Sermon Ruth PGIMF October 15, 2006

Sermon – Ruth – PGIMF – October 15, 2006

This was planned to be a two-sermon series, but as it turns out I am able to cover it in one week, so next week we’ll have a different topic. I originally chose the book of Ruth after Donna Stewart’s talk early last month on Tamar who posed as a prostitute and seduced her father-in-law Judah. Tamar, you will recall, was one of the four women listed in the genealogy of Jesus. The remarkable thing about these women is that they all had unusual and/or scandalous stories, and yet God still used them to bring about the birth of his Son. I was intrigued by these women and decided to pick one of the other four to focus on for this Sunday, one whom I don’t think I’ve ever heard a sermon about.

Ruth’s claim to infamy was that she was a foreigner, a Moabitess. The Moabites were enemies of the Jews and a snare to them. That factor in Ruth’s identity will reveal a lot to us about God’s grace.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. There is a lot more to be discovered in this narrative, and I’m going to approach it through its literary genre in order to show how the rhetorical elements of a biblical text (such as parallelism and symmetry) can help us unpack its theology.

The book of Ruth “has long been cited as a perfect example of the art of telling a story.”1 Its genre is typically listed as “short story” or “novella.” It is masterfully put together. If we look at the book structurally, we see that it is made up of four episodes which correspond to the chapters in our

English Bibles. In the first episode, Naomi goes to Moab with a husband and two sons and returns to

Judah bereaved, but accompanied by her Moabite daughter-in-law, Ruth. In the second episode, Ruth meets Boaz while gleaning in his fields, and he makes sure she is well taken care of. In the third scene,

Naomi hatches a plan to get Boaz to notice Ruth, which Ruth carries out – she meets him at night on the threshing floor and asks for his hand in marriage in the customary way. In the last episode, Boaz offers the closer kinsman his first right of refusal, but the latter turns it down. So Boaz marries Ruth and she bears a son, who becomes the next in a line that will lead to David.

1 “Ruth, Book of,” Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), Vol 5, p. 843.

1 On the back of your handout, I have printed a little outline which shows quite dramatically the structure within each of these episodes. In Hebrew narrative, whenever a story has this sort of chiastic structure (a b c b’ a’), the author is drawing our attention to the central pivot around which the symmetry is formed; that line contains the key point of the passage. When the structure is a parallelism of the form a b c a’ b’ c’, the key lines are the C lines, and usually more specifically the C’ line.

Arranging the verses in this way reveals some key passages (marked in boldface in my schematic outline). Ruth’s pronouncement in 1:16-18, with its central sentence, “Your people will be my people and your God my God,” is one of the most beautiful and important utterances in the book of Ruth. This brings out one of several themes in the book, that of Gentile inclusion in the people of God. Ruth is a

Moabitess (1:4), and thus a foreigner to Israel. She is well aware of that status and expects to be rejected because of it (2:10). The Law of Moses proclaimed that “No…Moabite…may enter the assembly of the

LORD, even down to the tenth generation.” (Deut 23:3) Yet Ruth leaves her own people and gods (1:15-

16) and is now warmly welcomed into the people of Yahweh (4:11-12). Perhaps it is no accident that the genealogy in 4:18-22 lists ten generations. It emphasizes that this story is an exception to the norm the Israelites were used to, and that God was intentional in graciously transcending the Law. Ruth’s adoption into Judah is part of the rich reward from God that Boaz had anticipated for her (2:12).

The structure of the book also points to a more important theme, that of ḥeseḏ (kindness or loyal devotion). When ḥeseḏ is used of God, it signifies grace; when used of humans it implies devotion. One way the Narrator highlights this motif is through comparisons and contrasts. Looking at 1:8-14 alongside 4:2-10, we see Orpah and the kinsman playing analogous roles against Ruth and Boaz, respectively. Orpah first says she will go with Naomi and then changes her mind. The kinsman first says he will redeem the land and then changes his mind when he finds out marriage is part of the deal.

This is in contrast to Ruth who won’t budge from her resolve to stay with God’s people, and Boaz who

2 keeps his promise to redeem (3:13). Ruth and Boaz are also compared in 3:5 and 3:11 where they each promise to do what is asked of them. These comparisons and contrasts serve to highlight the exemplary

ḥeseḏ of Ruth and Boaz. In the pivotal verses of chapter 2, Boaz praises Ruth for her loyalty to Naomi and for coming to take refuge under the wings of the God of Israel (2:11-12). He later refers back to this as an act of ḥeseḏ (3:10). Boaz shows ḥeseḏ by sharing his meal with Ruth (2:14), and by protecting her and ensuring that her gleaning will be successful (2:15-16). Naomi’s adulation of Boaz in 2:20 mentions his ḥeseḏ. This kindness obviously goes beyond that shown to Ruth in 2:14-16, as it extends to the dead as well. In the climactic verses of chapter 3, Ruth and Boaz demonstrate their ḥeseḏ to each other. Ruth asks for Boaz’s hand in marriage (v. 9), a request which he immediately praises as ḥeseḏ.

In v. 15, Boaz continues his kindness to Ruth by giving her six measures of barley, a token of his intention to marry her.

