What an incredible story God gave us in the book of Ruth!
I want to start off by saying that there are many great commentaries on this book, and recently added to that collection is David Platt’s preaching of Secret Church 24 in which he goes verse by verse through Ruth. He offers excellent insight and you’ll find much of it woven throughout this post. I highly recommend you take the time to deep dive and listen to his recording. You can find it here: Secret Church 2024: The Book of Ruth (radical.net)
That being said, let’s jump into it together!
Ruth opens with the phrase, “In the days when the judges ruled.” Israel is establishing herself in the Promised Land, but there is not yet a king. If you want a refresher for what takes place during the lives of Israel’s judges, you can find some information in this previous post: Judges- Looking for Hope When the World Gets Darker – MandyGunter.com
In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.
Ruth 1:1-5
Take note of the stage the author is setting. A famine hits the town of Bethlehem, whose name ironically means “house of bread.” Elimelech takes his wife and two sons and moves them to Moab, a country with a history of calamity with Israel. Remember one of the stories in the book of Numbers.
…the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel.
Numbers 25: 1b & 2
Because of their great sin, the LORD sent a plague out against the Israelites and 24,000 people died as a result.
If you turn even further back to Genesis 19, right after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, we find the beginning of the Moabite tribe.
Lot’s daughters, husbandless and hiding with their father in the mountains, devise a plan to carry on their family name by getting Lot drunk and initiating incestuous relationships with him.
Thus both daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day.
Genesis 19: 36 & 37
Elimelech’s decision to move his family is done with a not-so-distant memory of these stories.
The original readers of Ruth were very familiar with these details about Moabite history. The author is shocking his audience with what God does in this story and with what He does with a Moabite woman, who would have been likely disdained by honorable Israelites.
These first five verses of Ruth are abysmal. They tell of nothing but destruction and despair that lasted 10 years.
Perhaps you can relate to suffering that seems unending, just as Naomi does in this story. Have you spent years waiting for God to turn things around, only to feel as though you are trudging through life, barely hanging on?
Naomi’s entire family is dead. She is alone with only two daughters-in-law in a foreign and despised nation. She has no descendants to care for her or carry on her family line, a massive disgrace in her time.
Naomi’s life is bleak. But note that the author does not mention any sin committed by Naomi to warrant such a painful life, in case the reader assumes she is being punished. Her story is similar to Job’s. And likely, many of ours. Her life is a story of hurt that has resulted from living in a fallen world.
She hears that, “the LORD had visited His people and given them food,” (Ruth 1:6) so she sets out with Orpah and Ruth to return to Bethlehem.
Along the way, she urges them to return to their families. After much prodding, Orpah relents and returns home, but Ruth refuses to leave Naomi, speaking one of the most famous passages of Scripture.
But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.”
Ruth 1: 16 & 17
Ruth has made a massive decision about her future! She leaves the place of her birth, willing to exchange everything she has ever known for an entirely new identity, home, and religion. Unbeknownst to her, this choice, made by a seemingly insignificant widow from a pagan family line, alters the entire course of history.
Naomi and Ruth arrive in Bethlehem where Naomi reintroduces herself to the townspeople as Mara, saying, “the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the LORD has brought me back empty.” (Ruth 1:20 & 21)
If you read along in the text, you’ll notice that the author begins repeatedly referring to Ruth as “the Moabite,” reminding the reader of her heritage and low place amongst the Israelites.
Naomi has returned home, no longer the woman she was when she left. She has no provider, no food, and no family.
Now back when God gave His law to the Israelites, He made a plan to provide for the poor and foreigner. As the Israelites harvested their crops, they were to leave the edges of their fields untouched so that starving neighbors could glean from the remaining or dropped harvests. Naomi sends Ruth to the fields to collect grain, and “she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech.” (Ruth 2:3)
Do you see God displaying His sovereignty over all things? The twists and turns in this story should cause the heart of the reader to jump with delight at the way God is moving behind the scenes. He has not spoken directly in this story, and yet His masterful fingerprints are all over it.
Boaz immediately takes notice of Ruth. He instructs his men to leave her alone, providing protection for her, and to leave extra bundles set aside for her to glean, ensuring her survival. Ruth leaves her first day of work with around 30-50 pounds of barley!
