Ep 72: The Truth About Ruth

00:00We scared them away, everybody, with all of our gold, we terrified them, and they ran

00:08like cowards.

00:10What were all those trunks that they were carrying out of Jerusalem?

00:12Never mind.

00:13Never mind.

00:14You didn't see any of them.

00:17Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:22And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:23And you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast where we increase public access to

00:28the academic study of the Bible and religion, and combat the spread of that ever-present.

00:34Misinformation about the same.

00:35How are things?

00:37Things are good, ever-present.

00:39It's a good day to discuss the Bible.

00:43Today was a good day, as the great poet once said, to discuss the Bible.

00:49And we're going to be discussing a couple different parts of the Bible today, is my

00:52understanding.

00:53Yes, indeed, we've got a chapter in verse, or rather a chapter and a chapter and a chapter.

00:59We're just doing a whole book.

01:01A whole book of the Bible, yeah.

01:03And then we're going to do a, "Who's that?"

01:06And we're going to go through a name that you have mentioned, Sinacoreb.

01:13To me, you've mentioned it among the show a bunch of times, and it has always just been

01:19a random bunch of syllables to me.

01:21Yeah, yeah.

01:22So hopefully you can clear up what we're talking about when you say that word, because it sounds

01:29like maybe snack chips, or a some sort of cracker.

01:34Yeah, something you might see a commercial for it on a football game, something like that.

01:40Yeah, we're going to talk a little bit about that so everybody can have a little background.

01:44So in the future, when I rail about Sinacoreb, you can be like, "Ah, I remember where to

01:49place that."

01:50I remember that.

01:51Yeah.

01:52I remember that.

01:53But for right now, let's start with chapter and verse.

01:59We're doing Ruth, everybody.

02:01This is the book of Ruth.

02:03It's only four chapters long, and it's interesting.

02:07The first two chapters are about as straightforward.

02:12It feels to me like, and you can correct me on this, Dan, because there's always something

02:17that I miss.

02:18But it feels like the most straightforward thing in the world.

02:22We start out in Bethlehem, in Judah, and we've got a family.

02:29We've got a guy named Elimalek, and Elimalek has a wife named Naomi, and then they've got

02:38two sons.

02:40Yes.

02:41Mahlone and Chileon, Chiledon.

02:46Mahlone and Kileon.

02:48Yes.

02:49Okay.

02:50Says you.

02:51Right.

02:52One of the interesting things to point out about this is their son's names, Mean in Hebrew,

02:57sickly and frail.

02:59Yes.

03:00I did see those footnotes there.

03:04Okay.

03:05So right off the bat, they're telling you something.

03:09There's a little bit of foreshadowing.

03:11It does feel like one of the things they're telling me is, we're making this up.

03:17That's what it feels like.

03:18Yeah.

03:19Yeah.

03:20They have characters.

03:21They're Maguffins.

03:22Yeah.

03:23They are, you know, it's like if you had a, what was the, what show has the Maguffin Institute?

03:29Oh, that's community.

03:31Silly me.

03:32Yeah.

03:33So there's a, there's a, an institute that comes in for this specific narrative art called

03:37the Maguffin Institute.

03:38If you hadn't remembered, I would tell Joel on you.

03:43But so yeah, they're, these, these characters are disposable.

03:48Yeah.

03:49You know, they're not meant for the long haul.

03:52Well, and what's interesting about that is that, you know, this, this is one of those

03:56rare books where we follow women mainly because almost instantly, well, so all of these people,

04:04this little family, there's famine in Judah and they pack up their stuff and move to Moab.

04:13Which is an odd choice because Moab is like more deserts than Judea.

04:19Right.

04:20Or at least Bethlehem.

04:21Bethlehem is more in the, in the hill country a little bit.

04:23And so if there's famine in, in Judea, most likely there's going to be famine in Moab as

04:30well.

04:31But you're, I mean, that will get to this part, but I, I read a whole bunch of different sort

04:38of explanations of, of this story and one of the explanations that I read said.

04:44And by the way, every time I read someone's big explanation of what's happening in things,

04:51I, and I've read the passages that they're talking about, I find they are including so

04:56much stuff that's like nowhere in the book and like it's not there at all.

05:01So one of the things that they were like is that, you know, they're, they're, they're,

05:07this was something about God was angry with Judah because of the judges system and this

05:14is, this is interrogation of the judges system and, and an indictment of it and it's supposed

05:19to be kings and I, I read none of that in this.

05:24Yeah.

05:25Well, the, and that, that's because in order to try to better understand this, people want

05:28a situated in a context, right, what, what time period are we talking about?

05:32And then we need to know who's, who's writing this?

05:35What time period is the writer operating in?

05:37That's how we're going to best understand.

05:39And so people have constructed a lot of elaborate different frameworks to, to surround and undergird

05:45the story, but the, the book starts off, uh, via he be me Chifot Hashov team.

05:53So it happened in the days of the judging of the judges.

05:57So we're, we're setting this in the period of the judges and, and Ruth is going to be

06:02spoiler alert.

06:03Uh, Ruth is going to be the great grandmother of King David.

06:07Right.

06:08So we're, we're around 11 hundredish BCE.

06:12According to the setting of the book right now, it's clearly written after that period.

06:17Yeah.

06:18And that's, you don't, you don't start a period.

06:19You don't start writing about the present by saying in the days of the blank.

06:24Yeah.

06:25You're on in the book, it's going to say in the, in the before times when they did this,

06:30they would take off their sandal and give it to the other person.

06:33You don't need to clarify, Hey, this, the social convention that is currently going on.

06:38Um, they're very clearly quite explicitly, um, putting this deep in the past.

06:44Right.

06:45And so some people put this, uh, pre-exilic.

06:47This is before the Babylonian exile during the, uh, the monarchy, uh, that's, and the

06:53idea is that Moab is not quite yet treated as an enemy.

06:56So maybe it's during the monarchy, uh, others say, no, this is post-exilic.

07:02The themes here are related to, um, you know, kind of international families, uh, coming

07:08back to the land of, uh, Judea and they need to be made to feel like they are not unwelcome.

07:15Uh, so there are arguments for different, um, social settings for the author.

07:21I happen to think it's probably more likely post-exilic, but that's just me.

07:27Okay.