While the ḥeseḏ of Ruth and Boaz is the subject of the central two chapters, it is really God’s

ḥeseḏ which pervades the whole story and is both the framework for and the reward for the human

ḥeseḏ. That is made clear by a pair of book-ends (called an inclusio) around the whole book (1:6; 4:13), which tell of God’s divine intervention in ending the famine and in bringing a son to Ruth, and thus to

Naomi (4:17). In both cases, God’s action ended an emptiness that was experienced, restoring someone or someplace to the condition worthy of their name. Bethlehem means “house of bread” but there had been no bread in Bethlehem during the famine. Naomi means “pleasant” but she had seen bitterness in her bereavement (1:20). The story is likewise framed by God’s ḥeseḏ in another way. Naomi’s prayer in 1:8 that Yahweh would show ḥeseḏ to Ruth2 by granting her rest in the home of another husband, is answered in 4:13 when Boaz takes Ruth as his wife. The Narrator is implying that God’s grace is responsible for the happy conclusion. The attribution to “chance” in Ruth’s encounter with Boaz (2:3) indicates that it was not Ruth’s machinations but providence at work.

2 And Orpah, but she drops out of the story so we are not concerned with her here.

3 God’s ḥeseḏ as a reward for Ruth’s ḥeseḏ functions through Boaz’s ḥeseḏ. The Narrator reveals that in his play on the word kānāp (which means both “wings” and “corner of a garment”) in 2:12 and

3:9. The context in 2:12 even suggests that this is related to God’s recompense for Ruth’s ḥeseḏ, first intimated in 1:8.

Another literary pointer to Yahweh’s ḥeseḏ being active throughout the book is the refrain repeated frequently (with slight variations): “The Lord be with you! The Lord bless you!” (2:4) “May the Lord repay you” (2:12) “The Lord bless him” (2:20) “The Lord bless you” (3:10) and finally

“Praise be to the Lord” (4:14).

One of the techniques that often reveals a key theological theme is the use of a word repeated meaningfully throughout a text (known as a Leitwort). In the book of Ruth one such word, remarkable for its frequency of use, is ge’āl (to redeem, lit. “to be the next of kin”), or gō’ēl (kinsman-redeemer), which occurs in its various forms 23 times. The plot involves Ruth’s need to find a kinsman to redeem the land of her dead husband and father-in-law and to marry her and continue the line. Boaz plays the part of the kinsman-redeemer. There is also the unknown kinsman who declines his right to redeem.

Redemption is one of the themes of the book of Ruth, and it is broader than just the legal custom of a next-of-kin redeeming the land of a dead relative. By implication, Yahweh is the great gō’ēl who protects Ruth under his wing (2:12), redeems Elimelech’s clan from the brink of extinction and turns

Naomi’s emptiness (1:21) into fullness. As the townswomen recognize, God is the one who provided the kinsman-redeemer (4:14).

The final theme I will point out, and the most significant one, has to do with the genealogical appendix in 4:16-22. This is the theme of the advent of David, and specifically God’s directing of a relationship that leads to the birth of David. An inclusio hints at God’s involvement in bringing the

4 future king of Israel into existence. The book opens with Elimelech (whose name means “my God is

King”) and ends with David, the king of God’s choosing.

The repetition of the last three steps in the genealogy leading to David (4:17 and 4:22) emphasizes the importance of this ancestry. That this child Obed (and by extension, his descendant

David) is a gift from God to all Israel and not just to this humble family, is marked by the fact that the women, not Obed’s parents, give him his name, a situation unique to Ruth in all of the Bible. The name

Obed means “servant” and indeed he will be a servant of God in bringing forth the future king of Israel.

Another inclusio opens and closes the story with mention of Bethlehem (1:1, 4:11), which will be the

City of David.

The theme in Ruth which has the most bearing on the overall message of the Bible is that of redemption. Yahweh is the gō’ēl (Redeemer) in many passages (e.g., Job 19:25; Ps 119:154; Prov 23:11;

Jer 50:34; Lam 3:58). One of the phases in God’s redemptive plan is this episode in the lives of an

Ephrathite and a Moabitess which leads to the birth of David. It is probably not accidental that a name which is derived from the same root as gō’ēl, namely Igal (meaning “he redeems”), appears in David’s line of descent (1 Chr 3:22). But of course the ultimate proof that David is part of God’s scheme of redemption comes in the form of his descendant, the Savior, Jesus Christ.

There is a deeper significance to the story of Ruth and Boaz than their place in the ancestry of the Messiah. Boaz himself is a “type” (or foreshadowing) of Christ. Boaz plays the part of the kinsman-redeemer using money, but Christ buys his bride (the Church) with his own blood (Rev 5:9).

Boaz redeems Naomi from her emptiness. Christ redeems us from an “empty way of life” (1 Pet 1:18-

19). Boaz invites Ruth to share bread with him and dip it in wine vinegar (2:14). Jesus invests the symbols of bread and wine with a new meaning (Matt 26:26-29). Boaz gives Ruth some grain and she eats her fill and has some left over (2:14). Jesus performs a miracle with similar results (Matt 14).

5 Furthermore, Ruth is a type of another noble wife to come: Mary, the mother of Jesus. Like

Ruth (2:10, 13), Mary is highly favored (Lk 1:28). Ruth assumes the demeanor of a servant (2:13, 3:9), and Mary accepts her role as the LORD’s servant (1:38). Both Ruth and Mary are at risk of being thought scandalous (Ruth 3:14; Matt 1:20). Ruth is blessed for her faithfulness (2:12) and Mary likewise (Lk

1:45). Ruth’s child will be in the line of David and be great (4:14, 17) and so will Mary’s (Lk 1:32-33).

The importance of the book of Ruth for Christians today is that it shows us God’s hand in bringing about redemption to humanity through the events and people of history. It also reveals that he rewards faithfulness by showing his own mercy, often through the kindness of other people. It shows us his grace in accepting people who might have felt excluded from the promises in Scripture. Finally it is a really good example of how you can often find out theological meaning in biblical narrative by paying attention to the literary craftsmanship of the text.