028 Naomi & Ruth: Civic Theology in Action (Ruth 4)

What if Ruth isn’t a romance but a masterclass in covenant, courage, and community? We step into the city gate of Bethlehem and watch Boaz work redemption in public view—gathering elders, citing law, and taking a costly stand for Naomi and Ruth. From Leviticus 25 to leverite marriage, we break down how land, lineage, and law intertwine to protect the vulnerable, restore a household, and honor a lost name. The details matter: the sandal ritual, the witnesses, and the blessings that invoke Rachel, Leah, and Perez all situate Ruth’s inclusion within Israel’s legal memory, offering a thoughtful answer to hard questions about identity and belonging.

Along the way, we highlight how providence meets participation. “Chance” moments—Ruth gleaning in the right field, the redeemer passing by—become turning points because people act with integrity. Boaz leverages power for others rather than himself; Naomi’s wisdom frames the story’s theology; and the women of the town interpret what God has done and even name the child Obed. Their voices reveal the book’s heartbeat: chesed is not sentiment but structure, not just kindness but covenant that binds the strong to the weak. The genealogy to David is brief, but the story has already trained us to see the women beneath the names—Ruth, Naomi, Tamar, perhaps Rahab—whose courage makes the line possible.

If you’re ready to rethink Ruth 4 as civic theology in action, this conversation is for you. We read key verses with Hebrew name-meanings, explain how earlier legal precedent shapes later practice, and show why the “nearer redeemer” declines while Boaz risks his inheritance for a larger good. By the end, Naomi’s arms hold fullness, Ruth belongs without remainder, and a community has witnessed justice done. Listen, share with a friend who loves biblical studies and practical theology, and leave a review to tell us what surprised you most.

Chapters

• 0:00 Rethinking Ruth’s Core Message
• 3:05 Reading Ruth 4 from Hebrew Meanings
• 7:04 Boaz at the Gate: Public Justice
• 11:44 Land, Redemption, and Naomi’s Future
• 15:28 Leverite Marriage Meets Kinsman Redeemer
• 19:54 The Sandal Ritual and Witnesses
• 23:44 Blessings, Precedent, and Perez
• 27:54 Integrating Ruth: Law, Identity, Belonging
• 31:34 Naomi’s Restoration and Obed’s Name
• 35:44 Genealogy to David: Purpose Revealed
• 39:24 Women’s Wisdom and Civic Theology
• 43:24 Providence, Chesed, and Risked Inheritance
• 47:24 Living the Law Creatively for Justice
• 49:24 Closing Reflections and Next Steps

Transcript

JessicaLMJenkins: 0:24

Commonly told as a romance story, or even taught as a guide on how to find a godly spouse, the Book of Ruth is really about God's people walking in covenant with him and reflecting his character towards those around them. We see this in Ruth as she cares for her mother-in-law Naomi. We see this in Naomi as she spiritually interprets the events of the book for us. And we see this in Boaz as he uses his power, prestige, and privilege to care for the weak and vulnerable, echoing God's heart for the needy and marginalized. Without the people in the book of Ruth acting to reflect the character of God, we would not have this story. If we didn't have strong, privileged people purposely risking their future on behalf of the weak and the marginalized, the entire story would end in chapter one. But God providentially working behind the scenes and in the hearts and characters of the people in the story, we get a beautiful story of redemption that culminates in Ruth chapter four. I am going to start, as we do every episode, by reading chapter four from my Hebrew translation. Again, I will be using the Hebrew meaning instead of the transliterated name. When we get to the genealogies at the end, there are a few names that we do not know the meanings for, and so those I will just read the transliterations. But everything else, I will read the name meanings to help us immerse ourselves in this story. When we left off in chapter three, Ruth had visited Boaz on the threshing floor, and Boaz had promised that he would take care of her and he would find someone to redeem her. Ruth went back to Naomi, who said, Boaz will take care of this today. Ruth chapter four starts with a Boaz setting his plan for the redemption of Ruth in motion. And strength went up to the gate, and he sat there. And behold, the kinsman redeemer was passing by whose strength had spoken of, and he said, Turn aside, sit here, such a one, Mr. So and so. And he turned aside and he sat. Then he, strength, took ten of the men of the elders of the city, and he said, Sit here, and they sat. And he said to the kinsman redeemer, a portion of the field which is to our brother Elimelech, pleasant, who returned from the fields of incest, sells it. And I myself said, I will uncover your ear, saying, Acquire before the sitters and before the elders of my people, if you will redeem, redeem, and if you will not redeem, tell to me, and I will know, for there is none except you to redeem, and I am after you. And then the man said, I myself will redeem. And then strength said, In the day you acquire for yourself the field from the hand of pleasant, you also acquire refreshing friend, the woman from the land of incest, the wife of the dead, acquiring her to cause the name of the dead to stand upon his inheritance. Then the kinsman redeemer