Episode 17 - Ruth Part 1 - Women in Scripture Part 5

In Part 5 of Women in Scripture, we will delve into the book of Ruth. This tiny book takes place during the darkest period of Israel's history and is an encouragement that not all of the Israelites were "doing what was right in their own eyes." This book illustrates 2 Hebrew principles, "Hesed," and "the Kinsmen Redeemer," both of which are foreshadows our of Lord Jesus.

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Transcript

Episode 17 – Ruth Part 1

          Welcome to the Proverbs 9:10 podcast, No Trash, Just Truth! We’re your hosts and co-founders of Proverbs 9:10 Ministries, Chris Paxson and Rose Spiller. We are continuing our Women in Scripture series. In the last episode, we finished up the book of Esther. Today, we’re going to start looking at the only other book of the Bible named after a woman and that is the book of Ruth. Chris, I think that before we actually get into the book of Ruth, it would be helpful to our listeners if we set the stage for them by giving a little bit of Israel’s history up to the time of the book of Ruth.

          I agree, Rose. So, let’s go back in history. Before the time the events in the book of Ruth take place, God had delivered the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, led by Moses. This is the time most people, even if they don’t know much of anything about the Bible will be familiar with because it’s when God parted the waters of the Red Sea and Moses led all the Israelites through the water on dry land, and when they had all made it across, God closed the walls of water over the Egyptian army that was following them trying to get their slaves and their wealth back.

          Have you ever seen the Ten Commandments with Charleton Heston? It depicts this scene so phenomenally!

You realize how old that movie is, right? 

Yeah, like 1950s or so?

Yes. But you’re right … a lot of people probably know something about Moses and what he did from that Ten Commandments movie. And now that we’ve at least somewhat dated ourselves, let’s get back to the Israelites after they’d crossed the Red Sea.

   Yes! After that, God led the Israelites (His chosen people) through the desert filling all of their needs. But that didn’t stop them from grumbling and complaining against God. They were so ungrateful! 

Kind of like we do.

Ouch! yes. When they made it to the edge of the Promised Land – land that God had PROMISED to give them – they sent spies into the land to check it out. Those spies brought back word that the land was good, but very strongly held. 10 of the 12 spies  said that there was no way they could conquer the land. Only two of the spies had confidence that God would fulfill His promise to give them the land. Only those two had faith that God would do what He said, despite odds that looked humanly impossible.

          You know, Rose, when  I read that, I always tend to think that those Israelites were ridiculous to not trust God Who had brought them through the Red Sea on dry land, but the truth of the matter is, without God intervening in our lives and causing us to  have faith in Him, we would be like the ten who didn’t have faith.

          No doubt we would. And because of their unbelief, God caused them all to wander in the desert 40 years before being brought into the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua and Caleb, the two spies who did have faith. What God was essentially did was send everyone who was over the age of 20 out into the wilderness to die as punishment for not believing in the promise God had made them.

The Israelites had been warned that they would have blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. But eventually, under Joshua’s leadership, the rest of the Israelites entered the land God promised them. God commands them to totally expel some people groups, while totally destroy others whose land they were taking possession of.  

          Chris, we don’t like to hear about this kind of thing happening, but we have to remember that God is perfectly holy and perfectly just. God had allotted this territory, to be conquered so His people could take possession of it. But we can’t take this to mean that this is something that would ever be okay for a human to do on their own. As we said, God, Himself was doing all of the real fighting! Besides getting the land for His people, killing and driving out the pagans who occupied the land was God’s Divine judgement on them.  

          Good point. The Israelites were not taking the land for any reason on the basis of race (i.e. Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute, but she trusted in the Lord and became part of the Israelite people). The conquest was not for the purpose of gaining wealth or power; and the wars for the land are carried out as God’s judgement, for His purposes.                   Knowing that when Jesus comes back the world will be judged, some look at this as an “early judgement” on these unbelieving people.