07:28Uh, so let's, let's just fast forward through the first several parts of this.

07:33Uh, they go, they go to Moab.

07:35Both of the boys get wives, uh, dad dies and boys die.

07:41Yes.

07:42Uh, sort of in quick succession.

07:44Yes.

07:45So what we have.

07:46We're sickly and frail after all.

07:47They were.

07:48And what are you supposed to, don't name your kids these things.

07:51Yeah.

07:52You don't want them to turn out to be that.

07:53Hey, don't name your kid Jeeves if you don't want him to battle.

07:57Yeah.

07:58Exactly.

07:59Uh, so off.

08:00So they're good.

08:01So now this leaves Naomi and her sit, her daughters in law were Orpa and Ruth Orpa by

08:08the way.

08:09Did you know that Oprah's given birth name was Orpa?

08:13And that they just.

08:14I have heard that.

08:15I just reversed it.

08:16Yeah.

08:17Tell that story one point.

08:18Anyway.

08:19Yeah.

08:20So, so Naomi decides to go back to Judah.

08:24Orpa decides not to go with her.

08:27She's, she tells Ruth, stay here with your family.

08:31Don't come with me.

08:32I got nothing to offer you.

08:33Ruth decides to go with her anyway.

08:35Yes.

08:36And we have the, the famous passage, uh, where she says, where you go, I will go where

08:41you lodge.

08:42I will lodge your people.

08:43She'll be my people and your God, my God, where you die, I will die.

08:47And there will I be buried, may the Lord do thus to me and more as well if even death

08:53parts me from you, which is considered of, um, this is very poetic, very, uh, strong

08:59indication of, of, uh, this love that is shared between mother in law and daughter in

09:05law.

09:06Yeah.

09:07At least in the NRSVUE, it's, it's separated out and written in poet poetic form.

09:13It's not again.

09:14It's, it's, it's, so there you go, she wrote her whole luxury.

09:18Yeah.

09:19No such luxury with the KJV, where every verse is its own separate paragraph, no matter

09:23what.

09:24We so suck it.

09:25Um, yeah.

09:26Yeah.

09:27So off they go, uh, back from Moab to Bethlehem, uh, and they're, they arrive at the beginning

09:36of the barley harvest, uh, which, which is like sort of important in terms of the plot.

09:43But several people that I read said that it was also sort of, uh, thematically important

09:51because it was, there was a, there's a fertility idea involved.

09:56Mm hmm.

09:57Does that seem like a stretch to you or where, where, where are you at?

09:59Um, I, I don't think it's a stretch.

10:02I, I think it's certainly a plausible.

10:05There's, there's this idea that because the, the climax of the story is, is she's able

10:11to, to bear children and then Naomi is, the line is able to be carried on Naomi's line

10:16because of Ruth's, uh, righteousness and all of this.

10:21So, um, yes, she is, uh, she's going to be ripe, uh, whatever, I mean, whatever, I, yeah.

10:29Ruth's righteousness is an interesting question as we continue onward.

10:33I, I don't question it, but I think a lot of people, uh, anyway, we'll get to it.

10:39Um, they get, they get back to Bethlehem and one of Naomi's kinsmen apparently is Boaz.

10:47Um, kins, kinsmen to a limalek, Naomi's, uh, widowed husband, right.

10:55So now they hatch this plan to at least to have some food, which is, and correct me if

11:00I'm wrong, which is that Ruth is going to sort of follow behind the reapers in the field

11:07and just sort of collect like the cast off bits or what, like, what is she doing?

11:12Yeah.

11:13So she's greening and this is something that you see in, uh, in some of the biblical legislation

11:19that they, uh, were so, to leave the greenings for the poor.

11:23And so basically they're harvesting and as they go around and harvest, there are going

11:26to be things that they miss, like if, if they're going through with the sickle or however

11:31they're harvesting, they're not going to get every last stock and, and as they go and

11:36pick it up, there's, there's going to be stuff that, that gets left behind.

11:39And so the idea is don't go back through and pick it all up.

11:45Yeah.

11:46Leave the stuff that's, uh, that's left in the margins for the poor.

11:50So that they have, uh, it's, it's a bit of a social safety net.

11:54But here we have, I have never gleaned that that was the meaning of the word glean.

11:58Uh, I'm glad, I'm glad to understand that now.

12:02Yeah.

12:03And so Ruth is, is going to go in and basically put herself in front of someone who, uh, is

12:11part of the family, someone who is prominent.

12:13It's, it's a calculated, uh, thing that they're doing here.

12:17Yeah.

12:18It's a, it, yeah.

12:19So this is, this is her way of meeting the big celebrity, the big rich guy in town, uh,

12:23because they say that specifically that Boaz, though he is kinsman, apparently you can't

12:29just go up to him.

12:30You can't just approach him.

12:32He's, you have to, you have to like actually, you know, bump into him in his field or something.

12:39Well, certainly not an, and, uh, a widowed, uh, Moabite wouldn't really have, uh, standing

12:49right more or less to, uh, to go up to be him and, and be like, Hey, can I marry you so

12:56that I can have some money?

12:58Um, that's, that's frowned upon, uh, in this time period.

13:01Okay.

13:02Sure.

13:03So she apparently works very, very hard.

13:05Uh, Boaz comes by and is like, Hey, who's the, uh, who's the hard work and chick in the

13:10back there?

13:11Uh, and they're like, Oh, she's actually related to you sort of just, you know, on the side,

13:16whatever, blah, blah, blah, uh, and he takes an interest and, uh, and lets her actually

13:22like work with the reapers, right?

13:25Somehow.

13:26Yeah.

13:27And he tells them, uh, to like don't give her a hard time, let her work alongside you.

13:35And also, uh, you know, she's going to get a little bit of a kickback to like, yeah,

13:40leave, leave a little extra, um, for her.

13:42So, and then he's, uh, he invites her over to his table at mealtime.

13:47He, uh, come, you know, sit at the cool kids table with me because he loves the cut of

13:52her jib.

13:53Yeah.

13:54And the interest seems to be there, um, and you know, she's pretty, she's pretty pleased

14:00by this.

14:01She says, why have I found favor in your site that you should take notice of me when I am

14:05a foreigner.

14:06And Boaz is very nice and says all that you have done for your mother-in-law since he

14:11had heard the story.