said, I do not have the power to redeem for myself, lest I cause my inheritance to be ruined. Redeem for you yourself my right of redemption, for I do not have the power to redeem. And this is what happened before in Israel concerning the right of redemption and concerning the recompense to confirm for all the world. A man would draw off his sandal and he would give it to his friend. This is the attestation in Israel. And so the kinsman redeemer said to Strength, Acquire for yourself, and he drew off his sandal. Then Strength said to the elders and all the people, You are witnesses today, for I acquired all that belonged to my God as king, and all that belonged to dying and sickly from the hand of pleasant, and also refreshing friend, the woman from the land of incest, the wife of sickly, I have acquired for myself as a wife to cause the name of the dead to stand upon his inheritance. The name of the dead will not be cut off from the people of his brothers. You are witnesses today. And then the people who are in the gate and the elders said, We are witnesses. May the Lord give the woman coming into your house to be like you sheep and delicate, who built the two of them the house of wrestling. And the Lord may the Lord make strong in the house of bread, and he will call the name in the house of bread, and may your house be like bursting forth, whom palm tree bore to the Lord be praised, from this seed who the Lord gave to you from this young woman. Then strength took refreshing friend, and she was to him a wife. And he went to her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son. And the women said to Pleasant, Blessed be the Lord who did not cease to give you a kinsman redeemer today, and his name will be called in the land of wrestling, and he will be to you a returner of life, and a support in your old age, for your daughter in law who loves you bore him, who is better for you than seven sons. Then Pleasant took the boy, and she put him in her bosom, and she was to him a nanny. Then the neighbors called him there, saying, A son is born to Pleasant, and they called his name servant. He was the father of Jesse, the father of beloved. And these are the generations of bursting forth. Bursting forth begat Hezron, and Hezron begat Exalted, and Exalted begat my kinsman is noble, and my kinsman is noble, begat little serpent, and little serpent begat Salmon, and Salmon begat strength, and strength begat servant, and servant begat Jesse, and Jesse begat her beloved. If we consider the book of Ruth like a play, each chapter would be an act in that play. So at the end of chapter three, Ruth and Naomi are discussing Boaz and what his next actions would be. And then we can proverbially see the curtain close on that scene. Now the curtain is opening again, and this time we have Boaz center stage for the first time in the story. And so we see Boaz, and he is he is striding, he is immediately setting about his purpose. Boaz goes to the gate. Now the gate in ancient Israel was where you do your business. It could be both the marketplace and the gate. Sometimes in ancient Israel, they would fortify their cities with multi-layered walls. So imagine a city that has a wall, and it's actually two walls together. You have the outer wall that of course enemies would see, and then you have an inner wall that people on the inside would see. Houses are sometimes built between those two walls, and in times of war, you could fill those houses with rubble and other things to make the walls stronger. So you might have houses built into a very thick wall, and you might have houses on the inside. We don't know exactly what type of wall Bethlehem had because archaeological digs have not been able to be done extensively in Bethlehem because it's been continually occupied from the Roman Ages through today. But typically they would have these very thick walls. There's an example, a great example of one at Beersheba in Israel. And the walls would be thick enough, you could actually have kind of an entryway carved into the wall as you go through the gate into the city. There would be these notches where benches are literally carved into the wall. So that could be kind of the gate style in the wall that we're talking about with benches along the sides, or there could be benches in a seated area right outside the wall and kind of an open plaza that would also function as a market. Whatever style of gate we're dealing with here, Boaz goes to this. This is kind of the town hall. This is where official business is notarized, is done. If you have official business, this is what you are going to do. If you need to sell land, buy land, make big purchases, get something notarized, this is where you go. Functions as town hall, administrative clerk, um, property office, all of the things. So Boaz goes there and he sits down. Sitting down in the ancient world is often an expression of authority or business that you need to do something or you need to speak. So he sits, and behold, the kinsman redeemer he was telling Ruth about in chapter three passes by. This brings us back to when Ruth is gleaning in chapter two, and behold, Boaz comes out of the city. We get a glimmer of God's providence here that God is bringing the kinsman redeemer by at just the time Boaz needs him, just like God brought Ruth to Boaz's field and brought Boaz out at just the time Ruth needed him. So the