          Yes. And it’s important to note that the Israelites couldn’t have won these wars for the land if God had not supernaturally done the fighting for them. They were basically, as Dr. Stewart used to say in his lectures, “the mop-up crew.”

          Gotta love Dr. Stewart! Good point. The first, and maybe one of the best examples is the battle of Jericho. I mean…. Walking around a walled city and blowing trumpets doesn’t exactly get the job done in war, unless it’s God doing the actual fighting!

          Very true! So, Israel goes into the land and they progress, but they disobey God and don’t fully conquer all of the pagan people in the ways God instructed them to.  And these pagan people became a snare and a problem for them, 

just like God said they would, 

Yep! and God’s people soon began to practice idolatry, or at the very least, they practiced syncretism which is the mixing pagan worship practices in with worshipping the One True God.  

          And after their godly leader, Joshua, dies the Israelites really go downhill – something you can read about in the book of Judges which chronicles the cycle of God’s people rebelling, God being angry, His people being oppressed by their enemies, the people crying out to God in repentance, relief from their enemies coming through a God-appointed judge, and then peace until that judge dies and then the whole cycle starts over again.

          If you’re listening and wondering when we’re going to get to the book of Ruth, that time is now, because the events in the book of Ruth take place during the time of Judges; this horrible time of sin and rebellion against God’s Law, when everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes. Ruth is a picture of faithfulness and fidelity in contrast to all the other crap that’s going on during the time of the Judges, around 1375 B.C – 1118 B.C., and likely toward the beginning of that time.

 But before we’re introduced to Ruth in the book named after her, we’re told about an Israelite named Elimelech, whose name means “my God a king” and his wife, Naomi. The have two children Mahlon and Chilion, whose names mean (“sickness” and “consumption”).

In my further research, often the Biblical scribes didn’t use the actual names, but names of their character.  Like when they changed Ish-boseth’s name. It is very possible that Naomi’s boys were sickly and they died from sickness and consumption, that is why the scribes named them those names. Just an interesting note if you want to add it.

It’s kind of weird to give your kids names that mean those things, but …

          It is strange. Maybe they just like the way the names sounded. Who knows? But anyway, there was a famine in the land of Israel. Instead of toughing out the famine like the rest of his countrymen, Elimelech takes his family out of the Promised Land, and into the land of Moab.  The Bible says they went there to live “for a while.”

          Elimelech taking his family to Moab is pretty much viewed as something that’s unjustified, despite the famine.

And for good reason. The Moabites weren’t always on friendly terms with the Israelites. As they had traveled through the desert, the King of Moab tried to have a curse placed upon Israelites. And in addition to that, the people of Moab worshiped the pagan gods of Baal-peor and Chemosh, worship that included orgies and human sacrifice, even of children.

          Not a godly environment in any way, but Elimelech lead his family into Moab anyway. God had brought the famine on as a means of punishment to the Israelites. God wanted the Israelites to turn to Him in repentance; not run away trying to find an alternate solution to their problems. We don’t know how old Mahlon and Chilion are when they left the Promised Land for Moab, but we do know that they weren’t married yet.

          Sometime after they settle in Moab, Elimelech dies, leaving Naomi alone with her two sons in this foreign country. We’re not told much about their life, except that at some point, Mahlon and Chilion get married to Moabite women; one named Orpah and the other named Ruth. They lived there for about ten years, and then both of the sons die too, without having any children.

          Some commentators believe that the death of the sons was for marrying Moabite women – something forbidden in Mosaic Law. You know, Rose, this first part of the book of Ruth is really Naomi’s story.  The end of verse 5 says “the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.”

          Yes, it is; and now she’s a widow in a foreign land with two alien daughters-in-law, who are also widowers. But then God gives Naomi a bit of good news that gives her hope. Somewhere along the line, word came to Moab that the Lord had blessed His people and ended the famine. So, Naomi decided it was time to return home to the town of Bethlehem-Judah, where her and Elimelech had migrated from more than a decade earlier.