14:12He had apparently heard that, that she came back with Naomi, uh, which, which apparently

14:20was a very nice thing to do.

14:22Yeah.

14:23And this is, well, and that's going to, that's going to play, uh, throughout this story,

14:28you have, uh, certain things on the part of Naomi, on the part of roof, on the part of

14:32Boaz where they're going above and beyond what is expected of them.

14:38Right.

14:39And so there's, there's an argument to make that this idea that's, um, it's translated

14:43loving kindness, sometimes grace or mercy, uh, in, in the Hebrew Bible is a, a reference

14:51to, uh, going above and beyond what's required by law in order to help somebody out who's

14:57in trouble.

14:58Right.

14:59Um, and so like Ruth does that.

15:01She doesn't have to go with Naomi.

15:02She doesn't have to abandon her land, nothing in the law requires that of her, but she does

15:06it because she loves Naomi.

15:09And then she also doesn't, um, and, and Boaz later on, we're going to see, he doesn't

15:13have to redeem her, but he does it because he respects what she's been doing for Naomi.

15:20And so everybody is basically doing a kindness to the other in this story to show that's,

15:26uh, the law, the law is not adequate.

15:30You need to go above and, and beyond the law.

15:32And, uh, and so is that why he redeemed her though?

15:36Well, we're going to get into that conversation, but, uh, I think there's some question there,

15:42but unquestionably at the beginning here, uh, in chapter two, he's being a nice guy to

15:48her. Yeah. He's really, he's really embraced, uh, he's really, he's really, uh, taken her

15:53under his under his good guy, Boaz is, um, is treating her well.

15:59Yeah.

16:00Uh, no mention how he treats any other, uh, poor people who are leaning behind his harvesters,

16:07but he's really, we're, we're, we're real nice to her.

16:10Yeah.

16:11Uh, now, now we get to chapter three and things get.

16:16If I may, uh, very, very, I we'll say metaphorical, I want to say there's a lot, there's a lot

16:27that I think is open to various interpretation.

16:32Everything up until now seems very straightforward.

16:34Now we get into some stuff.

16:36Now Naomi, uh, so, so Ruth goes to Naomi and so like basically tells her all of the story

16:41about what's happened. Right. And, uh, and Naomi hatches a plan now help me. I've read

16:52many very differing, uh, accounts of what this plan is or, or interpretations of what

16:58this plan is. Okay.

17:00What, what, what I see in the text is, uh, Naomi says, go, you know, wait until, so to,

17:10so wait until he's done with that day's harvest. Uh, and when he's done there, he'll be on,

17:17he'll be threshing. He'll be on the threshing floor. Uh, and apparently during at the time

17:24of harvest, the dudes, they, they do the work and then they just, they, they sleep there

17:31at the threshing floor. They don't go back to their house. They, they, they sleep there.

17:36And you know, I guess that makes sense because at harvest time, there's like suddenly an

17:42abundance of work that all needs to be done really, really quickly. Yeah. Uh, so Naomi

17:49says to Ruth, go, uh, wash, first of all, wash, and anoint yourself and put on your

17:56best clothes. I assume anointing in this case isn't like some, uh, ritualistic thing, but

18:02rather just make yourself smell good. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and so wash and anoint yourself

18:08and put on your best clothes and go down to the threshing floor, but do not make yourself

18:12known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. When he lies down, observe the

18:19place where he lies, then go and uncover his feet and lie down. And he will tell you what

18:26to do. She said to her, all that you say, I will do. Now, I, I guess this is the moment

18:35where we have to talk about feet. And, uh, do we have to? Yes. We have to. The uncovering

18:46of feet seems to be, uh, a, a huge point of contention. This just reminds me, um, a tradition

18:55that my wife of I and I have started is, um, on my birthday, we go get pedicures together.

19:00Oh, we go to a place nearby and, uh, and I was getting my toenails painted. And so after

19:06this last one, I was going to, um, we took a picture of our, our feet next to each other

19:11with both our toenails painted and I was going to post it on like Facebook or Twitter or something

19:16like that. And I was like, there's some weirdos out there. I think I'm just going to keep

19:21my feet to myself. So I remember those are fun. It doesn't hurt. So, uh, I did not uncover

19:29my feet on Twitter. Uh, but yeah. So, so feet are frequently a euphemism for the genitals

19:35in the Hebrew Bible. It does not mean every time the word foot occurs that the author

19:41is trying to sneak some, um, some phallic metaphor or something into the story, but you

19:46have the idea of, um, uncovering one's feet, uh, is a euphemism for sex. But at the same

19:54time covering one's feet is a euphemism for defecation. So again, there are a variety

20:00of different ways that the body parts can signal different, uh, different semantic content.

20:06And so any, is there anything in the, uh, is it always the same word that means feet

20:12or are there, are there different Hebrew words that sometimes normally it's just regal,

20:17uh, which is, uh, which is actually like the lower leg. Um, but let me look and see what,

20:24uh, three, four. Is that where we are? Uh, yes. Yeah. Uncover his feet. Yeah. Regal is

20:36the, is the word. So, um, yeah. And like, if you saw uncover, um, Galat, uh, to expose

20:46or reveal or uncover the feet, you would kind of be like, Oh, really? Um, but in the

20:51story, like the, the narrative seems to be pretty literal. It's like she uncovered his

20:57feet and then he woke up and then was like, Hey, there's somebody laying at my feet.

21:04So I, I, what I think is you've probably got, the story is probably being a little suggestive.