kinsman starts passing through the gate as he would have to do to go do to his fields or conduct other business. Anybody who needs to leave the city for business or tend to their fields or do their daily work outside the city has to go right through the gate. So behold, the kinsman redeemer passes by, and Boaz speaks up and he says, Turn aside and sit down. And he calls the man in Hebrew. It's almost a nonsense phrase. It's it's so-and-so, Mr. So-and-so. He his name is perfect purposely um left out of the text. Now Boaz would have known his name, and he would have called him by name. This is a small town. They know everybody in the town. Um, but it's left out of the text, and there's a couple reasons many think that his name is left out. Reason number one, because he does not do the duty of Redeemer. So it's kind of a belittling, like your name isn't even worth being mentioned in the story because you wouldn't step up and do your duty. But on the flip side, it has a secondary purpose that it saves that man's descendants from shame. Because as we're going to talk about quite a bit in this episode, part of the book of Ruth is pointing to David and David's reign and why David can be king. And so that this man's descendants are likely still living in Bethlehem, still around at the time David is ruling. So to put his name in the book of Ruth would shame that entire family. And to withhold that both makes a statement that, hey, dude, your name's not worth being included because you didn't step up, but also we don't want to shame your entire family because you didn't step up. So it kind of has a a both reason there. So the author did not record his name, and Boaz just is like, hey, you, hey, buddy, come over here. And the man turns aside and sits down. And then Boaz takes 10 of the men of the elders of the city, whether they were already there. He's like, hey guys, come over here, let's have a meeting, or whether they're all walking out to their fields and he's calling them one by one as they go through the gate. We don't know for sure, and it doesn't really matter to the story. But Boaz is gathering a quorum for official business. So he takes the elders of the city and he has them sit down. He says, Sit here, and they all listen to Boaz and they sit. You can tell Boaz is a man of standing. He is a man of authority in this town. And the men immediately listen and do exactly what he asks. They can tell he has business, they can tell he is eager to get his business done, and they are listening. They are rapt attention. Now, of course, let's set the scene even further. Boaz has called all these men together. People are nosy. They're curious. They don't have TV or radio for entertainment. So anybody else around who's not part of this is likely like, ooh, some business is going down. I wonder what's going down. We're all nosy. We, you know, if our neighbors leave their blinds open, we're like, ooh, what's what do they have in their house? I want to know. I'm curious. And people back in the Old Testament were the same. And so there's probably a crowd starting to grow as Boaz gathers the elders because they're curious what's going on and what business is going to happen and it will affect the community. And so people are wanting to know. So you not only have Boaz and the Elders and the Kinsman Redeemer sitting, you also have a crowd that is standing gathered around to hear what's going on. Maybe merchants are kind of trying to listen out of the corner of their ear while they're doing shopping. And everybody's very aware that this meeting is happening. So Boaz turns to the kinsman redeemer and he immediately starts in a way that's very surprising considering his conversation in chapter three. In chapter three, Ruth basically proposes to Boaz and asks him to redeem her. Boaz says, I absolutely would, but there's a man who has a greater right to do that than I do, so I need to go talk to him about it. So he goes to do this, but he doesn't start by talking about Ruth at all. He starts by talking about land. He says, a portion of the field which belonged to our brother Elimelech, Naomi is now selling, or she's transferring the rights to. Now, calling Elimelech their brother doesn't mean he's physically their brother, just he's a tribe member. He's part of the general clan, part of the city. It's a familial term in a in a fondness way, not in a like literal brother. Like the three of them were siblings. And so Boaz starts letting the other redeemer know that Elimelech that Naomi is selling land that belonged to Elimelech. And Boaz says, I will uncover your ear, saying, Acquire before those who sit and before the elders of my people this land. If you will redeem, redeem. And if you will not redeem, I will redeem. And tell me, and I will know. So this concept of land redemption goes back to Leviticus 25. Let me read Leviticus 25, 23 through 27 from the NIV. That passage says, the land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine, says the Lord, and you, the people of Israel, reside in my land as foreigners and strangers. Throughout the land that you hold as possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land. If one of your fellow Israelites becomes poor and sells some of their property, their nearest relative is to come and redeem what they had sold. If, however, there's no one to redeem it for them, but later on they prosper and acquire