Samuel 3-5

Chapter 3: 

Samuel's trying to get some sleep but God keeps trying to send him a message

Samuel hears his name and assumes it is Eli calling to him. For three nights he gets up to see what his adopted priest father wants and during the first two nights, Eli doesn't know what Samuel is talking about and tells him to back to sleep. On the third night, it occurs to Eli, that maybe the fact that his adopted son is hearing voices in his head each night should be a cause for concern. 

"Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel 'Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, 'Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.' "

The Lord comes, stands over Samuel, and calls his name and rather than freak tf out, as I would have done, Samuel lets Lord know that he is listening. Lord won't continue a conversation unless you signal that you're listening. Validation is very important to him. 

Lord informs little Samuel, in so many words, that he is going to kill his family. 

I think I figured out the connection in this meandering book of random characters and dropped story lines. It's all about Lord. It's a collection of short stories about this epic villain Lord starting off with good intentions and then just torturing everyone. At first we were kind of with him, seeing his intentions, characters talked to him more directly. Everyone disappointed him because they didn't love him enough and he runs away to his bat cave for awhile to think about stuff. Then he comes back worse than ever, to haunt children like the bogeyman and threaten their families. I wonder if anyone will be able to defeat him in the end. Or maybe someone will save him?

Eli asks Samuel what Lord said. Samuel is resistant at first to tell his adopted father that he and his whole family are going to die, but after some prodding, he passes on Lord's murder message. After that, Samuel is named a true prophet and becomes a celebrity at the expense of his dead family. 

Chapter 4: 

The Israelites and Philistines are fighting. The Israelites lose a battle and decide what they really need to win, is God's pokeball, the Ark of the Covenant. The Philistines are terrified, so terrified that they inspire each other to do better, win the battle against the Israelites, steal the Ark, and kill Eli's sons. 

Eli receives news of his dead sons and he takes it okay because he knew his sons were garbage but then they tell him that the Ark has been stolen and he falls back and cracks his head open. The pregnant wife of one of the dead sons receives news of her dead husband and the lost Covenant as she's giving labor...seems like they could have waited on that. She dies during labor, but not before she names her son:

"She named the boy Ichabod, saying 'The Glory has departed from Israel.'"

You remind us only of disappointment and failure.

Thanks mom.

Chapter 5:

The Philistines try to figure out where their new piece of god furniture should go. They start by putting it in the temple of one of their gods "Dagon." When they go to the temple the next morning, the statue of their god is kneeling before the Ark. That is some horror movie shit right there. 

They put the statue back and the next morning the statue is bowing again, only his head and hands have been broken off. 

God starts giving tumors to the people in the town surrounding the temple and the Philistines start to rethink the feng shui of where they put the Ark. They suggest sending it to another town, Gath, presumably because they hate them or the people of Gath are too poor to do much about it. 

Gath is no more tumor resistant than the last town, so they try to pass the pipeline Ark, onto Ekron. Ekron brings up that they are also not very tumor resistant, so the Philistines decide to give the Ark back to the Israelites. 

Samuel 1-2

Chapter 1: 

A man has two wives named Peninnah and Hannah. Aside from having a dope name that reminds me of Panini sandwiches, Peninnah has a womb just bursting with babies. Peninnah has all the babies, but the other wife, with the less interesting name, is barren. Anyone else think "barren" kind of sounds like the vagina is haunted? That's how I choose to think of it. Hannah isn't thrilled about her haunted vagina because Panini, can't stop flaunting her unstoppable ovaries to Hannah, so Hannah's super bummed that she can't do the only thing this book finds valuable about women. 

Still, Hannah's husband really seems to love her and doesn't mind that she can't have babies; he even gives her extra servings of food. If I were Hannah, I'd be excited about the infertility and special treatment. Then again, I'm someone who almost high-fived my OBGYN at the age of 16 when she told me I was going to have fertility problems throughout my life and wasn't likely to have a baby easily. She emphasized that I might feel differently about it in the future. I think about what she said now  sometimes when I'm looking at happy families, pushing their babies in strollers and on swings, and I think to myself,

"I wish I could call her now, and tell her that she's still super wrong."  

Anyway, Hannah doesn't have my outlook or any hobbies, so she prays to God to be able to have a child. She promises to dedicate her child  to God i.e. give the child to the Priest Eli to raise in the Lord's house. i.e. she's not even going to raise the child she's praying for.

