God's love and provision in Ruth 3:1-18

¶ … Ruth 3:1-18

The objective of this work is to analyze Ruth 3:1-18 in terms of: (1) What does the text mean in the setting of Old Testament days? (2) What did the text mean to the writers who collected these writings? (3) What does the text mean today as it is applied in contemporary situations? And (4) Find application for your life if possible.

The lessons learned from Ruth 3: 1-18 are spiritually important. This story of Naomi and her daughter-in-law, Ruth and also of Boaz is one that sheds much light onto God's love for his children and his provisions for them as well as the posture that the children of God must approach God from in order to best receive those blessings.

The Story

The story of Ruth is concerning a woman named Naomi and her daughter-in-law, Ruth. Naomi's husband and sons had just died. Ruth had declared that she would remain with Ruth forsaking her home and kin and instead staying with Ruth to worship the one and true God, the God of Israel. Naomi was very bitter when this story began and had even instructed the people to call her "Mara" (McCullough, 2007; p.1) which meant bitterness. Survival for two widows at this time in history was one that by Jewish law was appointed to the surviving male relations of the widower's family. Naomi came to love Ruth who was steadfast in her love for her mother-in-law and Naomi knew that Boaz had seen Ruth in the fields in her mourning clothes and had asked who this strange woman was. Naomi had decided that Ruth should come out of mourning and instructed Ruth of what she should do. Naomi instructs Ruth thus: "Wash thyself therefore, and anoint thee, and put on thy raiment upon thee, and get thee down to the floor: but make not thyself known to the man until he shall have done eating and drinking. And it shall be, when he lieth down, that thou shalt mark the place where he shall lie, and thou shalt go in, and uncover his feet, and lay thee down and he will tell thee what thou shalt do." (Ruth 3: 3-4) in verse 5 Ruth replies to Naomi stating: "All that thou sayest unto me I will do." (Ruth 3: 5)

III. A Deeper Meaning

There was much more at play in this story than merely the outcome of the lives of Naomi and Ruth in that at the death of Naomi's husband and her two sons, according to the Jewish faith Naomi's husband had lost his part in contributing to the coming of the Messiah. In the commentary of Rev. John Schultz it is stated that: It was in Israel "and to the people of Israel that God had chosen to reveal Himself. 'Salvation is from the Jews', as Jesus says in John 4:22. Ruth somehow recognized this..." (2002; P.1) However, her sister-in-law, Orpah failed to recognize this and returned to her people the Moabites who worshiped the god Chemosh. Shultz share that at the time the Elimelech and his sons had died that Ruth had become close to conversion to YHWH, the God of Israel and that the scriptures lead the reader to believe that "Naomi "may have been the spiritual backbone in the family." (p.3)

Because there was no male heir of Elimelech and his two sons the "name of the family was doomed to die out. And that meant real death for an Israelite." (Shultz, 2002; p.4) Shultz further states that Psalm 91:1 illustrates the spiritual parallel to the theme of protection in the marriage in the verse, which states: "He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty." (p. 5) This theme is portrayed in the story of Ruth as Ruth replies to Boaz to spread his wings over his maidservant for as cited by Shultz the position of Ruth was that she was: "...a girl, who did not belong to a man..." (p. 4) and was "up for grabs" (p. 4) so to speak.

The problem that developed was at the time that Naomi and Elimelech left Bethlehem and went to the region of the Moabs and at this time the entire family was taken off the path or out of the position God had placed them in. Shultz states that when Naomi was preparing to leave this area and told her two daughter-in-law to return to their families that Ruth replied:

Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me." (p. 7)

Ultimately, the choice of Ruth was one that had chosen YHWH over Chemosh. While disobedience to God undoubtedly lost Naomi's part in the 'perfect' will of God, God's permissive will allowed the faith and hope of Ruth to integrate into the plan for the Messiah to come in that Boaz and Ruth did marry and a child was conceived and named Obed, who is the father of Jesse, and the son of King David, and it is through this lineage that the Messiah was born. (Schultz, 2002; p. 1) it is worthy of note that Schulz relates that the father of Boaz was the husband of Rahab and this adds great significance to the workings of God in the story of Naomi and Ruth concerning the lineage through which the Messiah was born. Schultz states of Naomi's loss:

The price she paid for leaving was a heavy one. It is always expensive to leave the place where God has put us. The balance of the time she was gone is emptiness. The years in Moab were lost years. Oswald Chambers points out that Abram left the Lord at a place between Bethel and Ai to go to Egypt (Gen.12:8) and he returned to the same place after the miserable experiences in Egypt. (Gen.13:3,4). He remarks that the Lord always brings us back to the place where we lost Him. In order to continue our spiritual pilgrimage we have to return to the point where we interrupted it."

Schultz relates in this work that the child of God carries' the essence of God wherever they go and that even during the time of Naomi's loss and bitterness that Ruth was drawn to her because of having been drawn to God.

At the beginning of the story of Naomi and Ruth, it is obvious that Naomi does not acknowledge and clearly does not recognize Ruth for her true value and all that she represents for Naomi's future. However this story does inform the reader that a child was born to Boaz and Ruth who was named Obed and that this child, upon his birth was taken and laid into the arm's of Naomi, a woman's whose hands had been so empty.

Summary & Discussion

There are several lessons learned from this study and the first of which is the lesson of hope, faith, and the everlasting love of God toward his children. This story has demonstrated the love and protection of the Almighty God, and further has demonstrated the lesson of, how and when, the human being chooses to divert from the path or place in which God has placed them; that when all the divergent paths have been taken the place that the human being finds themselves to be is right at the very point where they made the choice to divert from God's plan for their life.

Ruth was drawn to the God of Naomi and was willing to turn aside from all that she knew in terms of her home, her family, her culture, and her religion, and to cleave to Ruth, mother of her husband who was deceased. While it is certain that Ruth was very much a new follower of YHWH, at the same time it was not her knowledge or experience but her faith that made all the difference and resulted in her finding favor in the eyes of God and mankind.

God desires for his children to love him freely and out of the desire of their heart and this was the gift of love that Rahab and Ruth freely gave God in all their actions and deeds with no guile about their motives for following God. Because of this extraordinary faith and hope demonstrated for God by Ruth in her blind following of Him through clinging to his servant Naomi, Ruth was both blessed by God and used by God to bless and ultimately to be included in the lineage through which Jesus Christ the Messiah would be born.