sufficient means, they can redeem it themselves. They are to determine the value for the years since they sold it and refund that balance to the one to whom they sold it, and then they can go back to their property. So land in ancient Israel was a permanent possession of a family or a tribe or a clan. It was not like today we buy and sell houses to whomever, whenever, and we don't think much about it. But land was necessary for the survival of a family in ancient Israel. If you did not have land, you really were fairly destitute and you didn't have much. And so keeping the land within the family is incredibly important. And it's important not only for the immediate household, but the clan and the tribe as well. One thing that's interesting about these verses is that women usually didn't have direct land ownership. There is discussion in the scholarly world on whether it was the household that owned the land or the men who owned the land. Many scholars, because land was passed through the father's line, it was passed on through the male line to keep it in the household, in the clan. It was that was traced through the men. There's many who think it was men who owned the land. There are other scholars like Carol Meyer who say, it's not necessarily that the men own the land, but it's that the household has the land, and it's who is representing that household, which 99.9% of the time would be the men. And so do women could inherit. We have the daughters of Zehlapad, they inherit land and then marry men within their clan to keep that land within the clan. So women can inherit. The widow's inheriting from their husband was pretty rare. Um, typically, you would have a someone, a male relative, inherit the land instead of the widow. So you have kind of an odd situation here where Naomi needs to transfer the rights of the land or sell the land to um a male relative because a couple of widows, though they make a tiny household on their own, cannot survive long term. They do not have the manpower or the resources to work the land as needed for their own survival. They are a dead end. So they need to find a larger household to take them in and to absorb that land and them for survival. And so Boaz here mentions Naomi needs to transfer the land. And presumably, commentators note that when the land is transferred, care of Naomi would be transferred as well. So whoever takes the land takes responsibility for Naomi. Naomi is the matriarch of Elimelech's household. She goes with the land, and you kind of take both together. And so the Redeemer initially hears this situation Boaz is bringing up and is like, that sounds like a great idea. Naomi's past childbearing age. I can, she's one mouse, she's not going to eat that much. She's an old lady. Um, I can care for her, and I get this land, which my household can work. We can turn a lot of profit, we can help ourselves out. If he had children, my that will increase the inheritance of my children. Um, my children will get more inheritance because of this land. This sounds like a great deal. Absolutely. I'm in. I will redeem the land and take on caring for Naomi. No, babe, I can do that. So he says, I myself will redeem. I'll do it. Not a problem. And then Boaz drops the other shoe. Boaz rings up and he says, Okay, but in the day you acquire for yourself the land from the hand of Naomi. She's the acting matriarch, she is the head of the household. From the hand of Naomi, you also get Ruth the Moabitus, the wife of the dead. Now, Naomi's the wife of the dead as well, but she is post-menopausal. She is not of marriageable age, so they're not really concerned about that. But Ruth is um of marriageable age. She is still in years where she could bear children. She is also a Moabitis, and Boaz drops that in the middle of this. He's using a lot of very technical legal language. This is kind of, think of this as in your in the county surveyor's office, you're in the town hall, and you have all those legal documents with all the legal ease that Boaz is speaking in legalese here. So some of what he says sounds very formal, it sounds very kind of disjointed, and it's supposed to because it's very specific legal language. He is drawing this out to make sure all the T's are crossed, all the dies are audit, dotted, and everything is going as it needs to. But he's also laying out subtle cues to get the end result that he's going for. So he says, when you get the land and Naomi, you're also gonna get Ruth, who is a Moabitist. And as we've talked in other episodes, there's a lot of animosity between Israel and Moab. Moab, the people of Moab, according to Genesis, started from an ancestral relationship. The Moabites had their women seduce Israel's men and draw them away from the Lord. Moab refused to let Israel pass through and cursed Israel. So the Moabites, and in recent years, the king of Moab has been ransacking and pillaging parts of Israel just north of Bethlehem. So they're not a big fan of Moab. And Boaz drops right in the middle Ruth the Moabitist, which everybody in town knows she's a Moabitist, but he's dropping that just to make sure nobody forgets. But he also mentions wife of the dead. That's a very technical phrase that's used in the passages about leverett marriage, the wife of the dead. And so he's he's bringing those elevent marriage ideas into this passage. And he's Boaz is brilliantly tying together two