Mark has been teaching a series of lessons to the youth on Wednesday nights about how everything in the Bible is there to show God's glory. He is teaching one-two lessons from each book. Some stories (like Joshua and the Battle of Jericho) are easy to quickly read through and see God's glory and triumph shining. Others are easy to just skim over and hardly notice the big picture.
A couple of weeks ago he taught on Ruth. I have read Ruth several times, but never really studied it. Just a quick look at the meaning of some of the names in Ruth is fascinating. Elimelech (My God is King) is married to Naomi (pleasant). They have two sons, Mahlon (sick) and Chilion (pining). {Great names for the kiddos, huh?} There is a famine. I think, for me anyway, it is hard to imagine what these people would go through in a time of famine. I mean think about it, here if there is a bad season and crops we can always go to the grocery store that has fresh produce available year round. We can go to restaurants anytime we please and get anything we want. These people suffered greatly if there was a time of famine. To keep their sickly kids from starving Elimelech and Naomi had to leave their home and go to a far away place. They left Bethlehem and settled in Moab.
This is another one of those things that I have at times just read over and not really thought much about. Moab. The people of Moab are descended from the incestuous union of Lot and his daughter. {side note here: Mark taught a lesson about the effects of alcohol to the youth over a year ago titled I love my Family...But Not That Way! . He used the story of Lot to teach that alcohol can make you do weird things and make you so out of it that others can do bad things to you. The youth still remember almost every detail of the story. As soon as he said the Moabites were descended from Lot they all started saying things like "EEWWW, Yuck!!!"} So the Moabites as a people had a less than desirable beginning. Not only that, but they worshiped some pretty horrible gods. One of which (Chemosh) was a god of child sacrifice. Could you imagine something so terrible that you had to take your family away from everything safe and comfortable and put them in a place like that? It would be horrible!
They were not there for just a little while. They were there long enough that the boys became men and found someone to marry. I feel pretty sure that the parents would have liked for them to marry nice Jewish girls. Guess what? They were in Moab, surrounded by Moabite girls! Who did they marry? Moabites. I always assumed that was a bad thing. I mean. God had said not to marry foreign women, right? Not exactly.
Deuteronomy 7:1-3: 1"When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than yourselves, 2 and when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. 3 You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons,Hmmm... They were told not to marry women of the lands they were conquering. Moab was not on the list. So these guys were doing nothing wrong. They married girls named Orpah (stubborn) and Ruth (friendship).
During the ten year stay in Moab Elimelech died. Then Mahlon and Chilion died. Naomi had some really hard things in her life. If this were happening to someone today (had to move far away, lost her husband and children) we would feel sorry for them. It would be very sad. In that time however, she could not just run out and get a job someone to support herself. Plus, she had two daughters-in-law to look after.
Naomi hears that there is once again food in Bethlehem. Or as the Bible puts it "The Lord had visited His people". These people may have had their faults in many ways, but they were right on in giving God His glory when he blessed them. They understood that goodness comes from God. So Naomi is going to head back to Bethlehem. She tells the girls to go back to their families since she has no more sons for them. See, God had made a law to take take of young widows.
Deuteronomy 25:5-6- If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.There were no more sons. No one to take care of or provide for these women. Naomi tells them twice to go back to their families and to their gods. So these women must have been worshiping the true God while they were married to the Israelite men. Orpah leaves, but Ruth stays with Naomi.
Ruth 1:16-17:16But 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. 17Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you."
Wow. She was willing to leave everything behind and follow the true God. She was willing to stay with Naomi, even though it meant not living a life of ease. As they departed for Bethlehem, somewhere along the way Naomi changed her name to Mara (bitter). Very fitting since her life over the last ten years had been very bitter.
Going back had to be hard. They were two widows. No means of support. More or less, they were beggars at the mercy of others. God's providence was at work again. You see, many years before in the law God had given commandments to take care of the poor.
Leviticus 19:9-10- When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. 10And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the LORD your God.When they returned to Bethlehem it *happened* to be right at the beginning of the barley harvest. Ruth volunteered to go out and reap for herself and Naomi. She *happened* to end up in a field belonging to a wealthy relative. That relative (Boaz) *happened* to notice her in the fields. He asked someone who she was and found out that she had come from Moab with Naomi. Boaz tells her to stay in his field, with his people so that she will be protected. Can you imagine being a woman in a foreign country, with no way to support yourself, no family other than an elderly mother-in-law, and some kind stranger offer to protect you? In chapter 2 verse 8 he says to her, "Now listen, my daughter...". He offers her his protection and kindness because of the love she showed to Naomi.
Ruth 2:11-12-11But Boaz answered her, "All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. 12 The LORD repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!"He even fed her lunch. Then he told his servants to drop a few sheaves so that she would have more to take home.
So Ruth get home with her big load of grain. Naomi is, of course, happy to see how much she brought home, but even happier to hear where Ruth has been. Boaz is a close relative. According to the law the closest male relative has certain responsibilities for those left behind after a death. They could include a). avenging a death. We see no evidence of foul play at hand in this story. b.) buying back family property that was sold to pay debts. This does come into play here. c.) buying back a family member that had sold himself into slavery. Fortunately no selling of humans in this story. d.) marrying the deceased's widow. Older women (historically) have always thought being married was best, and you can get a glimpse of Naomi scheming when she says "This man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers." (Verse 20.)
The time comes to thresh the grains. Naomi tells Ruth to take a bath, put on her best clothes, anoint herself and go to meet Boaz on the threshing floor. Naomi tells her to go and lay at his feet when he goes to sleep. (Yuck, she got all prettied up for THAT?!?!?!) Ruth does what Naomi tells her, even goes a step further. When Boaz wakes up and sees a person he asked who it was. Ruth told him who she was and even asks him to "cover her", which is basically saying that she is proposing to him. He is happy about it and says yes. He sends her away in the morning with 60-80 POUNDS of barley!!! The only snag in the plan is that there is another man, who is a closer relative that could make this whole thing not happen like they are wanting.
So Boaz gets this other relative (we really do not know the relationship, they could be cousins or even brothers, we are just not sure from the Bible texts) in the presence of some friends who are in the village. He tells him that Naomi is back and is going to sell a piece of land if he wants to redeem it. He throws in that there is also a widow of one of Naomi's sons that needs to be redeemed. The other relative does not want to have to split his children's inheritances with someone else so he tells Boaz no. This clears the way for Boaz to marry Ruth.
So many times we look at sad situations and wonder why God would allow such terrible things to happen. Why was there this famine that drove a family to a far land? Why did the father and BOTH sons have to die leaving Naomi a widow in a far away land with no one to take care of her? Why did her daughter in law have to tag along giving Naomi someone else to have to care for? The book of Ruth ends with the very reason why:
Salmon fathered Boaz, Boaz fathered Obed, Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David.
The plan seems even clearer when you flip to Matthew and read the genealogy of Christ. This was all a part of God's plan for redemptive history. God used this Moabitess to be in the bloodline of HIS Son. With out Ruth and Boaz being married, there would have been no great-grandson David. Which would have meant no Davidic covenant. See, God knows the story from end to beginning. We can often see the here and now. If some of bad stuff had not happened, the good stuff would have not been able to happen. I pray that God helps me to remember this when something I am going through gives me the tendency to think why me. My I take Romans 5:3-4 to heart:
More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
Don't ever give up on hope
