Nancy Dawson
And it is through the actions of these women that they do something. They don’t just sympathize. They actually change their actions. It shows that you can have a very tainted past, and have a complete repentance, a turning of 180 degrees. You can have an immoral life, and you can change, and the broadness in His mercy and His forgiveness brings her in. Rahab is declared righteous, just in the same way that Abraham was declared righteous.
David Capes
That’s the song that came to my mind as you were talking a moment ago. “There is a wideness to God’s mercy.” Now let’s talk about Ruth. What are we going to do with Ruth? The very next line is Boaz is the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth. And then it goes down and says, Obed was the father of Jesse, and Jesse was the father of King David. Now tell us the story of Ruth. What an amazing story that is!
Nancy Dawson
Oh my gosh. You know, there’s only two books in the Bible that are named for women. One is Ruth, and the other is the book of Esther. Her name means friend, compassionate friend. She’s a companion to Naomi. She is from Moab. What happens is there is a famine in Israel. This whole family of Naomi and Elimelech moved to Moab to basically sustain their family for survival. And there their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion marry Moabite women. And Ruth is one of those women, and Orpah is the other Moabite woman. They live there for 10 years, and unfortunately, Elimelech dies.
David Capes
Naomi’s husband.
Nancy Dawson
Yes. Naomi is left a widow. Then her two sons, Mahlon and Chilion die. So here you have three widowed, basically destitute women. And Naomi says, go back to your father’s house and live there. Now that there’s no famine, I’m going to return to Bethlehem, my hometown.
David Capes
There was no possibility of a levirate marriage at that point, because there were no other sons.
Nancy Dawson
That’s right and Orpah goes home and we do not hear anything about her after that. But Ruth is this friend and companion. She stays with Naomi and cleaves to her. It’s like a marriage, almost like a husband cleaves to a wife. Her statement about this becomes part of modern marriage vows. I’ll go where you go. I’ll lodge, where you lodge. Your God will be my God and where you die, I will die. So she refuses to leave Naomi. She accompanies her back to Bethlehem.
At this point, Naomi is very depressed. She says to her friends, call me Mara, which means bitter. It’s a total low place in her life. But Ruth, through her industriousness and initiative, goes and gleans in the fields. Through the providential hand of God, she gleans in the field of Boaz, who was the son of Rahab and Salmon. He is a wealthy person. He’s much older than Ruth, and because of her outstanding character, Boaz is attracted to her. Naomi tells Ruth, that Boaz is actually a near Kinsman, a potential kinsman redeemer.
David Capes
He could be a marriage partner that would accept them into his family, and take care of them, provide for them.
Nancy Dawson
Naomi acts as security for her daughter in law, who is called better than seven Israelite sons. Ruth is like the essence, the completeness of what you would want in a family. She says, I want to provide for you. Naomi tells her to go and lie next to Boaz when he has finished threshing the grain. She does and he wakes up around midnight and says, who is this next to me?
And Ruth calls herself his maid servant. She says, take me under your wings. She is asking him to take her in marriage. This is the symbolic way, take me under your garment, under the wings of your garment, under the tassels as it would be in New Testament days with Jesus. And the only problem is that there is a near kinsman redeemer [closer than Boaz] who has the option of first refusal. And so, Boaz does not force the issue. He shows great kindness to both Naomi and Ruth, and he calls the elders. They end up having a meeting, and this other near kinsman shows up, and he says, I’ll redeem the land of Naomi, but I don’t want to marry Ruth and raise up children for her.
And it’s unclear exactly why he says this. Then there’s a ceremony where they take off the sandals. It’s an affirmation of a legal transaction. And Boaz marries Ruth, and they have a son named Obed. Now this is a levirate marriage. The son named Obed is actually the legal son of Ruth’s first husband, Mahlon, but the biological son of Boaz. In this way the family line continues, Obed to Jesse, and Jesse will be the father of King David. Again, you see an example of levirate marriage and this breaking forth of the broadness of God’s providential hand, His love, and His grace.
David Capes
What an interesting story. Again, Ruth is not an Israelite, she’s a Moabite. She says your God will be my God and your people will be my people. I take that as her confession of faith. She is confessing Naomi’s God to be her God at that very moment. I love how that story ends, because it ends with Naomi bouncing her grandson on her knee. she has a sign, right?
Nancy Dawson
Yes, finally she has her family. It’s come full circle. It takes time, but it brings back her whole countenance. It’s like her life finally has meaning again and God is good to us. It’s just that it takes this element of time, and so, we should all be mindful of that and remember that sometimes we need to hold out. Just wait a little longer.
David Capes
It’s a great story. Thanks for being with us today Nancy on “The Stone Chapel Podcast.”
Nancy Dawson
Thank you for having me.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
