Hey guys, my name is Johnny Artivannis and this is dial-in.

In this episode, we continue in our study of the Old Testament Book of Ruth.

In our previous episode, we set the scene for the Book of Ruth against the backdrop of the judges

and detailed some of the main themes to be looking for as we studied this wonderful story.

So if you haven't listened already, I would go back and listen to the first episode.

For everyone else, let's dial in.

By way of reminder, we previously looked at the book of judges and the reoccurring line that

occurs throughout the book is there was no king in

Israel there was no king in Israel there was no king in Israel this reoccurring line functions to

reinforce not just a political reality but a spiritual one the time of the judges was a time of

great spiritual darkness indeed the final verse of judges highlights this very reality in a captivating way

by saying everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

This ominous chronological indicator is coupled now with an even darker economical

indicator in Ruth 1-1 when we read that there was a famine in the land.

Not only were the people spiritually impoverished, but they were physically impoverished as well.

Now, when we think of famine, we think back to the beginning of COVID and think of when

Costco had a limited selection of

bread for our sandwiches or when Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays. But biblically speaking,

famine spelled devastation and death. If you know anything about the famines in the Bible,

people would go to the level of such desperation where women would eat their afterbirth,

people would eat their pets, and in

Ezekiel 5 and elsewhere in scripture, we read that others would resort to cannibalism.

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