The author paints Boaz as a man of valor. He is honorable and cares for the people around him. A woman would find him to be a safe and loving man in a dangerous world. The book of Matthew tells us that Boaz’s mother is none other than Rahab, the redeemed Canaanite prostitute we learned about in Joshua. (Joshua- Prostitutes and Promises – MandyGunter.com) Undoubtedly, his own mother’s story made a remarkable impression on his life.
It is difficult to read Ruth and not see that God is displaying His own character traits in Boaz. His love, mercy, kindness, and goodness become tangible in Boaz.
When Ruth returns home, Naomi is amazed at the kindness of whatever man has granted her such blessings, but when Ruth tells her Boaz’s name, Naomi is completely overcome.
And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the LORD, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!” Naomi also said to her, “The man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers.”
Ruth 2:20
Notice the drastic change in Naomi’s tone as she describes the Lord’s actions towards her from the beginning of the story until now! You can almost hear the relief in her voice as she sees that God has not forsaken her.
Knowing the law regarding widows without an heir, she tells Ruth that Boaz is a redeemer for their family.
If we flip back to the law again, God made a provision for women whose husbands died before giving them children, by providing them with a redeemer. The brother of the man was to take the widow as a wife and the firstborn son she bore would be considered as the son of the deceased husband. This ensured that a family line was not blotted out and the widow was cared for until her own death. If a brother refused or was unavailable to marry her, the next closest male relative would be sought out.
Naomi seems to see what God is orchestrating and gives Ruth rather scandalous instructions. Ruth agrees.
Ruth washes and anoints herself, and hides near the threshing floor. When Boaz has eaten his fill for the night and falls asleep, she tiptoes to him, uncovers his feet and lies down.
Boaz awakens during the night, his feet uncovered in the breeze and finds a woman curled beside him! Imagine the startled tone he must have used when he cries out, “Who are you?” (Ruth 3:9)
And she answered, “I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant for you are a redeemer.” And he said, “May you be blessed by the LORD, my daughter. You have made this last kindness greater than the first in that you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you ask, for all my fellow townsmen know that you are a worthy woman. And now it is true that I am a redeemer. Yet there is a redeemer nearer than I. Remain tonight, and in the morning, if he will redeem you, good; let him do it. But if he is not willing to redeem you, then, as the LORD lives, I will redeem you. Lie down until the morning.”
Ruth 3: 9-13
Boaz calls her his daughter, as a term of endearment. Jesus does the same after healing a woman in the New Testament. See how tenderly Boaz speaks to her! He compliments her integrity and promises to make everything right, either by marrying her off to the closer redeemer, or doing it himself. He protects her from wandering the streets in the middle of the night alone but sends her home before anyone awakens and could accuse her of wrongdoing. Before she leaves, he fills her cloak with possibly close to 75 pounds of barley, proving his intention to provide for her regardless of how the next day goes.
Chapter 4 opens with Boaz sitting at the city gate amongst the elders. The author humorously words the sudden arrival of the closer redeemer, but never mentions his name, a slight at his character.
Boaz makes an impassioned speech, telling the man that he can redeem all Elimelech’s inheritance, while providing for the elderly Naomi, who would not need to be wed, by claiming his right as the redeemer. To the bitter dismay of the first-time hearer of this story, the man enthusiastically agrees.
Clever Boaz continues with one last detail.
Then Boaz said, “The day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the widow of the dead, in order to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance.”
Ruth 4:5
The man, perhaps ashamed at the idea of marrying a Moabite, but certainly aware that land he acquires from Naomi will be given back to any son Ruth bears, suddenly finds the deal unattractive.
To the delight of all readers, the unnamed redeemer declines and forfeits his right as redeemer to Boaz.
Hearing the agreement, the men of the city erupt with blessings towards Boaz and Ruth, the seemingly-overlooked-by-God Moabite woman.
So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went in to her, and the LORD gave her conception, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without a redeemer and may his name be renowned in Israel! …” Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse.
Ruth 4:13-14 & 16
The story begins with Naomi claiming God testified against her, brought calamity on her, and left her empty.