21:10And here's why I think it's being suggestive. I think Naomi's plan is basically, Hey, when

21:15he's, when he's passed out, um, you know, go do your thing. And the act of, uh, sexual

21:24intercourse with an unmarried woman is, is basically a, a legal marriage that was considered,

21:31you could, you could go to the down to the courthouse and you could sign the papers or

21:34you could just have intercourse. And then according to the society, Hey, boom, you're

21:39married. And so Naomi's plan may be saying, Hey, when he's nice and drunk, uh, you know,

21:46put on a pretty dress, uh, get some, some lipstick on and go down there and, um, you

21:52know, yada, yada, yada. And then boom, you're married. And now you've, you've tricked your

21:57way into his household. Um, except she goes down there and uncovers his feet and he wakes

22:04up and he, I, in my opinion, he sees what's going on, but is like, no, no, there's a better

22:10way to do this. See, according to the law, there's a closer next of kin. And so I want

22:17to make sure this is all good and proper. And so he's going above and beyond here to,

22:23um, say, Oh, you don't have to trick me. We can do this above board. We can do, um, we

22:29can make this, uh, nice and legal, not now mind you before he's, he says that. And then

22:37he says, but stay with me tonight. Yeah. Yeah. For a while. Yeah. But still leave under

22:43the cover of darkness. So it, to me, the, the claims that they didn't have sex seem

22:50pretty thin to me. I agree. I agree. I think the narrative is suggestive of that very much

22:56suggestive of that, but the narrative never makes it explicit. Right. And that's, that's

23:01sort of like the whole thing. She goes down, uh, let me just go through it really quickly,

23:07just so that we're clear about it. She goes down to the threshing floor. She hides until

23:11Boaz has eaten and drunk and is in a quote contented mood, which I think I read as drunk.

23:20Or at the very least, uh, pleasantly happy with his drinking. Yeah. Uh, and then he

23:26lies down, uh, at the end of the heap of grain. Then she came stealthily and uncovered his

23:32feet. We think we know what that might mean, but it might, but plenty of people think it

23:38just means uncovered his feet, uh, and lay down at midnight. So this seems to feel like,

23:45so this is verse eight and it seems to feel like there's some time passes and it says

23:50at midnight, the man was startled and turned over and there lying at his feet at his feet

23:58was a woman. He said, who are you? And she answered, I am Ruth, your servant. Spread

24:04your cloak over your servant for you are next of kin. Now spread your cloak over your servant

24:11is probably not just a, a fabric concept. Well, there, there could be a couple different

24:18metaphorical things going on here because the cloak is also symbolic of the protection

24:23of the household. So in a sense, she's saying, uh, spread your, uh, the protection of your

24:29household over me. Um, and metaphorically, it could also mean invite me into your, uh,

24:37the holy of holies, uh, in, uh, under your cloak. Um, so I, because what's going to happen,

24:42because litter, the literal, if we look at it literally, if he spreads his cloak over

24:47her, she is then within, right, they're, they're both naked under there. Right. Right. And

24:54so like much like Peter Paul and Mary, I think the, uh, the narrator here is thinking, uh,

25:00but if I really say it, the radio won't play it unless I lay it between the lines. So I,

25:07I think what the, the narrative is being told in a quite literal way with, but wink, but

25:12with winks in the direction of, um, what's going on now. At the same time, this, there's

25:19absolutely no indication any of this is historical. So it's, it's not like the narrator is, is

25:25saying we got to tell it this way, but it really happened this other way. I think they're

25:29just, this is the entertainment part of this folklore. Right. Uh, and, and this is where

25:35we sort of, I mean, we, we got the sense earlier that Boaz might be an older guy, but he's

25:40very, but he very clearly says, uh, hey, I love that you didn't just go and try and, you

25:46know, seduce all these younger guys, rather, whether poor or, or rich. He says, uh, may

25:52you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter, first of all, he's calling her my daughter, which

25:56is, uh, generally if you're even in the same ballpark of age, you're not going to be using

26:01that language. Uh, this last instance of your loyalty is better than the first, the first

26:06being the, the gleaning thing, I guess, uh, you have not gone after young men, whether

26:12rich or poor, whether poor or rich. And now my daughter do not be afraid. I will do for

26:17you all that you ask. And all that you ask is like spreading your cloak over me. Um, yeah.

26:25So, so he says, I'm going to do that, but like you said, there's this, he's got a, like,

26:31there's a sense of propriety. There's another dude who has a better claim, who is close

26:37mirror of kin and therefore has a better claim to, uh, and, and what becomes clear is this

26:43isn't just about her. It's about, uh, the inheritance of her father in law. Right. So

26:52this is, we talked about a limulex, uh, land or whatever. So we, we talked about leverage

27:00a bit ago. We did, right? Is that a dream I had or no, no, no, we talked about that

27:04in the context of, uh, of, uh, tomorrow, Judah and Tamar. I'm right. I'm like Topaz. No,

27:12I'm Judah and Tamar. Yeah. It's, it's a very, uh, similar thing here. The, that property

27:19can't be owned by Naomi or Ruth. It's got to go to, uh, to a man. And so it's in, it's

27:26in limbo currently. And so this is an opportunity, uh, for Boas take on a little bit more property,

27:33but at the same time, it means taking on the, the Moabite wife who is linked with that property.

27:40And so there's a, it's a leverage marriage thing. Now technically with leverage marriage,

27:46the children would be raised up in the name of the deceased. Right. But, uh, that doesn't

27:53really end up happening here. Ruth's children are attributed to Boas everywhere else they're

27:59mentioned. Interesting. Yeah. So, uh, we've got, uh, the not in the direction of leverage,

28:05but it doesn't really fit with what we would expect for leverage marriage. Uh, but, and

28:10this is going to have to do with why the next of kin makes the decision that they make because,

28:16um, you'll notice that, that Boas kind of slow plays his hand a little bit. He's like,

28:21Hey, got all this land here. Want some land? And, uh, and then springs the woman on, on

28:27him, uh, there at the end, which is what's, which, what spooks him and drives him off so

28:31that he can. Yeah. That's an interesting thing. Uh, he does. So anyway, um, just to finish

28:38out their, their night on the threshing floor. Yeah. He does stay stick around till morning.

28:44We're, we're going to hang out, um, and apparently just play cards or something, uh, according

28:51to many of the things that I read, uh, and then, and then he gives her some, uh, some

28:56free, he hadn't, he hadn't finished yet. So right. Yeah. Well, and also he was drunk.

