Who was Ruth in the Bible? What comes to mind when you hear that name? She has a book of the Bible named after her. She’s known for taking care of her elderly mother-in-law and being one of four women mentioned in the line of Christ. She’s an interesting story and an example of pure family love, but have you ever thought about her as a person? Reading the story of Ruth this time, a few things struck me as kind of shocking and emotionally powerful.
The story of Ruth
First, let’s start with a brief recap of the four chapters of Ruth. There was such a severe famine in Israel that a man from Bethlehem decided to take his wife and two sons out of their homeland and be foreigners in a land with food. He died in the foreign country, leaving his sons to take care of their mother. They married local girls and died ten years after their father did, neither had children. Their mother, named Naomi, was left a widow with two widowed daughter-in-laws in her household. The three of them decide to go back to Israel since the famine was over. Naomi talked one daughter-in-law into going back to her family, but the other one, Ruth, insisted on staying with Naomi and they went back to Bethlehem together.
Once back in Bethlehem, Ruth did work, basically begging, to feed Naomi and herself. She wound up, by God’s guidance, picking up what the harvesters missed in a field belonging to Boaz. Following customs of the day, she wound up married to Boaz, had a son, and lived happily ever after.
Now let’s dig into some of the remarkable things that struck me this time through.
Foreigners were not welcome anywhere.
I live in the United States. We have issues with immigrants, just watching the news can tell you it’s a huge topic here. I’ve never been to war with my neighbors, though. In Naomi’s time, foreigners had no actual rights. The countries were regularly at war with each other and it was common for whole towns to be killed or enslaved. Moab and Israel had a long history of hating each other, generations of killing each others family members, cheating each other, and lots of horrible rumors. Yet, life was so hard in Bethlehem that Naomi’s husband left his extended family, an important support system in that time before machine harvesters or any modern luxury, and took his wife and sons on a long trip to Moab, his country’s long time enemy. That was when travel was done by foot and letters had to be sent by friends, not by any regular service. He had to know they may never see their families again.
Soon after they arrived, Naomi’s husband died, leaving her a widow. Widows were seen as helpless and worthless, unable to do a man’s work of providing food for the family. Luckily, Naomi’s sons were old enough to marry. I’m not sure what to think of foreign boys showing up and marrying local girls soon after they moved there. That had to have been hard in a place where most towns probably grew up together and married long time friends or extended family of their neighbors. Anyways, Ruth and Orpah were Moabite women who married the newcomers and moved into Naomi’s household, as was the custom then.
It sounds like ten years later, both sons died, leaving it a household of three widows. Naomi learned the famine in her hometown was over and decided to go back to her family, no longer being a foreigner widow. After they had started traveling, Naomi stopped and tried to send her daughter-in-laws back to their families so she’d return alone to her family. The story implies that both of their mothers and fathers were still alive and would take the young widows in and find them new husbands. Remember they had been married for ten years with no children. In that culture, barren widows had hard futures to look forward to. Orpah sadly goes home. Ruth won’t leave Naomi. She insists on leaving her family, her support network, to be a lone foreigner of the hated Moabites, to travel with her elderly mother-in-law. She knew that she would probably not see, or hear from, her family again, and live out her life as a barren widow foreigner among her people’s enemies. All to take care of her mother-in-law. Wow!
Who was Boaz?
Boaz was a relative of Naomi’s husband and a landowner. He was obviously respected by his workers and spoke nicely to them. It struck me that if he was the landowner, he was probably not a young man. In Ruth 3:10, he calls Ruth “my daughter” and praises her for not chasing younger men. Later in the book, he is obviously confident talking in front of the town elders and was respected by the town council. Men often didn’t marry before they were thirty years old, girls often married around fourteen years old. That means Ruth was probably at least twenty-four years old, but not many thirty year old men would call a twenty-four year old women a daughter. My guess is that he is closer to forty than thirty, but we aren’t told his age. We also aren’t told if he had a wife already or that he was a widower with kids. In a culture where having an heir and continuing the family line was the purpose of life, what had happened that a forty year old, well-respected, landowner didn’t have a wife or heir?
Boaz was willing to marry Ruth.
So many things were against Ruth, culturally speaking. She probably gave up on the dream of a husband and children and was looking forward to taking care of her mother-in-law until Naomi died. Ruth was probably in her mid to late twenties, a barren widow in the land of her people’s enemies. Surprisingly, there is no reference to her being mistreated. Naomi was probably considered dead, but she was welcomed back by her friends in her hometown. Ruth is referenced as a foreigner, but immediately praised for taking care of Naomi. God led her to a field were she was blessed, although Naomi worried Ruth would be mistreated with a different landowner in a different field. God led Ruth and Naomi, who both probably felt like the best times were behind them, to be noticed by a wealthy man, well-respected, and single, who was willing to marry a barren foreign widow.
God’s plan is amazing.
The story of Ruth goes to show that we don’t know what God has planned for us. These two women thought they had nothing but hardship in front of them. Naomi had lost her sons and had no grandchildren, Ruth was a childless widow far from her family. Yet Ruth met a man happy to marry her and she had at least one child, a boy. God had even provided a culturally acceptable way for Boaz to marry the foreign widow without facing ridicule, the kinsman-redeemer rule. It meant that Boaz and Ruth’s first child was the heir of her first husband, but I like to think that they had more children to inherit Boaz’s family land. (The kinsman-redeemer rule is an interesting law that came into play a few times in the Bible, but it’s way too much to explain here.) It did mean that Naomi had a grandson to dote on in her old age.
Boaz and Ruth’s first child became the grandfather of King David and through him, Jesus Christ centuries later. Think of how many “coincidences” had to happen to make Ruth one of Jesus’ grandmothers. A man had to decide to leave his familiar home and take his wife and sons to a foreign land on a hope that life could be better. He died and his sons quickly married local women, despite being foreigners. Years later, the providers for that small, childless household died, convincing Naomi to return to her family, a childless widow, and Ruth insisted on leaving everything she knew to have a hard life taking care of her elderly mother-in-law.
Ruth and Naomi can remind us that God is always working, and even if it seems like life can only get worse, it can definitely get better.
