(Ruth 1:1-18, Ruth 4:13-17; Matthew 1:5-6a)
There are a couple things to say right off the bat before we dive into the story of Ruth, the third woman Matthew includes in his genealogy of Christ. First, you ought to have your Bibles open; we couldn’t read the whole book of Ruth, but we’re going to cover the whole book. Second, if you weren’t here last week, you need to know that the writers of Hebrew genealogies felt free to skip people; Rahab wasn’t actually Boaz’ mother, but his great-great-ever-so-great-grandmother. From Rahab to Ruth is actually about 200 years, from Joshua’s time to the end of the time of the judges. This was the time of the conquest of the land—and then its periodic reconquest from various oppressors. After Joshua died, Israel got into a pattern: they would be faithful to God for a while, then fall into idolatry, then someone like the Moabites would conquer them. They would cry out to God for someone to deliver them, and he would send someone to drive away the oppressor and win their freedom; and for a time they would be faithful to God. Then they would lapse back into idolatry, and the pattern would repeat.
It was toward the end of that period that a major famine drove a man named Elimelech to take his wife and two sons and head off to Moab to try to make a living. Not long after, he died, leaving his wife Naomi with their two sons. Her situation is tenuous—no longer able to count on her husband for support, she must lean on her sons, who aren’t yet married; if anything happens to them, she’s all alone. Understandably, she won’t complain if they marry local women, and so they do, and for a while, everything’s good; but then, before they have any children of their own, both her sons die.
At this point, Naomi figures she has no one; there’s nothing to do but go back home to Bethlehem. She’s heard that the famine is over, so she ought to be able to eke out some kind of living. To her surprise, her daughters-in-law insist on going with her. She argues with them—there’s nothing I can do for you, she tells them; I’m not going to have more sons to marry you. She succeeds in persuading Orpah to turn around and go home. Ruth, however, flatly refuses, telling Naomi, “Don’t argue with me! Where you go, I will go; where you live, I will live; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried.”
This is a permanent commitment for her—not only is she going with Naomi no matter what, she will never turn around and never go back. Her commitment to Naomi, and through her to Naomi’s family and people, is absolute; even in death, she would sleep in fellowship with Naomi’s family, not her own. To seal her promise, she follows it up with a dramatic statement: [draw finger across throat] “Thus may the Lord do to me and more if even death parts me from you!” This oath had its origin in covenant ceremonies, as one accepted the promise of severe penalties for breaking the covenant; Ruth is not content to leave her commitment to Naomi as mere words, but turns it into a covenant, sealed with a great oath. It’s important to note here that in verse 8, Naomi said to Orpah and Ruth, “May the Lord do hesed to you, as you have dealt with my sons and with me”—if you were here last week, you should remember that Rahab used that phrase as well—and that hesed, that great word for the abiding love and faithfulness God shows his covenant people, is all over this book. Ruth here is being held up as a real example of hesed in the extraordinary love and loyalty she shows her mother-in-law.
Faced with this, Naomi gives up and takes Ruth home with her. They get back to Bethlehem around the beginning of the barley harvest, which is a lucky “coincidence”—i.e., God acting incognito. Because the harvest is going on, Ruth immediately volunteers to feed the two of them by going out to glean in the fields—to follow behind the harvesters to pick up grain they dropped or missed. As a poor widow, it’s her right under the Law to do so; but if the owner of the field were to refuse to cooperate, the results could be ugly, especially given that she was a foreigner, an outsider with no one to protect her, and that Moab was Israel’s enemy. Still, for Naomi, she’ll risk it.
“As it happened”—“coincidence” again—she ends up in a field belonging to Boaz. Now, Boaz is a member of Elimelech’s extended family, a relative of Naomi’s by marriage; and in fact, he’s a relative to whom Naomi and Elimelech had been close. What’s more, he’s a rich man, highly respected, with great influence in the community, and a godly man as well—that much is clear from the behavior of his servants. They allow her to glean, and she works herself hard; when Boaz shows up and asks about her, the overseer identifies her as Naomi’s daughter-in-law from Moab, notes that she asked politely to be allowed to glean, and then reports, “She’s been working from dawn’s first light until now without a single break.”