29:03So it was probably like, give me a minute here and probably need some time. Uh, then,

29:08you know, he sends her on his way before, before the light comes, but he gives her six measures

29:13of barley, uh, as a, as a nice going away present, as a nice consolation prize. Um, and

29:23some barley on the, barley on the counter on your way out, you can exactly. And that,

29:28yeah. Look on the nightstand. I love so barley for you. And then, uh, they go and do the,

29:34uh, the thing with the other next of kin. And as you say, basically Boaz is like, Hey,

29:40yeah, he gathers the, the dude who is unnamed, right? Whoever the other next of kin is next

29:49of kin. Yeah. We don't, we don't need a name. There are other parts of the Bible, um, where

29:53there are like King's characters whose, whose names are no name. So like this, you know,

30:00this, this is just part of storytelling. Uh, yeah. Yeah. So in, in Spanish, you would

30:05say Fulano de Tal, uh, or, you know, buckaroo, if, uh, but I, I think this is a fascinating

30:13part of the story because it reveals some, uh, some understanding about, about how these,

30:19uh, cultural, um, processes were carried out. They're, they're at the city gate. And I've

30:26been to city gates in, uh, in these lands and, uh, they're like chambered gates. So they're

30:33like little, uh, recessed rooms in there and there were benches and people would hang out.

30:38It was, it was kind of like, uh, you know, the, the town square. It was a city mud room.

30:45Something. Yeah. Something like that. And, um, and it says, uh, like I said before, in,

30:51in the before times when you wanted to make a deal or something like that, you took off

30:55your sandal and you, and you gave it to the other person. Um, but he, he goes, he's like,

31:00I'm sure then this, this other guy is going to come by at some point. And it says as soon

31:05as he sat down, the next of kin was there. Uh, and you know, he's like, pull over, take

31:11a load off, uh, hey, and he gets so into the elders of town also. Yeah. Because I've got

31:16to witness this. Right. We got to witness the, uh, the handing off of the chonkla, um,

31:22to, to make it nice and legal. Uh, and, and he, and it says, let me find it. Um, if you

31:30will redeem it, redeem it. But if you will not tell me so that I may know for there is

31:34no one prior to redeem it. So basically Bois is like, I'm actually not next in line. There's

31:39another guy next in line. Let's go see what that other guy thinks. And, uh, the other

31:44guy says, ooh, yeah, I'll redeem it. Then Bois says, oh, by the way, there's this lady.

31:48Yeah. There is. There's a little, yeah, there's a ball and chain attached to this, um, to

31:54this property. And the guy goes, ooh, on second thought. Yeah. I'm going to, and he doesn't

31:59show the dude Ruth because apparently Ruth was a decent looking lady. He says, that's

32:04Ruth, the Moabite. Yeah. By sure you want a Moabite. And so he says, I cannot redeem

32:10it for myself without damaging my own inheritance. So now we're back to the leverate marriage

32:15idea. Oh, if I have to raise up, so basically that property is not in my name. That is in

32:21their name. And so, um, there, uh, any children are going to be raised up in the name of the

32:26deceased and they're going to take that property. And it says that explicitly. It says you are

32:32acquiring Ruth, the Moabite, the widow of the dead man to maintain the dead man's name

32:37on his inheritance. Exactly. So it's very explicit about that. And that's when the guy's

32:42like, um, you know, when I think about it now, you can, you can have her. You can go ahead.

32:51Yeah. And then, and then we have to, that's, that's when the exchange of the sandal occurs.

32:58Yeah. And then Boaz said to the elders and all the people, you are witnesses today that

33:03I have acquired from the hand of Naomi and all that belong to Ali Melek and all that

33:06belong to Keleone or Keleone and Mahlon. I've also acquired Ruth the Moabite, the wife

33:11of Mahlon to be my wife, to maintain the dead man's name on his inheritance in order that

33:16the name of the dead may not be cut off from his kindred. And from the gate of his native

33:20place today, you are witnesses. And they all bowed their heads and said, yes. Um, and so

33:29they are witnesses may the may Adonai make the woman who is coming into your house like

33:33Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you produce children

33:38in Ephrata and bestow a name in Bethlehem and through the children that the Adonai will

33:42give you by this young woman. May your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore

33:47to Judah. So we're going to cap it off with another reference to lever it marriage. Right.

33:53So we've got these, these two examples of what don't really fit as standard marriages.

34:00Right. Yeah, because I mean, just as a reminder to everybody, Tamar had another trick, another

34:08trick marriage thing. Tamar had to trick Judah into having sex with her by posing as a as

34:15a prostitute in order to make that happen. Right. And then this is like, this started

34:23as a trick, but Ruth was like, it's me, Ruth. It's, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know,

34:28I don't know how much of a trick this one was. What's your sense of how tricky Naomi's plan

34:33for Ruth was? It feels a little tricky. I think Naomi, so in, you know, this is a fiercely

34:40patriarchal society. Yeah. And in order for women to, to get their own, they needed to

34:46exploit that the patriarchy, they were, they were not privileged by any segment of that

34:53society. And so they had to take advantage where they could. And so I get the sense that

34:58Naomi is the one saying, Hey, if you sleep with him, then you're his wife, you're in

35:03like Tony Gwyn, like Errol Flynn, you are in, and, and Boaz is like, Oh, we don't have

35:10to do it this way. We can make it nice and, and official with the chonkla. And we can

35:16make sure that the, the family name carries on. And we can do it all out in, in the public

35:24in the sight of the judges so that they can all be witness to this. And so I get the sense

35:30that the trick, the plan started off as a bit of a scheme that Boaz kind of came over

35:36the top to, to say, no, we're going to do this legit. And so both of them are kind of

35:44putting on display their, their willingness to go to bat for someone who is in need. And

35:53I think that's one of the rhetorical messages here is go above and beyond. I think, I think

36:00I can see that, but I, I also look at chapter three, and then when I read it, and I read

36:07it in different translations, and I read a bunch of people's ex explanation of it. But

36:13to me, she goes in and she uncovers his feet and, and lies down. Now to me, I, the way that

36:24makes sense to me is she actually does something to him, but he may be passed out, and maybe

36:30it didn't count or whatever. He can't consent. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so when he does wake

36:35up and is like, and it's like, who are you lying at my feet? I don't know that that's

36:41at my feet. I don't know why that isn't just like she, like they're spooning or something.

36:45He's like, I don't know who you are. So, so I don't know. I feel like she did the trick.

36:52I feel like she did it. But then he's like, let's make this as let's, let's make the whole

36:57city see this as not a trick or something. Yeah. Like he, like he legitimates it further.