legal concepts that Ruth started to bring up, but she wasn't fully aware of all the legal nuance in chapter three. In chapter three, Ruth comes to him and basically does a marriage proposal, but then she says, You are a kinsman redeemer, and shifts from just a plain marriage proposal into the realm of redemption by saying that Boaz is a Goel. Now let's review very briefly. A Goal's responsibility in Israel was for, as we've been talking about, the redemption of the land to keep it in the family, to keep it in the clan. It was also to redeem relatives who've sold themselves into slavery, um, to help make sure money paid in restitution gets to where it needs to go, um, to assist clan members in lawsuit. Um, generally, leverett marriage is just direct brother-in-law. So if Malhon um had died, Chileon would need to marry Ruth, um, but both of them died. So we don't have the direct leverant marriage, but a Goale's responsibility is to care for those in his clan in his community. So Ruth broadened her request from just marriage to him acting as a Goale for her and Naomi. Boaz understands everything that entails, more than even Ruth did. And he broadens that further to be the land and Naomi and Ruth. And so he says, you acquire Naomi, you acquire Ruth, the wife of the dead, and the reason you acquire Ruth, the wife of the dead, he says to the other Redeemer, the reason you would acquire her is to cause the name of the dead to stand upon his inheritance, to keep the to keep Elimelech and Malham's name alive. We have very little information on the ancient Israelites' view of the afterlife. They did not have the same view of the afterlife that the New Testament Christian or the church today does. But for the Old Testament Israelite, having your name stay with your land, your legacy stay with your land, they believed it had some sort of impact on your afterlife. Having people of your descendants on your land was important, as important in your death as it is in your life. And so Boaz here is saying to keep the name of the dead, to cause the name of the dead to stand upon his inheritance. We are working for the good of a Limelex household, a Limelex family, a Limelex name as our brother. And in order to do that, you need to marry Ruth to carry on a Limelex line because of Leverett marriage considerations. Leverett marriage is the brother-in-law marriage where if a brother dies, his brother, if a man dies, his brother would marry the dead man's wife, and her first son would be considered the dead brothers, not the biological father of the baby. Um, and so that child would get the inheritance from the dead brother. I talk about that this in great detail in my episode on Tamar. So go back and listen to that and all the tricky Leverett marriage, brother-in-law law stuff that goes on in Tamar's story in the book of Genesis. But here, Boaz is bringing all of that into these legal proceedings. He's saying, redemption of land is great, but we need more than just keeping the land in the clan. That's the easy part. The hard part is keeping the name of the dead connected to his land. At that point, the kinsman redeemer basically says, I'm out. He's like, I don't have the power to do this. I can't. And we don't know why. He doesn't say why he doesn't have the power. It could be that inheritance for his kids would get all messed up. It could be he just financially can't manage all of that. We don't, it could be he uh thought marrying a Moabite was distasteful. The text doesn't tell us. We have no reason except this man is like, I can't do it. Too big, too scary. My inheritance, my children's future, I would be endangering all of that. Um, I can't do it. I'm out, you do it. So the man tells Boaz he can do it. And then in verse seven, we have a little aside from the narrator that tells us about this ancient custom where they would take off sandals and pass sandals between the people to kind of rubber stamp a legal agreement. And so that shows that the book of Ruth was written enough later from when the events of Ruth happened that the original audience of the book of Ruth needed to know this little aside detail that they wouldn't have naturally known. So just like I sit here and I tell you historical context about the book of Ruth to help you understand, because we're 3,000 years later. So the book of the author of the Book of Ruth was just enough later from the events of the Book of Ruth that he needed to give a little historical context aside for his audience. And that's what he does in verse 7. The man drew off his sandal and he would give it to a friend. This is the attestation in Israel. Verse 8 picks back up with the legal proceedings, where the Kim's Miner Deemer is going to do that very thing. He says, acquire it all for yourself. He says, I can't do it, too expensive, I'm endangering my livelihood and my family. Do it for yourself. And so he draws off his sandal. Now he's uncovering his feet. He draws off his sandal and gives it to Boaz. Boaz, it doesn't say this, but he presumably accepts the sandal. And Boaz said to the elders and all the people who are there, remember, there's a big crowd, the elders are sitting there, a big crowd. Boaz then turns to the crowd, the people representative of the entire city of Bethlehem. Probably not the entire city was there, but close to it and enough to represent the city. And he says, You are witnesses today. And this