Ruth

 When I start reading the book of Ruth, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to take from it. Chapter one makes you think it's a story of tragedy. A woman named Naomi, her husband and two sons had to move because of a famine in the area. After moving, her husband dies. Her two sons get married, but after about ten years, both her sons also pass away. So Naomi is left with her two daughters-in-laws. 

Naomi decides to return home and tells her daughters in law that they should go back to their mother's home, she shows appreciation for everything that they did for her. But she knows that if they go back home, they have a chance to get remarried and have a good life. One daughter in law decides to go back home, but Ruth makes a bold declaration, this is what she said in Ruth 1:16.

16 But Ruth replied, “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. 17 Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!” 18 When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said nothing more. 

So now I am wondering if this is a story about loyalty. 

When Naomi finally arrives home in Bethlehem, everyone is excited to see Naomi. Her response to everyone was sad. This is how she responds to everyone in Ruth 1:20-21.

Don’t call me Naomi,” she responded. “Instead, call me Mara, for the Almighty has made life very bitter for me. 21 I went away full, but the LORD has brought me home empty. Why call me Naomi when the LORD has caused me to suffer and the Almighty has sent such tragedy upon me?” 

Naomi means pleasant, but Mara means bitter.

As chapter two begins, Ruth has to go to the fields and pick up leftover grain, so they have food to eat. She finds a field and starts to glean behind the harvesters. Most of us these days have no idea what that means. This is what it says in the book of Leviticus 23:22

22 “When you harvest the crops of your land, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop. Leave it for the poor and the foreigners living among you. I am the LORD your God.” 

The field belonged to a man named Boaz, he was a relative of Elimelek, Naomi's husband. When Boaz finds out that Ruth is related to Naomi, he tells her not to go to any other fields and he will make sure that she is safe. When she asks why he is being so nice to her, this is his response in Ruth 2:11-12.

11 “Yes, I know,” Boaz replied. “But I also know about everything you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband. I have heard how you left your father and mother and your own land to live here among complete strangers. 12 May the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge, reward you fully for what you have done.” 

As chapter two is ending, Naomi says something we have to pay attention to, this is what she says in Ruth 2:19-20

19 “Where did you gather all this grain today?” Naomi asked. “Where did you work? May the LORD bless the one who helped you!” 

So Ruth told her mother-in-law about the man in whose field she had worked. She said, “The man I worked with today is named Boaz.” 

20 “May the LORD bless him!” Naomi told her daughter-in-law. “He is showing his kindness to us as well as to your dead husband. That man is one of our closest relatives, one of our family redeemers.” 

This is going to come back up again soon, but the fact that she mentions that he is one of the family redeemers is huge.

Chapter 3 is interesting, and I feel like it leaves a few things out about some of the customs of the day. But, from the beginning of the chapter I think we can fill in the blanks and figure out what everyone is talking about. This is how Ruth Chapter 3 begins.

Ruth at the Threshing Floor

One day Naomi said to Ruth, “My daughter, it’s time that I found a permanent home for you, so that you will be provided for. 2 Boaz is a close relative of ours, and he’s been very kind by letting you gather grain with his young women. Tonight he will be winnowing barley at the threshing floor. 3 Now do as I tell you—take a bath and put on perfume and dress in your nicest clothes. Then go to the threshing floor, but don’t let Boaz see you until he has finished eating and drinking. 4 Be sure to notice where he lies down; then go and uncover his feet and lie down there. He will tell you what to do.

In those days when you said to a female, I am going to find you a permanent home, it meant only one thing. Trying to look into everything else that has to do with customs of that time would take away from what I really want to get out the book at this time. But we know that Ruth is loyal and will listen to Naomi, so she does everything that she tells her to do. After she follows everything that Naomi said to do, here is the response from Boaz in Ruth 3:10-13

10 “The LORD bless you, my daughter!” Boaz exclaimed. “You are showing even more family loyalty now than you did before, for you have not gone after a younger man, whether rich or poor. 11 Now don’t worry about a thing, my daughter. I will do what is necessary, for everyone in town knows you are a virtuous woman. 12 But while it’s true that I am one of your family redeemers, there is another man who is more closely related to you than I am. 13 Stay here tonight, and in the morning I will talk to him. If he is willing to redeem you, very well. Let him marry you. But if he is not willing, then as surely as the LORD lives, I will redeem you myself! Now lie down here until morning.” 

So of course, in the end Boaz gets to marry Ruth and everyone lives happily ever after. Tragedy and loyalty win out and when Boaz and Ruth have a child, Naomi feels complete, and everyone is happy for everyone. I feel like if the story ended there it would still be a really good biblical story. But it's not over yet. We have still have a few key verses to go over at the end. We don't need to go over all of them but let's look at just verse 17.

 17 The neighbor women said, “Now at last Naomi has a son again!” And they named him Obed. He became the father of Jesse and the grandfather of David.

If you are reading this blog, you probably know who David is. This is King David! This is David and Goliath! This is the David that they said the Messiah would come from his lineage. So why do we not focus on this book more? This book has everything! In four short chapters we learn about adversity, we learn about working hard, we learn about loyalty and learn about just doing the right thing. I think we need to mention Boaz more often when we talk about what it is like to be a man. When we talk to our kids or our grandkids about what we want them to be when they grow up, maybe we need to mention a man named Boaz.