RUTH IS NOTICED - PART 1 (Ruth 2:1-23)
INTRODUCTION:
As we finished chapter one last week, we learned that Naomi and Ruth had arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. Remember when Naomi left Bethlehem to go to Moab it was because there was a famine in the land. She now returns to Bethlehem from Moab and the famine is over and the barley is ripe and beginning to be harvested because the LORD had visited Israel and given them bread and the harvest was the proof of God’s visit and provision. We also learned that the beginning of harvest began with the feast of first fruits which was a foreshadow of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. A time of joy in that the first fruits waved before the LORD meant that more was yet to come with the harvest of the rest of the grain, just as the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ means that there will be another resurrection of all those who are His and have died before His return. The Lord Jesus Christ is the first fruits of those who are asleep.
This morning as we enter into chapter two, the history of the family of Elimelech continues. Remember Naomi had returned to Bethlehem with only bitter memories of her time in Moab having lost her husband and her two sons while she was there. Returning with her was her daughter-in-law Ruth, the widow of one of her sons and a Moabitess. Their return had caused quite a stir in Bethlehem as Naomi had been away about 10 years and she returns only with Ruth, having buried the rest of her family in the land of Moab. Ruth, however, has devoted herself to Naomi, promising to go where Naomi goes, to lodge where Naomi lodges, to make Naomi’s people her people, and to make Naomi’s God her God, and in the end to die where Naomi dies and to be buried where Naomi is buried. Ruth’s loyalty means that she abandoned all that was familiar to her to go to a place she did not know and without knowing what the future held for her, but entrusting herself and her future into the hands of the God of Israel. This new chapter opens upon their new life in Bethlehem. Let’s pray and then get into our Scripture passage for this morning.
--PRAY--
SCRIPTURE:
Turn in your Bibles this morning to Ruth 2:1-23. I am going to read the whole chapter this morning and we will see how far I get this morning, where we finish up, I will pick up again after our church service and picnic in the park next Sunday. Please, if you are able, stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word and follow along as I read.
Ruth 2:1-23,
“Now Naomi had a kinsman of her husband, a man of great wealth, of the family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, ‘Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after one in whose sight I may find favor.’ And she said to her, ‘Go, my daughter.’ So she departed and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech. Now behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, ‘May the Lord be with you.’ And they said to him, ‘May the Lord bless you.’ Then Boaz said to his servant who was in charge of the reapers, ‘Whose young woman is this?’ The servant in charge of the reapers replied, ‘She is the young Moabite woman who returned with Naomi from the land of Moab. And she said, “Please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.” Thus she came and has remained from the morning until now; she has been sitting in the house for a little while.’ Then Boaz said to Ruth, ‘Listen carefully, my daughter. Do not go to glean in another field; furthermore, do not go on from this one, but stay here with my maids. Let your eyes be on the field which they reap, and go after them. Indeed, I have commanded the servants not to touch you. When you are thirsty, go to the water jars and drink from what the servants draw.’ Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground and said to him, ‘Why have I found favor in your sight that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?’ Boaz replied to her, ‘All that you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband has been fully reported to me, and how you left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and came to a people that you did not previously know. May the Lord reward your work, and your wages be full from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to seek refuge.’ Then she said, ‘I have found favor in your sight, my lord, for you have comforted me and indeed have spoken kindly to your maidservant, though I am not like one of your maidservants.’ At mealtime Boaz said to her, ‘Come here, that you may eat of the bread and dip your piece of bread in the vinegar.’ So she sat beside the reapers; and he served her roasted grain, and she ate and was satisfied and had some left. When she rose to glean, Boaz commanded his servants, saying, ‘Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not insult her. Also you shall purposely pull out for her some grain from the bundles and leave it that she may glean, and do not rebuke her.’ So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. She took it up and went into the city, and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also took it out and gave Naomi what she had left after she was satisfied. Her mother-in-law then said to her, ‘Where did you glean today and where did you work? May he who took notice of you be blessed.’ So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, ‘The name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz.’ Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, ‘May he be blessed of the Lord who has not withdrawn his kindness to the living and to the dead.’ Again Naomi said to her, ‘The man is our relative, he is one of our closest relatives.’ Then Ruth the Moabitess said, ‘Furthermore, he said to me, “You should stay close to my servants until they have finished all my harvest.”’ Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, ‘It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his maids, so that others do not fall upon you in another field.’ So she stayed close by the maids of Boaz in order to glean until the end of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest. And she lived with her mother-in-law.” (Ruth 2:1–23, NASB95)[1]
BOAZ INTRODUCED (Ruth 2:1)
This chapter opens with the introduction of a new character in the history of Ruth. The opening verse would cause us to believe that Naomi will continue to be the main character in the events that are about to unfold. According to the last verse of chapter one, Naomi is the one who has returned, Ruth has simply followed her as she had promised. This idea that Naomi will be the main character is reinforced by the introduction of Boaz and his relationship to Naomi. But after the first few verses Naomi quickly vanishes from the events and only resurfaces at the end of the chapter and the rest of the chapter focuses on Ruth.