          All three women start out together. These women love each other. But then Naomi decides it would probably be in the best interest of her two daughters-in-law to stay in the land they’d grown up in, so that they could return to their childhood homes, in hopes that one day they would marry again.

 And they’re all crying at the thought of parting, and both Ruth and Orpah say they’ll go back with her. But Naomi keeps insisting they go back to their childhood homes. She knows these women are young enough to get married again and have families of their own – something she’s telling them won’t be possible if they follow her back to the Promised Land.

She’s basically laying out what the cost of following her will be.

          That’s a pretty self-sacrificing thing to do. I mean, it doesn’t say how far they’d gone before she tried to get them to go back, but no matter what, Naomi would have to travel the rest of the way by herself if they both left her.

          It really was a selfless act that shows how much Naomi loved these two women that she refers to as her ‘daughters’. You can see why they both loved her!       

          There are two important things to note in what Naomi says to them. She says that their difficulties are more bitter for her, “because the Lord’s hand has gone out against her [me].” Ruth 1:13. Don’t miss that Naomi fully realizes Who is in control of all of the circumstances, and because her circumstances are pretty dire at the moment, she thinks that it’s because God is “against her” although she doesn’t state any reason for why He would be.

          Right. And the text hasn’t given us any reason to believe that she’s done anything wrong to cause the Lord to “be against” her. And the Lord doesn’t always work that way! Think of Job!

          Exactly. But that is how Christians tend to think when they go through hard times. It’s easy to think that God is punishing us, or at least disciplining us. And He might be disciplining us, but going through hard times don’t always mean we’re being disciplined or punished. In fact, it could actually be a blessing!

          And we’re going to see that’s the case with Naomi. I’m not saying Naomi never did anything wrong, but God is working something much bigger here.

          He certainly is! But getting back to the three women, Orpah decides to turn back, and Naomi urges Ruth to go back too. In fact, she says Orpah is “going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.” 

This is the first time the Moabite gods are mentioned in regard to this family. Orpah obviously hadn’t fully converted to Judaism. The cost of leaving everything she knew was too great. Matthew Henry equates this to people who show some affection for Jesus but love other things more.

 For those who aren’t really saved, the cost to follow Jesus will be too high.

          But Ruth proved that she belonged to Yahweh when she told Naomi, “where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your  God will be my God.” She even makes an oath before God that she be punished severely if anything but death separates them. When Naomi sees how determined Ruth is, she stops urging her to go back to Moab.

So the two women keep going until they reach Bethlehem, and when they get there, the Bible tells us that the whole town was “stirred up.” Gotta love small towns

Yes. People would’ve remembered Naomi and her family. But big changes have happened since they’ve seen her … she left with three men and came back with one daughter-in-law. No wonder they’re “stirred up”.

When the people call Naomi by name, 

Which means “pleasant.”

Yes, Naomi means “pleasant”, Naomi tells them, “Do not call me Naomi, call me ‘Mara’, (which means “bitter”), for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty.”

Like we said earlier, Naomi knows that the tragedies that came into her life were not because of chance, nor did she have “a string of bad luck”, nor did she lose all three of the men in her life “because bad things that happen always come in sets of threes.”

Do people really believe that, that bad things happen in threes?

I don’t know how much they believe it, but it’s a pretty common saying. Regardless, Naomi knows that God is the One Who is in complete control of all of her circumstances. And she says it again to the women of the town.

Chapter one ends with the words “they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest,” something that gives us hope as we go into chapter two for more of the story of the lives of these women.

Hope that Naomi doesn’t seem to have, because she considered herself to have come back “empty”. She doesn’t seem to have taken hope yet in the example that’s right before her eyes – the one of God providing for the people who had stayed.

Chapter 2 starts out telling the reader that Naomi has a wealthy kinsman who is a relative of her late husband, and his name is Boaz, but that is all we’re told for now. Ruth asks her mother-in-law for permission to go out in hopes of finding a field owned by someone who would allow her to work in it, gleaning the leftover grain after it was harvested. 