is very important because in the ancient world, they didn't necessarily sometimes they would write it down. We have lots of ancient written records, but we're dealing with like small backwater Bethlehem. They may not have scribes hanging out in Bethlehem. They're going to be in the bigger cities. And so this is an oral culture. They remember things and they need human witnesses to be like, yes, this is what happened. Because if there's ever an issue further down the road, you can be like, well, Elder So-and-so and Elder So-and-so, and Mr. and those people, they were all there. They heard it. They witnessed it. I can bring them into the legal wranglings further down the road to be like, no, that the you agreed, Mr. So-and-so, you agreed to such and such. We were there, we saw it. So the Boaz asks everyone standing around and the elders who sit to witness the proceedings. He wants Bethlehem as a city. He wants their buy-in on what is about to transpire. So Boaz says, You are witnesses today, for I am acquiring all that belong to Elimelech. Um I read this as he's acquiring the household. He's acquiring the movable goods, clothes, um, pottery, grinding stones, everything. Movable goods, house, land, everything. Um he says, I acquire all that was to Elimelech. I'm acquiring this entire household. I am absorbing their household, movable goods, immovable goods, land, people, all of it. I'm acquiring all that belongs to alimelec. I am absorbing their household into my own and all that belong to Chileon and Malhon from the hand of Naomi. I am transferring the responsibility and protection of this household, of Olimelex household, from the widow Naomi to myself. That's how I read this verse. He is saying, I see Naomi as a widow who does not have legal standing to represent herself in a court of law. In this culture, she is trying to care for Ruth. She's trying to manage her affairs. I'm going to step in and I'm going to bring them under my protection. I'm going to absorb their household into my own and all of the good, bad, ugly, beautiful that goes with it. He says, Also, Ruth the Moabitus, the wife of Mahan, I am acquiring from me as a wife to cause the name of the dead to stand upon his inheritance. That the name of the dead will not be cut off from the people of his brothers. You are witnesses today. He opens and he closes his statement. He says, You are witnesses. Here is everything I am doing. Now witness this. And the people say, We are witnesses. Ratified, approved, witnessed, done. Now I want to go back very briefly and make a note. It says that he is acquiring the land and he is also acquiring Ruth. Ruth. There has been some discussion about this because that word acquire could also mean bought. And some people are like, wait, is this, does this like he's buying her like a slave as a wife? And that's not really at all what's going on here. Yes, he's using the word acquire, which can also be bought, but it's also a legal term. Remember, this is a legal proceeding dealing with the estate of a limelec. The whole estate, the whole household, which in the ancient world includes house, land, people, movable goods, animals, anything that they have, the household, it all goes together. You don't separate out the people from the house from the land. They are all intertwined. So he's dealing with this is a legal situation where he's dealing with the entire household. And so he would acquire, he would buy the household, he acquires that. And so with all of that, he acquires Ruth. So this isn't talking about a bride price or her being bought and sold, wives being bought and sold. This is the only time that word acquire or bought is used of getting a wife in the Old Testament. And it's in a very specific legal setting where there's a much broader picture than just her singular marriage happening, if that makes sense. So he he's acquiring her as part of the household and he's acquiring her, he's marrying her because he wants to. We saw that in chapter three. But also to keep the name of the dead in the inheritance. He recognizes the importance of the brother-in-law law of the Leverett marriage responsibility, especially in this group collectivist culture where you think about the whole, you think about the clan, you think about all of the people, not just yourself. So he says, You are witnesses today. He says, You are witnesses. I am taking this household into my own, and I will be marrying Ruth as part of that process. You are witnesses. And all the people say, We are witnesses. They ratify this and they promise to remember and to pass on knowledge of what has happened down through the generations for legal stability in the city. And then they give a blessing. They say, We are witnesses. May the Lord give the woman coming into your house. May they be, may she be like Rachel and Leah, who built the two of them the house of Israel. They recognize the importance of women in the building of houses of Israel, not the physical houses, but the people itself. And they recognize Rachel and Leah, Leah, Rachel and Leah have Star Wars on the brain. Rachel and Leah are the ones through whom all the tribes of Israel came by Jacob. May Ruth be like them. May she be a matriarch. May she be a name that stands and will continue throughout the generations. And then they ask that the Lord will make strong, will increase strengths and honor to Boaz's name in the city