The Five Scrolls

The five scrolls, commonly known to Jews as the Megillot, is made up of Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Esther. These short books are also regarded as festival scrolls and read with cantillation (ritualistic chanting) during important festivals in Jewish synagogues.

Song of Solomon is read during Passover, the spring feast, as it has a spring setting (2:11-13) where love—like the flowers—is in full bloom.

The heartwarming story of Ruth, with its late spring theme, is usually read on Pentecost during the barley and wheat harvest period, known as the 'feast of weeks' or 'harvest of firstfruits' (Exodus 34:22).

Lamentations, attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, is read aloud on the fast of day nine in the month Ab, when Jews mourn the destruction of Solomon's temple by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC and the second temple by the Romans in 70 AD. Interestingly, both events occurred on the same date!

Ecclesiastes is read during the Feast of Tabernacles as a firm reminder that life is meaningless without God, just as Solomon found out the painful way despite being the wisest man ever to live and rule in a golden age of peace and prosperity.

Esther is read at the feast of Purim, a Jewish national holiday to commemorate great deliverance from genocidal annihilation. Though the word 'God' is not mentioned in this book, His fingerprint can be clearly seen as He intervened behind the scene in the history of the exiled nation.

Let us immerse ourselves in the exhilaration of love, sweetness of loyalty, sorrows of desolation, contemplation of life's futility, and wonder of divine provision and protection!