According to Levitical law, one of the ways for the Israelites to provide for their poor was to not completely empty their fields at harvesttime. They were to leave some grain, along with whatever they accidentally dropped, for the poor to come and glean afterward. The poor would come along behind the reapers and pick grain for themselves. 

This was not easy work, and by the time the grain was picked and then beaten to separate the grain from the chaff, it was a sunup to sundown task! But this is exactly what Ruth asks Naomi if she can go and do to provide for them, and Naomi tells her to go.

God’s providential hand is all over this! The Bible says that Ruth “happened to stop” at a field owned by Boaz, Naomi’s kinsman who was mentioned at the begininning of the chapter. 

But like we always say, nothing happens by chance or luck! 

No, it certainly doesn’t! And Boaz shows up at the field that she’s working in. He has heard about Ruth. So when he asks his reapers who the new girl in his field is, and he finds out it’s her, he’s already aware of what she has done for Naomi.

And his reapers give him a good report about her themselves. They tell Boaz how she asked permission to glean in the field, and how she came to work early in the morning and has only taken a short break since she got there.

It’s obvious that Boaz is impressed with her character, and who wouldn’t be? Boaz tells her to stay in his fields, near the other girls who are reaping for him; he says that he has told his men to keep their hands off of her; and that when she is thirsty to go and get a drink from the water that his men have drawn.

At this, she falls on her face before him, asking why he’s taking such good care of her, “when she’s a foreigner.” It’s pretty obvious that she felt somewhat like an outsider from this statement.

She probably did. Even Boaz’s men refer to her as “the Moabitess” when they’re talking to him. I’m not saying she got treated badly. The Scripture doesn’t say anything to lead to that conclusion, but she probably felt like a duck out of water in some ways, and now Boaz is treating her like one of them.

Exactly. Boaz tells her that she’s found favor in his eyes because of all that he’s heard she’s done for Naomi, and he hopes that the Lord will repay her for all she’s done, since she’s come to take refuge under His wings.

Then, at mealtime, Boaz gives her bread and cooked grain, and invites her to dip her bread in the oil and vinegar. Ruth eats till she’s satisfied, and then saves the rest of the roasted grain she’s been given to take home for Naomi to eat.

Boaz seems like a great guy. When they’re finished lunch, he tells his workers to not only leave what they accidentally drop, but to drop extra for her to pick up, without saying anything to her about it.

When the day is over, Ruth beats out the grain she’s harvested and takes what she has, along with her lunch leftovers, home to Naomi, who immediately realizes that whoever owned the field she’d worked in had taken notice of her, because of the amount of grain she ended up with.

When Ruth says that his name was Boaz, Naomi says, “May he be blessed by the Lord” and then says something that grammatically could mean she’s either referring to Boaz, or God, when she says “he has not forgotten the living or the dead!”

When Ruth told her all that Boaz had said to her, Naomi tells her that Boaz is not only one of their kinsmen, he’s also one of their “redeemers.”  

Right. Naomi is hoping to be protected under a law that God set up long ago. We will deal with a kinsmen redeemer more in the next episode, but in short it is a relative that is supposed to buy back, or “redeem”, a relative who had fallen into hard times and had to sell themselves into slavery. There was also a part of the law where a brother would have to marry his widowed sister-in-law if she was childless, in order to provide offspring to continue his deceased brother’s family line.

Obviously, Boaz isn’t responsible for this because he’s not Naomi’s son. But he does have a certain amount of familial responsibility. He’s not the only one in this position though, as we’ll find out later, and it’s possible, that if he wanted to, Boaz could slip out of his responsibility because he’s not the closest relative.

We will also see in the next episode that the whole idea of the kinsman-redeemer in the book of Ruth, ultimately points us to Jesus.

What will Boaz do? What will happen to Naomi and Ruth next? Find out in the next episode, as we continue on through the book of Ruth.

We hope you’re enjoying our series on Women in Scripture so far.

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