragic end (see 1 Samuel 2:27–36).
1 Samuel 8: Thearchy or theocracy is government by the immediate direction of God through his ministers and representatives. A state governed in this manner is called theocracy. This was the original earthly government, Adam serving as the great presiding high priest through whom the laws of the Lord, both temporal and spiritual, were revealed and administered. This type of government apparently continued among the righteous portion of mankind from the days of Adam to Enoch and the taking of Zion to the Lord’s bosom.
“The great patriarchs after the flood—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and others—appear to have had this type of government. Righteous portions of the Jareditish peoples were undoubtedly governed on this system. Certainly ancient Israel in the days of Moses and the judges operated on a theocratic basis, and the same system prevailed among the Nephite portion of Lehi’s descendants during most of their long history. When Christ comes to reign personally on earth during the millennial era, a perfect theocratic government will prevail. (D.&C 38:20–22; 58:20–22)
This type of government was the ideal. During the reign of the judges, however, the wickedness of the people in general and of certain leaders in particular largely invalidated the theocratic form of government.
1 Samuel 9: 9-27 A seer is one who has the ability to see the future—he is literally a “seer.” As explained in the Book of Mormon, seers are men who possess the power to “know of things which are past, and also of things which are to come” (Mosiah 8:17). They do this in some cases with the aid of the Urim and Thummim. The possession of these instruments in ancient times made a righteous man a seer (see Mosiah 8:13–18; 28:10–16). It is in this connection, then, that a seer is greater than a prophet (see Mosiah 8:15). The means by which Samuel identified Saul is evidence of Samuel’s gift of seership.