Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap.
Today we finished our ninth book of the Bible, and we're rapidly closing in on 100 days in the Word. So I think you should do something to celebrate. If you know other people who are doing the Bible recap, maybe you should get together and have a little party or something. If kids can have a party for hitting 100 days in school, you can do it for hitting 100 days in the Bible. Come on, this will serve you better than algebra any day. No offense to the math teachers among us, we love you. You're invited to the party too. Bring ice cream.
Okay, let's drop in on Ruth's story. It takes place during the time of the judges when all kinds of wickedness is filling the land of Israel. The book opens with a married couple, Elimelech and Naomi, leaving their hometown, Bethlehem of Judah, to escape a famine. They settle in Moab across the Jordan River, which is pagan territory. We'll include a link to a map in today's show notes so you can see where this is.
After Elimelech and Naomi and their two sons get to Moab, the sons do the very thing Moses warned them against. They marry women who worship other gods. Eventually, Elimelech and his sons all die, leaving Naomi and her Moabite daughters-in-law behind to fend for themselves. Naomi is in dire straits because as a widow with no offspring, there's no way for her to be provided for, and especially not in a foreign land that has no rules for providing for widows like Israel does.
Fortunately, she gets word that Bethlehem isn't in a famine anymore, and she packs her bags. She tells her pagan daughters-in-law to go back to their homes where they can start over. Orpah goes back home, but Ruth makes a shocking decision. She attaches herself to a destitute, depressed widow and leaves her country to move to a foreign land. She chooses the hard path.
As she's making this commitment to Naomi, Ruth invokes an oath to God. And when she makes that oath, she refers to him as Yahweh. This lets us know that something has happened to the heart of this Moabite. Her allegiance has transferred from her pagan gods to Naomi's God, Yahweh.
They make it back to Bethlehem, but Naomi is really bitter at this point. She believes God is mistreating her. She has no idea what's in store. God's blessings were on their way even as Naomi complained about him, and every detail of timing and placement was orchestrated for her good.
She sends Ruth to work in the field of one of her relatives to gather barley. They are relying on the laws God set in place in Leviticus 19, which ordered the Israelites not to glean the perimeters of their fields so that the poor people and the sojourners could gather all the extra and be provided for by the surplus of the rich.
Naomi's relative landowner, Boaz, sees Ruth working hard and asks about her. This guy is way out of her league. She's a foreign widow and he's a wealthy leader among the community. This is your classic wrong side of the tracks love story. But Ruth's work ethic and her kindness to her mother-in-law catch his eye. And maybe her appearance too, but the book never tells us that. It may be implied, but Boaz only ever praises her character.
He says her reputation of love, humility, and grace precede her. And he treats her with an extra dose of generosity, even more than the law requires. Naomi realizes there's some potential here, so she decides to do a little matchmaking. She tells Ruth to stop dressing like a widow and put on some deodorant, then she sends Ruth down to see Boaz at night.
There's a lot of ambiguity in this passage. Maybe she just uncovers his feet so they'll get cold and it wakes him up. But lots of commentators also point out that the word feet is often used as a euphemism for a man's private parts. We talked about this briefly on Day 31 when we covered the story of Moses and Zipporah, where she circumcised their son Gershom.
All that to say, we're not exactly sure what was happening here. It's possible Naomi sent Ruth to seduce Boaz, but given the way scripture continues to describe them both as upright and virtuous, both before and after this encounter, we should probably conclude that they refrained from anything inappropriate that night. In fact, Boaz calls Ruth a worthy woman. This is the same Hebrew phrase used in Proverbs 31 in reference to a virtuous woman or an excellent wife.
And one thing I find interesting is that most Hebrew Bibles are laid out differently than our English Bibles, and some versions put the book of Ruth immediately after the book of Proverbs, which means Proverbs 31 flows right into Ruth's story, as though she demonstrates the character of the Proverbs 31 woman in a very practical way.
Ruth basically proposes marriage to Boaz. He's interested, but he says there's a problem. According to the laws of leveret marriage, which we discussed briefly on day 78, there's someone else in town who has the right of first refusal when it comes to marrying Ruth. Boaz is a relative, but he's not the closest relative. And as we all know, they like to marry the next branch over on the family tree. But Boaz makes an oath that if the man who is a closer relative says no, then he's got her back.
Then Boaz fills her coat with more food and sends her home, and he promises to figure out a solution right away. Boaz goes to the city gates, where all the local business is done, and fills the other guy in. But the other guy is not interested, because whoever redeems a widow is responsible for producing an heir with her. And this guy doesn't want to diminish his children's inheritance by adding to his own offspring just to help this rando out. So he passes.
Normally, this would be considered despicable and selfish, but Boaz was like, works for me. So Boaz and Ruth get married and have a child and everyone is thrilled. And here's my God shot for today. Guess who the mother of Boaz was? Rahab, the Canaanite prostitute from Jericho, who left her pagan life behind to follow Yahweh. This family really displays God's heart to bring in the outsider, to show that he's not just about saving people who share DNA.
This son of an outsider married an outsider and became the great-grandfather of King David, the most renowned king in all of Israel's history, who was also an ancestor of Jesus. All of these people are in the storyline of the Messiah. This story is about so much more than just Ruth. It's not just a fairy tale about the single girl getting married and finally having babies.
It's about God working through loss and depression and longing and famine to advance His plan to redeem all of this, even as the Israelites as a whole spiral into wickedness more and more every day. Hang in there, Israel. Your King is coming. An earthly one first, and then a divine one. And He's where the joy is. ♪
We start the book of Samuel tomorrow. And as usual, we'll link to a short video overview of the book in our show notes today. If you've got seven minutes to spare, check it out. We think you'll love it.
I love helping people read, understand, and love the Bible. And I really love helping people experience the Bible. That's what we do with our partner ministry, Israel Lux, where we host luxury tours of the Holy Land. Imagine stepping into the water where Jesus was baptized, walking where Jesus walked, and standing on the hill where Jesus preached. And the food's not so bad either. These trips are so much fun.
really make the Bible come alive in a whole new way. You can find lots of details, including dates for our future trips, and you can fill out an interest form if you go to Israelux.com or click the link in the show notes.