37:04It's like the trick. The trick is kind of legitimate, right? Like if she's, if he sleeps

37:09with her and she, you know, she tricks him into sleeping with her, that could almost,

37:14that almost counts, especially if she like bears his child from it. Yeah. And that's what

37:19we learn from tomorrow. And I can't argue against that reading. I don't think there's,

37:24there's an argument to make that the, that the story definitely precludes that. I, that's

37:30just my reading of the story. Certainly they're using very the, you know, the story is wearing

37:37the uniform of what's the euphemism. So, um, so yeah, you can take the euphemism to the,

37:48to however far you need the euphemism. Yeah. I mean, like that's the thing about this is

37:53that there's nothing definitive. Yeah. When I was, when I was getting licensed as a massage

37:58therapist, the, the phrase we were taught to use when, when we're introducing, when we're

38:02bringing somebody on into the area, we say, undressed to your comfort level. Right. So

38:08interpret to your comfort level. Yeah, I suppose so, but, but what I want to, I guess what

38:14I want to say is like, you know, I read so many different blog posts and, uh, and you

38:22know, various, whatever's, and all of these people were like certain, you know what I

38:28mean? Yeah. None of them were writing as though there was any question in their mind. One

38:32way or the other about what was happening. And it's just like, we, we don't know. Yeah.

38:39I have a little uncertainty people. Yeah. I think that's, that's folly when people, um,

38:46are just so committed to one dogma or another, that it has to be one way or another, that

38:50they're like, oh, this very clearly means this, this obviously means that. And um, yeah, frequently

38:57we're wrong when we, when we try to dig in our heels on that stuff. So I don't, I don't

39:03know for sure. I have the way that I think makes better sense to me, but I'm not going

39:08to pretend that I can say, uh, another reading is wrong. So right. Fair enough. All right.

39:16Let us then move on to our, who's that? All right. And who is that that we're, who's

39:29thating? I mean, we said earlier that it's Sennacherib. That's right. And I don't, and

39:33I don't think that we're any closer to understanding, or at least I'm not. Cause as I said, I have

39:39no idea who this guy is. Yeah. Okay. So, um, we're going to start, uh, 30,000 foot view

39:44and, and really the event that we're, we're wanting to talk about here is the invasion

39:48of Sennacherib when it comes into northern kingdom Israel down to Judea and lays siege

39:53to Jerusalem. And, and the, I want to introduce the story because there's a, uh, well, with

39:59this, uh, this paper that was recently published in a journal that was trying to suggest that

40:06the author thinks they know where the siege camp, uh, where Sennacherib was staging this

40:14invasion is located. And, um, and this was, unfortunately this was publicized with the

40:23claim that archeologists proved the supernatural story of the angel having killed 185,000 Assyrian

40:33troops that is associated with Sennacherib siege. So, um, I, so that's, that's somebody

40:40trying to, trying to say everybody should doubt everything that I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah.

40:46It was ridiculous, but, um, yeah, but there is something very interesting behind it that

40:53I want to get to, but to start Sennacherib was, uh, a king within the neo Assyrian empire.

41:00So the neo Assyrian empire is the first millennium BCE empire where the neo Assyrians, uh, they

41:07took over from the Babylonians and then later on the neo Babylonians are going to take over

41:12from the neo Assyrians, the land of Mesopotamia. But Sennacherib, um, takes over.

41:19Mesopotamia, sorry, is like modern day Iraq area. Yes. Yes. Around that area. So, uh,

41:26prior to Sennacherib, we got Sargon the second he dies in 705 BCE. So Sennacherib takes over

41:32in 705 and he rules from 705 to 681 BCE. So about 24 years ish. He's in charge of the

41:42neo Assyrian empire. Okay. Um, there's a part where he's got a bunch of nations that are

41:48uh, vassals. So a vassal is, is basically somebody you've gone and rough them up. And

41:55then you've said, uh, you're going to pay me so much money every year and you're going

41:59to send me soldiers. If when I go to war and you're going to support me and, uh, and I

42:04won't, uh, kill you. And so squish you. Yes. Uh, because they are larger. They are stronger.

42:11They can mess you up. So, um, we, we heard about vassalage, uh, in the context of when

42:18we talked about Moab, uh, throwing off vassalage from Israel. Right. So that was second Kings

42:26three. Right. Um, that was just, that was a little bit before what's going on here. And

42:31this is a parallel story. Uh, because we have Hezekiah is the king in Judah and Hezekiah

42:37decides to throw off vassalage to Assyria after Sennacherib takes over. And so Sennacherib,

42:44the new king, he's got to go in and he's got to show who's boss. Right. So he decides

42:49to invade to restore their, their two options. You restore them to vassalage or you run a

42:55scorched earth campaign. And the Assyrians are the innovators basically of the scorched

42:59earth campaign. They are the ones who made this famous. Uh, so Sennacherib comes through

43:05and destroys pretty much everything in the northern kingdom of Israel. Now 17 years earlier,

43:12Shalmanes are the fifth, or Sennacherib's dad, Sargon the second had already come through

43:16and routed the northern kingdom and sent the northern kingdom into exile. But they go through

43:21again. They, they, um, they beat up the northern kingdom. They come through Judea. They beat

43:26up a bunch of Judea. Uh, and Sennacherib is stationed at a place called Laquiche, which

43:32is about 30 miles southwest of Jerusalem. And he's making plans to go lay siege to Jerusalem.

43:39And, uh, Hezekiah and all the people in the area are, they've kind of, uh, gathered into

43:46Jerusalem and they've fortified the walls and Hezekiah has carved the tunnel that we

43:52now know as Hezekiah's tunnel that goes from a spring that brings water inside the city

43:58walls. Uh, and so they're, they're preparing for this siege. And there, there is so much

44:05archaeological data left over from this because one Sennacherib destroyed a bunch of stuff.

