The Ides Have It

Now it came about in the days when the judges governed, that there was a famine in the land. Ruth 1:1 NASB

Judges – Today is Brutus day, the day Julius Caesar was assassinated, March 15, the Ides of March. That is Roman history. So what does it have to do with the Bible? In particular, how can a Roman political event have anything to do with the opening line of a story about a woman in the 10^th Century BCE? (Did you notice how cleverly I set up this segue?) The similarity is in the political situation and the reaction of the people.

Consider this. At the time of the assassination, Julius Caesar had just achieved the goal of unifying the Republic under a single dictator. In fact, the Republic had come to an end with this shift in power. The Caesar would now rule alone. The Senate, representing the will of some of the people, was stripped of its control. Internal squabbles under Roman rule would be silenced with force, not debate. Because this meant loss of power to those in the Senate, something had to be done. The solution: kill the emperor.

Ruth is a story of a similar time in the history of Israel. The book of Judges (really, “chieftains”) is a history of social decline from semi-unified tribes to societal chaos. Along the way the solution to almost all of Israel’s “problems” was not repentance but violence, until at last, life was intolerable. There simply was no security. Tribal members killed tribal members as anarchy grew. Ruth is a story of what had to happen in order for God to bring about some sort of order in the form of the monarchy. But the result was ultimately the same as the power politics of Rome. Anointed kings became self-proclaimed dictators and assassination became a viable option.

What’s the lesson? Israel without God’s direction was no different than the rest of the world. Men are men wherever they happen to be. The only real difference in any society is obedience to YHVH. Where that is not an integral part of the community, power assumes control, and power always leads to violence.

We are an extension of Rome. The Roman model of civilization has been the exemplar of the West since the second century BCE. Every empire of Western civilization owes its heritage if not its internal structure to Rome. And the inevitable result of Roman thinking is the will to power, the domination of the majority by the lust for control of a select few. Democracy, that oft flaunted expression for the equality of all men, is a political fabrication. In reality, power is the only real commodity of empires and democracy is just another term for justifying the use and abuse of power in the name of the people. Jonathan Mayhew, a preacher in the 18^th Century, said:

“We may safely assert . . . that no civil rulers are to be obeyed when they enjoin things that are inconsistent with the commands of God . . . And commands running counter to the declared will of the supreme legislator of heaven and earth, are null and void; therefore disobedience to them is a duty, not a crime.”

Like the Roman Senate, politicians of the world have assumed the role of God, determining for themselves what is right and wrong, and using the power of the State to enforce their will. What was true of Israel in the time of the chieftains is as true today, as David Brin remarks, “It is said that ‘power corrupts,’ but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.”

Ruth is the story of God’s intervention on behalf of Israel to refresh Israel’s memory of the mutual religious and social obligations of ḥesed. The actions of this alien woman were enough to right the sinking ship of Israel for decades. One must wonder if we don’t need an “alien woman’s” story today, before the ship sinks forever.

Topical Index: empire, Ruth, Rome, democracy, power, chieftains, Ruth 1:1