of Bethlehem. And they say, they say, May your house be like Perez, who Tamar bore Judah. The people in Bethlehem, though Boaz didn't bring it up, recognize that the story of Tamar and Judah provides legal precedent for what Boaz is doing legally that day. Let me get into the legal weeds here for a second. If you recall, I mentioned it in the first episode on the book of Ruth, that there is a law in Deuteronomy 23, verse 3, that says from the NIV, no Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even to the tenth generation. So integrating a Moabite or an Ammonite into the community of Israel is exceptionally tricky. You don't have a clean way to do that. Some people say, well, Ruth, I mean, she was a woman of faith. She she believed in the Lord, and so therefore she gets a pass. Not according to Deuteronomy 23, 3. It's pretty clear. They can't enter the assembly, the worship. They're not allowed to be like full-on part of Israel. Neither are their descendants for ten generations, which this book is pointing to, David, who is less than ten generations away from Moabitus. But the people recognize what Boaz has done. Deuteronomy 23:3 is a later law in the book of the Torah, in the book of the law. Tamar and Judah is an earlier law. The Leverett marriage, the relationship, the kinship relationship taking care of widows sets precedent over the later law. Earlier laws get weighted heavier than the later laws. So the people bless the house of Boaz to be like Paras, but they also recognize that because of Tamar and Judah and Peres, Ruth can be integrated into the Israelite community, into the Bethlehem community, specifically because of the Leverett marriage. In a way she would not have been able to, even with her faith, even with everything else, she would not have been able to be integrated into Israel if she had just stayed married to Malhon. If Malhon had married her and had lived and had brought her back to Bethlehem, she would not be able to be integrated into the community in the same way as she is by marrying Boaz, because her marriage to Malhon does not depend on nor reflect an earlier situation in the Mosaic law that overshadows the Deuteronomy 23, 3 command about Moabites. We have very specific legal wrangling going on that Boaz starts, and the city of Bethlehem recognizes that this is a special situation. And we are bringing Ruth in, just like Tamar is brought in, and we are recognizing that she is as much part of the in-group now as Rachel and Leah, who were Armenians when they were brought when Jacob married them, as Tamar, who may have been a Canaanite when Judah was with her. And now we have Ruth, who has been brought in to the people. She is also like potentially Rahab, which the book of Ruth never tells us this, but Matthew 1 tells us that Boaz's mother, or maybe grandmother, is Rahab, who was the one who welcomed the spies, and she married into Israel. And so Ruth is following the footsteps of all of these matriarchs of Israel who, by marriage and especially leverage marriage, were able to enter the people of God and be considered an Israelite under the covenant of God. And so Boaz took Ruth and she was to him a wife. She consented to marry him. And he went into her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son. At this point, Ruth has the baby, and she and Boaz step off the scene. We don't hear about Ruth again in the book, which this book is ultimately about Naomi, not Ruth. And by verse 13, Ruth's problem has been solved. Ruth, the blessings that were prayed over her have been fulfilled. Naomi's concern for her that she find rest in the home of a husband has been fulfilled. She has had a child, so her problem is solved. She moves off to the side. Now the text finishes where it started by focusing on Naomi. And then the women said to Naomi, Blessed be the Lord who did not cease to give you a kinsman redeemer today. Naomi is holding the baby and they're blessing her. His name will be called great in Israel. He will be a returner to you of life and a support in your old age. For your daughter who loves you, who is better than seven sons, has bore him. And so Naomi takes the boy and she holds him in her chest as she was to him on Manny. Some commentators argue is she adopting him formally? Is she just taking care of him? I think it's most likely that she's she's taking care of him. He's going to carry on the line of a limelech, so she doesn't need to adopt him. That's Boaz already formally took care of that. Naomi is probably living in the same household as Boaz and Ruth. She's still the matriarch of this household. And so she is caring for this son, but the women are recognizing you left us empty, or you left us full. You returned empty, and now you are full again. You have a new son. God has provided for you. The word she was to him a nurse, many of your translations say, um, that could speak to like a breastfeeding nurse, a wet nurse. Naomi's obviously too old for that. It can also be nanny caregiver guardian. The masculine form of that word talks about caregivers and guardians. So it just is referencing Naomi's care for this child who will be a servant to her, who will care for her in her old age. And the women of the town, which this is very unique, name him and they called his name Obed, which means servant. He will serve the Lord and he will serve Naomi. And Obed was the father of Jesse, the father of