44:11But at the same time, there, there are also indications that the, uh, the Judah heights

44:15actually like dismantled stuff decommissioned temples. They may have, they may have, uh,

44:22like the template, a rod that we have discovered and, and partially reconstructed was found

44:28under six feet of soil. They may have actually hidden the temple under earth in order to protect

44:37it from the invasion. That's one theory about how it got the way it was. But Sennacherib

44:42comes through and, um, home base is basically Laquiche. Uh, and if you go there, you can

44:48see a lot of really cool artifacts there. You can go through the city gate where they would

44:53have attacked. You can see the, um, the big hill that they created in order to get their

44:59siege engines up to the top to break down the walls. It's, it's a fascinating place,

45:04but Hezekiah gets obviously kind of spooked by this cause he doesn't have a lot of, doesn't

45:11have a lot of options. Um, so we're in, uh, we're in second Kings 18 and I think there's

45:17something fascinating about this story. Uh, Hezekiah has taken over, he's thrown off

45:22Vassalage. I think that's in, um, that's in, uh, second Kings 18, seven. Adonai was with

45:28him wherever he went. He prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not

45:33serve him. And so Sennacherib gets wind of this and goes, Oh, really? So, um, we have

45:40in verse 13 and the 14th year of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria came up against

45:46all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. King Hezekiah of Judah sent to the king

45:52of Assyria at Laquiche. So Sennacherib's in Laquiche. King Hezekiah sends them something

45:57saying, I have done wrong with draw from me. Whatever you impose on me, I will bear the

46:04king of Assyria demanded of King Hezekiah of Judah. 300 talents of silver and 30 talents

46:08of gold. Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and

46:13in the treasuries of the king's house. At that time, Hezekiah stripped the gold from

46:17the doors of the temple of Adonai and from the doorpost that King Hezekiah of Judah had

46:21overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria. So Sennacherib knocks on the, the back door

46:30and says, Hey, I'm in town. Um, pay me my money. And Hezekiah goes right away, sir.

46:35Yes, sir. And gets him his money. And then in verse 17, it's weird because then Sennacherib

46:43suddenly says again, pay me my money, like repeats the same stuff. Why are you rebelling

46:50against me? And then we have this story about, um, uh, Rob Shaka is the messenger who comes

46:58to Jerusalem and basically gives him this ultimatum. Don't think that your God is going

47:03to protect you. None of the other gods of the other nations protected them. Uh, you're

47:08going down, son. And, um, and here we have, uh, then Hezekiah's, you know, ringing his

47:14hands doesn't know what to do. Goes to Isaiah, uh, gets help from Isaiah. You can look in

47:20Isaiah chapters 36, 37 and 38 are all about what happens, uh, during the siege. Uh, so

47:26it's interesting that we've got two different responses. Yeah. Hezekiah's first response

47:32is take my money. Uh, has a kind of second responses, uh, not going to do it wouldn't

47:38be prudent. Right. And a lot of scholars will say this, this sounds an awful lot, like two

47:43different tellings of the same story. And one of the things that I think is fascinating

47:48is when you look in the Hebrew, the first story where Hezekiah immediately pays, uh,

47:53sennacher of the money. His name is written in Hebrew. He's kiyah, which is, you know,

48:01Hezekiah in Hebrew. Right. Verse 17 on. So the seconds pay me my money and everything

48:09after that, his name is spelled. He's kiyahu. So there's a, his name is spelled differently

48:16in the, in those few verses where Hezekiah immediately pays sennacher of the money. So,

48:22um, I think that we probably have two different stories that were, um, woven together to,

48:29uh, exonerate Hezekiah for his, uh, kind of cowardness, cowardliness. If that's a word,

48:36I don't know. Um, because I mean, it seems like the fact that they go through and, and

48:43have Hezekiah, not just giving all of the money out of the, the royal, uh, coffers,

48:50but also like just scraping it off the doors, just tearing up the temple to try and, to

48:57try and pay things like that. It's very clear that like we're supposed to, we're supposed

49:03to boo here. Yeah. And then, and then for sennacher to come back and be like, where's

49:09my money? I wasn't enough. I didn't know. You could tell that some of that had been

49:14scraped off of a door, sir. Yeah. Um, so we're literally down to door scrapens. I think,

49:20I think you know we're done. Yeah. Um, we, we don't have a gold fillings in our teeth

49:26yet. That's not that kind of dentistry won't be available for, for many generations to

49:30come. So, um, so yeah, it makes sense to me that we have two different versions of the

49:36story. However, and, and this may be trying to account for the fact that sennacher didn't

49:40take Jerusalem. We think we were pretty sure that sennacher laid some kind of siege to

49:47Jerusalem, but had to go back home. Um, either was taken too long. Uh, there's, uh, there's

49:53an idea that there were, um, there was treason going on back home that sennacher family members

49:58were trying to take the throne and he had to rush back to check on things. Um, and in,

50:04in the story and in second Kings, uh, 19, uh, we have, you know, the angel of, of the

50:12Lord went through and killed a hundred and eighty five thousand Assyrian troops and they

50:15got up in the morning and everybody was dead and they were like, it's time to bone out.

50:20We're gonna, we're gonna take off. And, and that's the, um, that's the story that most

50:26people who read the Bible are familiar with. Can I offer one question? Uh, which is, could

50:32it not be that the actual story was that sennacher have came to Hezekiah, said, pay me

50:40my money. Hezekiah said, I'm sorry, sir. Yes, sir. Very much, sir. Gave him all of

50:45the stuff. And then sennacher was like, all right, we're out. That was, that was all

50:49I needed. Absolutely. That's 100% a, that just seems like that seems very plausible to me.

50:56Yeah. Yeah. Strip everything. Give me everything you've got. All right. Fine. Yeah. You're, you're

51:01back under the, you're back under the wing. Yeah. Would you like your receipt printed

51:04or emailed? Um, and, uh, and then he said, all right, we'll see you guys, um, have a nice

51:11summer and then afterwards they were like, um, but also, oh, did you see that angel thing

51:17that happened? Whoo. Yeah. Uh, and the, uh, the folks wouldn't have, you know, the public

51:25wouldn't have had much of a clue of what was going on. If they saw Sennacherib's army

51:29sitting up shop, uh, across town and hanging out there for a while. And then suddenly they,

51:36they bounce, uh, they might not know what's going on, but so, um, anyway, there's this

51:43in Nineveh. Now Nineveh was not the capital city of Assyria until Sennacherib. Sennacherib's

51:48the one who said, um, I don't like these backwater, uh, places I'm going to go set up shop in

51:54Nineveh. And he created a palace and he decorated one of the, uh, the, the walls of his palace

52:00with these bar reliefs. So basically, um, carvings into a surface. Right. Uh, that depict his

52:08siege of Laquiche, the city that was his kind of home base as he was preparing to go take

52:14on Jerusalem. And in that bar relief, you can see the siege ramp. You can see the siege

52:21engines. You can see, uh, them, uh, with, they've got archers, they've got slings. You can see

52:27the people inside the city throwing down torches to try to light their siege engines on fire,

52:33all this kind of stuff. And then you see, uh, people being marched away and you see Sennacherib

52:39sitting on a throne in a little camp, a little ways off. And then even further off, there's

52:44another, what looks like a, uh, a circular camp with some walls around it and a wall down the middle.