She has a son named Samuel (like the chapter title!) and gives him away to Eli the priest. Priests, the most qualified to raise your sons alone without supervision.  

Chapter 2: 

Hannah channels her inner Kanye:  

"My mouth boasts over my enemies, 
for I delight in your deliverance"

"Do not keep talking so proudly 
or let your mouth speak such arrogance,
for the Lord is a God who knows"

"She who was barren has borne seven children, 
but she who has had many sons pines away."

TLDR: She can have kids now. Lord is her special friend. Peninnah can suck it. 

Samuel is doing really well as a priest in training and once a year Hannah visits him and brings him a new robe. Samuel appears to have no qualms with being given up to a stranger and having his entire life's purpose decided for him. He doesn't have any moody teenage outbursts or anything. Maybe some other literary chosen people could take a page out of the Samuel book: 

Eli, already has two sons of his own, Hophni and Phinehas and they are garbage people. They steal food meant to be sacrificed to Lord and they sleep around with women right in Lord's tent. Eli knows his kids are garbage and tries to warn them but they can't hear their father's warnings because Lord wants to relieve his glory plague days: 

"His sons, however, did not listen to their father's rebuke, for it was the Lord's will to put them to death."

Why let people grow and learn from their mistakes when you can just kill people and make an example out of them?

A man of God comes to Eli to tell him that he and his whole family are screwed. Everyone in his priest family line will die in the prime of their life and the few that he will "spare" will be blinded and weakened. 

Hey look Lord is back and getting on his favorite hobby: randomly and disproportionately punish people for minor slights. It's cool if you want to gang rape women to death and mutilate their bodies, but you better not drink that Lord broth. 

Ruth 3-4

Hi 1-3 people who read this blog. I hope you're having a nice plague free day.  Last time we left off, Ruth and Boaz had a meet cute that isn't so different from what I've been reading in the Weinstein exposes. She worked in his industry, doing farm stuff, tried to make her way in the world, then she catches Boaz's eye. He asks around about her, then aggressively tells her not to work anywhere else and that he'll set her up with all the perks. To review, the perks were: water and not getting sexually assaulted. So actually Boaz is a step up from Weinstein. 

Chapter 3: 

Naomi wants to make sure Ruth, her daughter in law, is well provided for and pushes her to wife up with Boaz. Naomi plays Hitch and her methods are only slightly creepier than the ones employed in that movie. 

Naomi tells Ruth to wash up and throw on her finest peasant rags because it's time to snag a man. After Ruth's makeover montage, she must go to the fields and wait for Boaz to lay down and sleep.Then

"go and uncover his feet and lie down. He will tell you what to do."

Ruth doesn't ask a single question. She gets right on those feet. Tarantino style. 

Boaz wakes in the middle of the night and to his credit, does not scream or kick at Ruth. He asks who she is. 

"I am your servant Ruth."

"The Lord bless you, my daughter."

Boaz let's her know his appreciation. He's amazed that she hasn't run after a younger man. Sort of a backhanded compliment but okay. Boaz says he'll do anything for her but there is another man more closely related to her that she's supposed to marry. This book is more incestuous than a key party at a family renunion. 

Even though Ruth is promised to another man, Boaz suggests that she stay the night and in the morning, if the new guy wants to marry her, he can. Ruth does not share opinions on the matter. She is merely passed around like a game of patriarichal hot potato. 

In the morning, Boaz tells her to leave. 

"No one must know that a woman came to the threshing floor" 

Is that a penis thing?

Chapter 4: 

Boaz tells the new guy that he has land to redeem. It would be Naomi's land but women can't own things probably because we'd lose them in our vaginas or something. The new guy gets excited about redeeming some land until Boaz gets real with him. 

"On the day you buy the land from Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the dead man's widow."

Up there you'll find your widow.  

Not only that, but any children he has with Ruth, have to keep the name of the dead guy. The new guy isn't into that. Boaz doesn't mind raises a ghost man's babies, anything for a woman who will lie at your feet and call you daddy. So he takes the new guy's place. Then he and Ruth ride into the sunset and begat away. 

The End. This probably isn't going to be turned into a romcom anytime soon.