Clearly, he’s impressed. Boaz is, too, and not just by this report. He goes to Ruth and says, “Listen carefully: don’t go glean in another field—don’t leave my land—but stay with the women who are collecting and binding the cut grain and glean right behind them; I’m going to order the young men working out here not to bother you. If you get thirsty, feel free to drink the water we’ve set out for the workers.” In saying that, he’s given Ruth status as part of his household, set his protection on her, and put her in the best possible position for gleaning.
She’s overwhelmed by his generosity (understandably); she drops to her knees, bowing until her face touches the ground, and asks, “Why have I found such favor in your sight, that you have paid me special notice, when I’m a foreigner?” The answer is her loyalty to her mother-in-law, her willingness to leave everything and go into exile to remain with Naomi—something which no doubt meant even more to Boaz because Naomi was part of his family. For that, he does the best turn for her that he can, and then prays that God will give her every blessing. Indeed, he does his part to make sure that happens: when mealtime comes, he invites her to eat with him, and then orders his reapers to leave extra grain for her.
It’s important to note that in chapter 2 verse 2, when Ruth volunteers to go out and glean, she says, “behind someone in whose sight I may find favor.” In other words, she’s not just going out to gather food, she’s hoping to catch someone’s eye; she’s looking for a husband, so that she may have children to carry on Naomi’s family. Remember what we talked about two weeks ago, the importance of not letting the line die out? It’s the same issue here: Naomi’s husband Elimelech is dead, his two sons are dead, and Naomi’s too old to have more children; if the family is to continue, Ruth must bear a child to carry on Elimelech’s line. Now, she has indeed found favor in someone’s eyes—Boaz—someone who is clearly both wealthy and good. When she returns to Naomi with a huge bundle of grain, plus some cooked food left over from lunch, Naomi is completely astounded; obviously someone has paid Ruth special attention. Who?
When Ruth answers, “His name is Boaz,” Naomi bursts out in an exclamation of praise to God and blessing on Boaz. When she calms down, she explains: Boaz is one of their relatives. In fact, she says, “He’s one of our kinsman-redeemers.” The Hebrew term here, go’el, was an important legal term. A go’el had several responsibilities. If a person had to sell part of their inheritance, part of the family land, a close relative who had the necessary resources would act as a go’el to buy the land and bring it back into the family. If someone were forced to sell themselves into slavery to pay their debts, the go’el would buy them back. In the case of injustice to a member of the family, the go’el was responsible to see that justice was done. And it appears that in cases like Ruth’s, the custom was that the go’el was responsible to marry the widow. After all, the practice of levirate marriage, which we talked about with Tamar, could only go so far; if there were no single brothers to marry her and give her dead husband an heir, someone had to do it.
This obviously sets Naomi thinking; and after a while, she puts her plan into motion. Remember in the first chapter, Naomi prays that God will bless Orpah and Ruth? God has given her the opportunity to bring about those blessings for Ruth, and she’s determined not to miss it. She tells Ruth, “Take a bath, put on some perfume, and get dressed up, then go down to the threshing floor. Boaz will be celebrating; don’t let him see you. He’ll be spending the night there. When he goes to sleep, uncover his feet and lie down there.” There are three things to note here. One, the verb “uncover” usually occurs in a phrase used to describe improper sexual relations. Two, the word “feet” is a common euphemism for the genitals. Three, the verb “lie down” is one of the usual verbs for sex. Now, this doesn’t mean that Ruth does anything improper—as far as I can tell, she simply lay down fully clothed at Boaz’ feet—but the overtones here are deliberate, for this is a sort of seduction, if a chaste one: she is there to ask Boaz, as their go’el, to marry her. (That’s the significance of “spread your cloak over your servant.”)
With this plan, Naomi and Ruth are staking a lot on Boaz being a man of good character, and they aren’t disappointed. Boaz is startled, but pleased, and declares, “This last act of hesed is even better than your first. You could have landed one of the choice young men, whether poor or rich, but you chose family loyalty instead.” He understands that she wants to marry him, at least in part, in order to give Naomi and her dead husband an heir. He doesn’t see this as a problem, however, and so he gladly agrees; but he cautions her, “There’s another relative closer than I who has the first right to act as kinsman-redeemer here. I’ll talk to him in the morning. If he wants to carry out this duty, let him; otherwise, I will.”