David, which again brings us full circle back to the beginning, where I said that one of the purposes of the book of Ruth is to show how David's reign and Solomon's building of the temple could be legitimate when they are less than 10 generations away from a Moabite. And it's through very specific legal wrangling that that can happen. So for the Ma for the readership of the Book of Ruth, it the book ends with someone they are very familiar with, King David, the highest, most honored king in Israelite history. The book of Ruth starts with emptiness, Naomi losing everything. And then the book ends with Naomi being the, in some ways, proverbial adopted great-grandmother of David, and Ruth, the physical great-grandmother of David. These two women in their loyalty to each other are both ancestors, one legally, one physically, to David, and thereby Jesus. We talked in a previous episode how Naomi is in many ways a female Job. And like Job had family and riches restored to him, so Naomi does also. The book closes with an even more extensive genealogy, but again, it starts with who? It starts with Perez, once again, pointing to Perez is the key for the book of Ruth. If you want to understand the book of Ruth, you need to understand the story of Perez and his mother, Tamar. It is through these women that God has moved and God has worked to set up the family line of David and thereby Jesus. Often genealogies leave out women, and they have in this one as well. Paras begets Hezron, Hezron, Ram, Ram, Aminodab, Aminodab, Nashon, Nashan, Salmon, Salmon, Boaz, Boaz, Obad, Obed, Jesse, Jesse, David. The women are left out. But people would have known who the key women were, and God highlights continually the key women throughout this story. That without the women doing sacrificial, chesed, covenant faithfulness works on behalf of those near them, women who fought against abuse and oppression to get what they were owed. Women who had absolute faith in God when everything fell apart. These women are how the male genealogies can even exist. These women are the bedrock on which the story unfolds. So as we consider the book of Ruth as a whole, think about how God is working continually on behalf of the broken and the weak and the destitute through those who have proud power and privilege, who are willing to risk their own inheritance to help those who are in need. Boaz's inheritance could have been in as much risk as the kinsman redeemer who said he couldn't do it. But he was willing to risk. He was willing to leverage his power and position and privilege to help those in need. And those who were in clung to God by faith. Naomi's faith was often shaken and she was often angry, but she is still the theologian of the book who is pointing out what God is doing alongside the other women in the town who are saying, This is what God is doing. Men bless in this book. They offer blessings. It is women in the book of Ruth who interpret what has happened and point to how God is working through the events. Women's wisdom, women's insight, women's voices are important to God and they have been immortalized in Scripture. So as we close out the book of Ruth, remember this book is not a romance story on how to find a spouse, because we don't have all the legal procedures they had that precipitated finding a spouse. And finding a spouse wasn't about romance, but it was about necessity, but not just necessity for themselves, necessity for those who are no longer there. And necessity for those who are even more vulnerable than they were. Naomi is more vulnerable than Ruth because Ruth is still young enough to marry. Naomi is not. Ruth sacrifices potentially everything for the good of Naomi and is able to bring about wholeness and security and fullness for Naomi. God works providentially in the book of Ruth, and we see the glimmers all over. But those who interpret the actions of the Book of Ruth, the women, the women who interpret throughout the book of Ruth what God is doing, give God's providence and human action the same weight. They see how people act to reflect God's character, and they say that has the same weight as God's providential action. The book of James tells us that when we know what to do and we don't do it, when we know there's a good we need to do and we don't do it, it is sin. God expects his people to stand up and act on behalf of the weak and the destitute, to use our power and our privilege and our position on behalf of those who need. And he loves it when that happens, whether it is women, whether it is men, whether and he loves it when it happens through creative means. God inspired the Mosaic Law. And when Boaz can work through the nuances of the creative law, of the Mosaic Law to creatively draw Ruth into full communion in Israel so that their great grandson can be the premier king of the people, and his son can build the temple of God. God thinks that is beautiful. People who know the word, people who live the word, people who act the word, so that God can work through them on behalf of others. Find me on social media. Let me know what you think of this episode. I cannot wait to talk about it with you more. If you sign up for my mailing list, go to wehoothirst.com backslash links. You can sign up for my mailing list, and we will further conversations about Ruth and these sorts of topics there. I cannot wait to talk to you next time. Have a great week.