In this first verse we are introduced to Boaz. From this introduction we learn four important details about this man. First, he is a relative of Naomi’s husband, in my version he is referred to as a kinsman. Later on, in the chapter Naomi describes him as a relative, and she refers to him as one of our closest relatives, which is translated from the Hebrew word gō’ēl which literally translated is “kinsman redeemer.” Naomi says, “He is one of our kinsmen-redeemers.” This fact raises the interest and the hopes of the reader, this would be especially true of the Jewish readers who are familiar with Israelite family law and custom.
Second, my version says that Boaz was a man of great wealth. The Hebrew phrase used here can be translated a number of ways. This same phrase was used of Gideon and translated as a valiant warrior, in that context it means, “mighty man of valor, noble warrior, or military hero.” Boaz is nothing like Gideon, he never fights in a battle, he never leads an army, he never performs any heroic feats. This same phrase can mean a man of substance or of wealth, thus a man of standing in the community. We will learn in this chapter that Boaz is no ordinary Israelite, he is presented in this book as a man with land and servants, a man of wealth. This phrase can also mean noble in regard to character. We will see this to be true about this man as well, and in the end his actions must be seen as heroic at least for Ruth and Naomi as he rescues their family and their family name from disappearing from the land. So, in the end, we have a noble man of wealth and standing in the community who becomes a hero for the family of Elimelech.
Third, we learn that Boaz is from the family or clan of Elimelech. A clan or family is a subdivision of a tribe, this man was from the family on Naomi’s husband’s side. We are not told how he was related; he could have been a brother of Elimelech’s or a nephew or uncle. We just know that he was a close relative of Elimelech’s family.
Fourth, we are told that his name is Boaz. The meaning of the name has to do with strength. The Greek translation of the Old Testament suggests that this is a shortened version of a longer name that means, “in the strength of Yahweh (LORD) I will rejoice/trust.” That is all that we know about the name except that later in history, Solomon, the great, great grandson of Boaz uses this name for one of the two great pillars that stood at the front of the temple.
RUTH GLEANS (Ruth 2:2-3)
Having settled into a house in Bethlehem, the first order of business for Naomi and Ruth is to find some food. Ruth takes the initiative and approaches Naomi. Again, the author reminds us that she is a foreigner in the land of Israel by identifying her again as Ruth the Moabitess. She does not let the fact that she is a foreigner in this new place deter her, but again with the same determination that she used to make Naomi understand her loyalty and devotion to her and that she was going to follow her and care for her, she now determines to make something of her life and doing something to get food for herself and her mother-in-law.
Ruth approaches Naomi and asks permission to go out and get food for them by gleaning in the fields that are being harvested. To understand what Ruth is asking requires that we understand what she is requesting to do. To glean means to gather the scraps or the leftovers. This is not the same as reaping or harvesting, this is to be done after the harvesting is done and the gleaner picks up the stalks of grain that the harvesters have inadvertently dropped or left standing. The Mosaic law showed compassion for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow by providing a means for them to get grain during harvest time. Leviticus 19:9-10 says, “‘Now when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. Nor shall you glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:9–10, NASB95)[2] Deuteronomy also adds in chapter 24, verse 19, “When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow, in order that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.” (Deuteronomy 24:19, NASB95)[3] As a Moabite and a widow Ruth qualified to glean for both those reasons. But for these same two reasons she could not count on the good will of the locals, especially the fact that she was a Moabitess, and for this reason her request to Naomi included her concern to glean behind someone in whose sight she would find favor. Ruth knew that because of who she was and how the Israelites felt about the people of Moab she might be denied the right to glean, she was dependent on the mercy of the men in the field she went to glean in.
Naomi responds to Ruth by addressing her as her daughter and telling her to go ahead and find a field to glean in. The bitterness that we saw in Naomi’s tone when they first arrived in Bethlehem has seemed to subside a bit as she speaks affectionately to Ruth. In verse three we find Ruth heading out of Bethlehem to the fields that are spread out on the outskirts of the town, out beyond the city gate. As she goes, we must wonder how she will find a gracious landowner who will allow her to glean in his field.