The story ends with her arms full, wrapped around the cooing, swaddled fulfillment of God’s redemption.
Tying the story in the perfect bow, the author says that “they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.” (Ruth 4:17)
Confused, bitter Naomi, and widowed Moabite Ruth encounter the Living God, Who is constantly working unseen in every story. Despite their years of agony, He raises them from the ashes to become great-grandmothers of King David.
What they never could have known, is that centuries later, the New Testament records Ruth in another genealogy- the lineage of Jesus Himself.
Foreshadowed by His ancestor, Boaz, Jesus becomes the ultimate Redeemer of all mankind.
Naomi and Ruth were cursed with a life of poverty, danger, and loneliness. Boaz’s lovingkindness redeemed their lives from the pit.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
Galatians 3:13 & 14
Life can bring terrible hardships to us. Often our sin is the reason consequences begin to arrive at our door. Other times it is the sin of people around us that rain calamity down on anyone nearby.
And sometimes sad, awful things just happen. Because our world was broken long ago, now our lives are marked by disease, death, abuse, terror, chronic illness, accidents and a whole host of tragedies we all navigate every day.
God never speaks in the book of Ruth. But if we lean in, we see that God is intimately involved in each character’s life the entire time. And over the course of years, He is guiding their lives to collide in a single morning at the city gate where everything in their corner of the universe changes instantly.
If we keep our focus on God in this light, we begin to see the heart wrenching first chapter of Ruth a little differently. God did not stop the death of Naomi’s husband, nor her two sons. He did not open the wombs of her daughters-in-law to give her heirs. Even though Naomi and Ruth could not see it, God was there.
He heard their shrieks at the funerals. He saw the silent tears drip in their daily routines when grief reminded them that their men would not come home. God felt the pressure on Naomi to care for these daughters-in-law with no resources of her own.
Those ten years of death were not unseen by God. Nor were they wasted.
He was already preparing their journey home, so they’d arrive at harvest time. God somehow guided Ruth to Boaz’s field. He had spent years raising Boaz under the guidance of Rahab, shaping his heart for the sojourner.
While it is dangerous to read ourselves into Bible stories, we can see that God is showing us one of the prominent ways He works through the generations- seemingly behind the scenes.
That means there will be seasons or events in life that are so, so hard. They make no sense, and we want to scream, “God, where were you?!”
And I think it’s ok to ask him questions like that. What loving Father wouldn’t want to settle His scared child? But I think sometimes we are unprepared to learn that He was where He always is- seated, in complete control on His throne.
This is difficult to reconcile with his infinite power to prevent atrocities altogether. Think about the book of Ruth and how the story would have ended if He prevented any of the suffering.
Would Naomi ever have gone to Moab had God prevented the famine? Would Ruth have come to Israel if her husband had lived? If Boaz had been a man of different character, would Naomi and Ruth have starved to death? What if the closest kinsman redeemer had married Ruth? Would there have been an Obed, then Jesse, then David?
The story plays out the way it does, not because God is having to run behind everyone to clean up their messes, but because God had already been orchestrating every detail for generations before Ruth was even born. When tragedy struck, He was not surprised or frantically moving pieces around to “fix” the story. He sat settled on His throne, fully aware of the beginning and end. The story keeps in theme with all of Scripture- time moves for His glory and our good.
This understanding of God’s character is important for us as post-resurrection readers. When we look at the brokenness of the world, we see that God was not surprised by the fall of man. He already had a plan. Just as God made sure the law provided a kinsman redeemer for Ruth, God knew all of mankind would need a redeemer. From the dawn of time, Jesus stood ready to redeem.
But now thus says the LORD, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”
Isaiah 43: 1-3a
I don’t know where you are on your path homeward, friend. But I do know that even if your journey has been filled to the brim with tragedy and pain, the story is not over yet. God uses Ruth’s story to show us a picture of what He is doing throughout all of time- working to redeem even the most horrible parts of the lives of those who love Him. Unlike Ruth, we may not see all things made new this side of heaven. But because we do know what God is like, we can trust that He is working, even when we cannot see Him. Rest in His character and look to the Redeemer He provided for you- Jesus.
