Event I
Ruth and Naomi
by Charles Quigley
In this first of a number of narratives about events from Biblical times, we consider the interaction of two common people, Jew and Gentile, in a remote land. This first example helps to illustrate how an interaction intended to solve a real need of some sort often leads to a beneficial outcome far beyond the original need.
We choose the story of Ruth as our first example, in part because it is so rich an example of the involvement of a Gentile with a Jewish person on an individual basis, and in part for the background it offers as regards Jewish tradition.
But Ruth said, "Do not urge me to leave you or turn back 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.
"Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the LORD do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me." (Ruth 1:16-17)
In the introduction to the Book of Ruth, we learn of the man Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and two sons, forced to leave their home in Bethlehem because of famine there, their travel to Moab where his two sons take wives from Moab, and the unfortunate death of all three men. The mother-in-law Naomi is most severely affected, for not only her husband but also her two only sons are all dead, leaving no one to provide for her. The wives of her two sons could certainly survive however, being young enough to remarry in Moab.
But one of these, Ruth — a Moabitess we are reminded, raised in the pagan religion of Moab, where the first-born child was always sacrificed by fire to a pagan god — surprisingly refuses to leave Naomi. The reason is not stated: perhaps it is an attachment to Naomi, the mother of her now deceased husband. More likely it is an attachment to Naomi’s God, the GOD of Israel, whom she speaks of as the LORD, as though she knows Him.
The famine is now over, and Naomi returns to her homeland in Bethlehem, accompanied by Ruth, just at the beginning of the barley harvest. Ruth asks permission to glean in the fields after the reapers, apparently to provide food for herself and her mother-in-law.
Now, not only tradition but also through the Mosaic Law, the Jewish people are commanded to provide for their neighbor and for the stranger (that is, alien) in the land1 — those who are in need. In particular, the Law accounts for gleaners, whether they are Jewish or aliens makes no difference: those who are destitute and who must pick up the scraps left in the fields by the reapers in order to eat.
'Now when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, neither 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.’ (Lev.19:9-10)
Ruth by chance has chosen the field of Boaz, a relation of Naomi’s husband, and the reapers stand aside at Boaz’s command to allow Ruth to gather the droppings without interference, and also to be allowed water. For Boaz observes,
And Boaz answered and said 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." (Ruth 2:11-12)
Boaz acknowledges that, following her own tragedy, Ruth has given up the easy way open to her, and is willing to suffer hardship in order to provide help to her mother-in-law who is in need, even to leave the home Ruth knows, to come to a strange and foreign land. Boaz prays that the LORD will reward such generosity.
Now Naomi, on hearing of the aid to Ruth of her husband’s relation, instructs Ruth in the ways of the kinsman-redeemer, the Levirate succession. As we have said, a woman whose husband dies is without means of support, unless she can find another husband. In any event, any heritage she might have received from her deceased husband is lost to her — money, land, house, other material goods of value.
However, for Jewish people, the Mosaic Law in biblical times provided that, under certain conditions, a widow could have her deceased husband’s estate redeemed for her, even to future children! Under the law of the kinsman-redeemer, a brother of the deceased husband was responsible to take her as his wife, and the first-born of that union would bear the name of her deceased husband, thereby inheriting his property and continuing the family name.
Ruth follows Naomi’s instructions and, finding Boaz asleep on the threshing floor after work and drink, composes herself in a way to tell him of her willingness to be acquired by him and become his wife. Boaz awakes the next morning and, understanding her meaning, directs her to say nothing about this and promises to seek to redeem her. Though another man precedes Boaz in succession, the other man refuses to acquire her, and Boaz states his intention before the ten elders at the gate to redeem her by marriage.
And so it is that Ruth’s kindness to her mother-in-law and the fact she has not gone after other men, has revealed her to all the people as a person of excellence. The aid which this Gentile woman has shown to the older Jewish widow has resulted in kindness shown in turn by the Jewish people in whose midst she now finds herself. The result is also the marriage between the Gentile Ruth — a Moabitess who has deserted the Moabite community and the pagan god of Moab for a better God — with the Jewish man Boaz.
And, wonder of wonders, we learn only at the very end of this tale that a descendant of the fruit of this union is none other than King David! (It is only later in scripture we learn that yet another outcome is the Son of David, who would become the long-awaited Messiah, the Kinsman-Redeemer of Israel.)
1 Leviticus 19.