As Ruth reaches the fields outside of Bethlehem, we come upon a phrase that unfortunately is not handled well in English translations, the author wants to convey to us how Ruth came upon the field in which she did. My translation simply says, “…and she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz.” (Ruth 2:3b, NASB95)[4] This is perhaps the most important line in this chapter. This literally says in Hebrew, “…and her chance chanced upon the allotted portion of the field of Boaz.” This same idea is made clear to us in a verse in 1 Samuel 6:9. If you remember back to Sunday School the event in Israel history when the Philistines captured the ark of the covenant which the Israelites had taken into battle with them. The Philistines took the ark and put it in the temple of their god and the people of Philistia began to suffer from God’s judgment, they were afflicted with mice and rats, and they developed some kind of tumors. Finally, they decided that the ark had to go back to Israel, and they devised a plan where they would put it on a cart pulled by two cows that would be separated from their calves. In 1 Samuel 6:9 we read their reasoning, “Watch, if it goes up by the way of its own territory to Beth-shemesh, then He has done us this great evil. But if not, then we will know that it was not His hand that struck us; it happened to us by chance.” (1 Samuel 6:9, NASB95)[5] In other words, if the cows separated from their calves went straight up into the territory of Israel, then they would know that all their afflictions came from the hand of the God of Israel. If, instead, the cows tried to return to their calves, then they would know that all the afflictions were by chance. In Ruth, in the context of this passage the author draws our attention to Ruth’s chance arrival in the field of Boaz even more pointedly by using the double phrase of, “her chance chanced upon,” which in a modern idiom it might be said that it happened by a stroke of luck.
Why does the author use this phrase? It is true that to the orthodox Israelite there is no such thing as chance. Proverbs 16:33 says, “The lot is cast into the lap, But its every decision is from the Lord.” (Proverbs 16:33, NASB95)[6] If the LORD even determines how the lot falls, how can the author speak so pointedly about chance? We cannot know for sure, the Scripture does not say why but by attributing Ruth’s good fortune to chance, the author forces the reader to sit up and take notice, to ask questions concerning the significance of everything that has taken place. The statement is ironical, its purpose is to undermine purely rational explanations for human experiences and to give the reader a fuller understanding of providence. In reality the author is screaming, “Don’t you see God’s hand at work here!” The same hand that sent the famine and then later provided food is the same hand that brought Naomi and Ruth to Bethlehem precisely at the beginning of harvest, the same God that allowed Naomi to hear in the land of Moab that the LORD had visited His people by giving them bread at just the right time so that she would leave at just the right time and arrive in Bethlehem at just the right time so that the LORD could guide Ruth to the precise portion of the field that belonged to Boaz.
We must see God’s sovereignty in this because the fields had no fences, no names posted on them to identify whose plot it was. The only identifying marker of a field was the boundary stones at each corner. God sovereignly and providentially led Ruth to this particular field at this precise time.
CONCLUSION:
I am going to stop here this morning. You will have to wait two weeks to hear what transpires once Ruth is in Boaz’s field. God’s sovereignty and providence in guiding Ruth to Boaz’s field is important for two reasons. First, as we will discover in two weeks that Boaz was a gracious man in whose eyes Ruth would find favor. Second, he was from the same clan or family as Ruth’s deceased father-in-law Elimelech. In order for God’s purpose and plan to be carried out, both of these elements had to be present. In long-range terms the royal line of David would not be preserved if the man at whose field Ruth arrived was gracious but outside of Elimelech’s family, because then he could not function as a “kinsman redeemer” preserving the name and family of the deceased. In the same way, the line would not have been preserved if Ruth had indeed found the field of her deceased husband’s and father-in-law’s kinsman, but he turned out to be a not the noble, gracious man that Boaz was, but rather an ungracious tyrant, driving from his fields all foreigners, orphans, and widows. In the providence of God, the man she will meet is indeed a gracious kinsman redeemer.
Do you believe that God’s sovereignty and providence are at work in your life? It is not always apparent; God works behind the scenes in our lives at many times to bring about His plan and purpose for us. Remember Paul’s words to the Christians in Philippi, he wrote in Philippians 2:12-13, “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12–13, NASB95)[7] God is the One who works in you to sanctify you and to bring you into conformity to Christ, and He will continue His work sovereignly and providentially until He takes you home to be with Him.
[1]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[2]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[3]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[4]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[5]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995. Emphasis mine.
[6]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[7]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995. Emphasis mine.