52:51And, uh, what some researchers recently did was say, Hey, we found some old aerial photography

52:58of Laquiche from the 1940s before a bunch of stuff was excavated and built up around it.

53:04And we think that the Laquiche bar reliefs in Nineveh are actually an accurate representation

53:12of the topology of Laquiche because we have the city of Laquiche, we have a little hill.

53:20And now there's a, there's a settlement there and then opposite the hill, there's another little

53:26circular, um, hill that has the remains of first millennium BCE stone walls around it.

53:33And we think if we overlay the, uh, Laquiche bar reliefs on this topology that it is accurately

53:42representing things, which means this little hill off in the distance with these rock stone walls

53:47around it would have been Sennacherib's camp where the army would have camped out. And then they said,

53:54let's look at Jerusalem. And it just so happens that about the same distance away from Jerusalem

54:02towards the north, there's a little hill that matches more or less the dimensions of the hill

54:10by Laquiche. And they said, this might have been the, uh, the camp that Sennacherib set up when he

54:18was either in the process of or about to lay siege to Jerusalem. And that's, that hill is

54:25called ammunition hill. And it is, um, you know, there, there have been things living, uh, there for

54:33many, many hundreds of years and there's been settlement there and there's been all kinds of

54:37stuff. So there aren't remains of us, uh, of an ancient wall there like there are outside of

54:42Laquiche, but this scholar postulated that based on what we see at Laquiche and a couple of other

54:50locations that match this pattern of setting up a camp at such a distance away, we think ammunition

54:57hill might have been where, uh, Sennacherib's camp was. And that is what got misinterpreted

55:03in a lot of reporting as saying archeologists prove that an angel killed 185,000 Syrian troops,

55:10which is just nonsensical. And, and I made some videos about that. And I got a bunch of people

55:15saying, well, why else would Sennacherib leave without taking the city? Um, and good grief. There

55:23could have been any one of a number of different reasons, including he got his money. Yeah. Um,

55:27but he went back home and, and had, uh, what's called the Sennacherib prism. There's actually an

55:32inscription from Sennacherib, uh, where he describes trapping Hezekiah in his capital city, like a

55:39bird in a cage. So, um, he represented himself as coming out on top on that as victorious. Yeah.

55:46And, um, it seemed, you know, if he got paid his money and was like, all right, we're packing up,

55:52we're, uh, we're not going to spend any more of our money here because then, you know, your cage,

55:56little bird. Yeah. Um, you know, those, uh, those military campaigns are not cheap. And that's one

56:02of the, that's one of the reasons if somebody threw off vassalage, if you went and attacked them,

56:07you better get something out of it because just attacking them is going to cost an awful lot of

56:11money. And you're now out one of your streams of income. Um, and so yeah, I, I think it's likely

56:18that, uh, he probably showed up and as a guy, I went, please take my money. And, and he said, uh,

56:24yeah, all right, we're out. And, uh, and that gets written later on. They're like, yeah, an angel,

56:31killed a bunch of them and they have to retreat. We scared them away, everybody. Yeah. With our,

56:37with all of our gold, we terrified them and they ran like cowards. What were all those

56:44trunks that they were carrying out of Jerusalem? Never mind. Never. You didn't see any. That's

56:48probably their remains of the dead soldiers from the angels. Shut up. Didn't the temple doors have

56:55gold leaf around them? Never mind. We thought that looked tacky. We didn't like that anymore.

57:00We were, we wanted to go much more, uh, naturalistic. All right. Well, there you have it. Uh,

57:07Sennacherib interesting. I, I think I'm going to, uh, remember who he was now. Yeah. And so

57:13you had, uh, two kings between Hezekiah and Josiah and Josiah as the one who institutes a

57:18bunch of cultic reform, but hopefully Sennacherib can, uh, people can, uh, have a firmer place in

57:25their memory for where said, and Sennacherib is involved in all of this. So he was the, the Ninevite

57:30when we, when you think of Jonah being sent to Nineveh to go preach against that wicked city,

57:36that story was supposed to have taken place centuries before Sennacherib, but Nineveh wasn't

57:42even an important city until Sennacherib. So, okay. So that story was obviously written after Sennacherib.

57:48So, um, it's all the puzzle pieces fall into place. Once you, um,

57:54once you understand all the history of this. It's so, it's so one of the hardest things about the

57:59Bible is trying to piece out what is like coinciding with actual history. What's an actual like

58:07snippet of history, uh, woven into the narrative of the Bible and what isn't that. Yeah. So it's

58:15nice to have, you know, a bunch of other things attesting to this time period and giving us a, a

58:22sense of a sort of larger, a, a larger, uh, view of what we're seeing, even if we can't fully like,

58:31figure out what to buy. Like, you know, the thing with the angels and whatever, even if we can't have

58:37that, it's nice to have to know that this was a real guy. Sennacherib is a, you know, he, he,

58:43the, the, the Neo Assyrian Empire, uh, all that stuff that it's fascinating. Yeah. And it,

58:51and I think it's important to, to also point out that, uh, this is what we find in the Bible

58:57is tracing around actual historical events. Right. So when it comes to who's king, where, who's

59:03ruling, who's fighting, who, who's supporting, who's rebelling against who, a lot of that is

59:09historical in the Bible and we have the receipts and we don't have the receipt that Sennacherib gave

59:15to Hezekiah. But in terms of the fact that these two people, uh, were, um, you know,

59:22one besieged the other and the other, um, did something. That's, that's historical. And so when

59:29people dismiss all of the Bible as, uh, as fairy tale as fable, uh, as BS, whatever they dismiss it

59:36as, there's plenty in the Bible that corresponds with what we know about the, uh, the, uh, history

59:43of this time period. So yeah. Important thing to keep in mind, in my opinion. Yeah, absolutely.

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