The next morning, Boaz goes down to the city gate, where all legal decisions were made, and no sooner does he get there and sit down than that relative comes walking by. Boaz stops him, grabs ten of the city elders, and presents the situation—beginning with something we haven’t heard to this point: their relative Elimelech owned a piece of property which now needs to be redeemed. This relative has the first right to do so; if he doesn’t, Boaz will. It seems like a good deal for this relative. He can get the land cheap, Elimelech has no surviving heirs to lay claim to the property later, Naomi isn’t going to have any more kids, and he boosts his reputation by carrying out a family duty. It looks like a win-win situation, and so he agrees to buy the land.
Ah, but before he can make the formal declaration to the elders of the city, Boaz has a surprise for him. “The day you buy the field, you will also commit to marry Ruth, the dead man’s widow, to give him an heir.” That provokes consternation. This relative was thinking of Naomi and Elimelech, but Elimelech died before his sons; the property actually belonged last to Ruth’s husband, making her, not Naomi, the widow in question. Unlike Naomi, Ruth was young enough to bear children, and if he married her, she probably would. He’d have to pay for the field, and then her child would inherit, meaning less money for the children he has now; supporting that child would further reduce the amount he could leave to his current children. This news turns the purchase from an investment into an unwanted expense, and so he passes on the right to redeem to Boaz.
The rest, you know: Boaz married Ruth, and she gave birth to a son, Obed. As seems to have been the case under these circumstances, the baby was considered both the heir of Ruth’s dead husband Mahlon, and thus of Naomi and her family, and of Boaz. As such, he was a great blessing to both families, for Boaz seems to have been childless up to this point, and they rejoiced greatly. However great their joy, though, they didn’t know the half of it; for as verse 17 tells us, Obed would be the grandfather of King David, the second and greatest king of the people of Israel.
Now, here again we have a foreign woman brought into Israel; but where, with Tamar and Rahab, they are brought in by their courage and their faith, with Ruth it is first and foremost her hesed, her extraordinary love, loyalty, faithfulness and commitment, that makes her a part of the people of God. At the beginning, Naomi praises her daughters-in-law for their hesed, but when push comes to shove, Orpah goes back home. She’s not condemned for that in the least—she’s following the wise counsel of her mother-in-law, doing the smart thing. It’s a perfectly fine act. It just isn’t hesed, for hesed goes above and beyond the call of duty—like Ruth. She continues to do hesed to her mother-in-law—by going home with her, by taking the risk to go out and glean, by taking the risk to lie down at Boaz’ feet, and by asking Boaz to marry her to give Elimelech an heir so that his line, and Naomi’s, might continue. All the way through, Ruth is held up as a shining example of hesed, of godly love and faithful commitment, which is why she has an honored place among the ancestors of David, and ultimately of Jesus.
There’s one other thing to note here, one which foreshadows the work of Christ: the book of Ruth shows us God acting below the radar of history, through common people and ordinary circumstances. One cannot call Naomi, Ruth, or Boaz truly ordinary people, but they’re the sort of people who get dismissed as ordinary because they aren’t famous; Boaz is rich and influential, yes, but only in Bethlehem, which is a town of no great consequence on the national scene, let alone by the world’s standards. And yet, through these three people and their God-given character and wits, God acts to continue the line which will ultimately lead to the birth of his Son.
And when his Son is born, it will be, again, in that town of no great consequence, that sleepy little burg of Bethlehem, to someone the world considers unimportant and thus ordinary; and who will be called to witness the birth? Shepherds. The most blue-collar workers imaginable. Yeah, the kings are coming, too, but they won’t show up until later. The Savior of the world will be a man of no reputation, a common builder, who will live a life of common things: eating peasant bread, working with calloused hands, walking everywhere. Yet through that life, below the world’s radar until the very end, would come the redemption of our fallen race.