The city he founded was left unmolested both by Sennacherib and
Nebuchadnezzar, and not event the Angel of Death has power over
its inhabitants. They never die, unless, weary of life, they leave the
city. (28)

The same good fortune did not mark Othniel's reign throughout.
For eight years Israel suffered oppression at the hands of Cushan,
the evil-doer who in former days had threatened to destroy the
patriarch Jacob, as he was now endeavoring to destroy the
descendants of Jacob, for Cushan is only another name for Laban.
(29)

Othniel, however, was held so little answerable for the causes that
had brought on the punishment of the people, that God granted
him eternal life; he is one of the few who reached Paradise alive.
(30)

BOAZ AND RUTH

The story of Ruth came to pass a hundred (31) years after Othniel's
reign. Conditions in Palestine were of such a nature that if a judge
said to a man, "Remove the mote from thine eye," his reply was,
"Do thou remove the beam from thine own." (32) To chastise the
Israelites God sent down them one of the ten seasons of famine
which He had ordained, as disciplinary measures for mankind,
from the creation of the world until the advent of Messiah. (33)
Elimelech (34) and his sons, (35) who belonged to the aristocracy
of the land, attempted neither to improve (36) the sinful generation
whose transgressions had called forth the famine, nor alleviated
the distress that prevailed about them. They left Palestine, and thus