Under His Wings

Ruth 1-4

President Theodore Roosevelt once said:

The good mother, the wise mother...is more important to the community than even the ablest man; her career is more worth of honor [the career of motherhood] and is more useful to the community than the career of any man, no matter how successful.

The challenge today, of course, is in finding mothers who fulfill their role as mothers so honorably, by accepting their God-given role with a serious faith and commitment to God’s Word. Our society is filled with women, even mothers, who ask along with Eve, “Has God really said,” and then create their own realities and reach for things selfishly which God has not intended, disobeying God for things which look attractive and appealing and then blaming Satan, circumstances, and even God himself for their problems.

Today, woman are taught to be victims, to blame their genes, their husbands, their children, their circumstances, their upbringing, their church, their society, and many other things for their trials. Then they use these things as a reason to fend for themselves rather than pursuing a close relationship and carrying out their roles in life in a biblical, godly way which follows God’s Word closely by faith.

Rare are women and mothers who will embrace life’s challenges with biblical courage and persevering faith no matter how difficult or uncomfortable that may be. Consider the second wife of John Bunyan, a Baptist preacher in England who wrote Pilgrim’s Progress. After his first wife died, leaving him alone with four young children, he remarried again, a woman named Elizabeth.

A year after they married, he was imprisoned due to his biblical preaching. During his imprisonment, Elizabeth miscarried as she cared for her four stepchildren. On one occasion, she traveled to London to request her husband’s release. This excerpt is taken from comments by John Piper in a presentation called, “To Live Upon God that is Invisible, Suffering and Service in the Life of John Bunyan.”

“What is the need of talking?” [asked one judge].

“There is need for this, my lord, for I have four small children that cannot help themselves, of which one is blind, and we have nothing to live upon but the charity of good people.”

[The judge] with pity asked if she really had four children, being so young.

“My lord, I am but mother-in-law to them, having not been married to him yet full two years. Indeed, I was with child when my husband was first apprehended; but being young and unaccustomed to such things, I being dismayed at the news, fell into labor, and so continued for eight days, then was delivered, but my child died.”

[The judge] was moved, but other judges were hardened and spoke against him. “He is a mere tinker!”

“Yes, and because he is a tinker and a poor man, therefore he is despised and cannot have justice.”

One [judge] was enraged and said that Bunyan will preach and do as he wishes.

“He preaches nothing but the Word of God!” said Elizabeth.\

[Another judge], in rage [said], “He runs up and down and does harm.”

“No, my lord, it is not so; God hath owned him and done much good by him.”

The angry [judge] [said], “His doctrine is the doctrine of the devil.”

[Elizabeth said], “My Lord, when the righteous Judge shall appear, it will be known that his doctrine is not the doctrine of the devil!”

In today’s culture, Elizabeth would’ve been encouraged to blame her husband, John Bunyan, for her difficulties. She would’ve been encouraged to persuade him to stop preaching God’s Word so that she would be able to have him home with the family rather than in prison, leaving her alone with the four children. Where are women like this today who will be courageous mothers that value the truth of God’s Word over the comforts of this life?

In the OT, we find a fascinating story of a woman (two women, really) who chose a close relationship with God and obedience to his Word over other lesser values and priorities. And as a result, they displayed womanly courage and exemplary faith. This faith was especially remarkable because it responded well, though not easily, to difficulties and hardships which were the result of other people’s choices (in this case, their husbands).

God often permits us to suffer due to another person’s choices.

Examples of this happening appear in Scripture often. Joseph was betrayed and sold into slavery by his brothers, falsely accused by his employer’s wife, then imprisoned and forgotten in prison for years. David experienced harassment and more from King Saul before he even became king. Daniel and his three friends were taken into captivity due to no fault of their own. Old Testament prophets often suffered rejection and mistreatment because people didn’t appreciate their message. Christ himself suffered for no fault of his own and his first followers also suffered, and so did Paul, Timothy, and others.

Women as well as men suffered similarly. Sarah supported her husband Abraham, even when his choices placed her into difficult spots on two occasions. Abigail endured marriage to a selfish man named Nabal. Esther navigated a very difficult situation as wife to a pagan king, and Christ’s own mother, Mary, endured her entire adult life under the mistaken reputation of having been unfaithful prior to marriage.

These are not the only examples of such cases in which people innocently suffered due to another person’s choices. One notable example is two women, Naomi and Ruth (her daughter-in-law). These two women endured a long series of unfortunate events.

This all happened during the period of the Judges (Ruth 1:1). As if this wasn’t bad enough, the story also unfolded when there was a famine in the land, which occurred since God had withheld rain due to Israel’s unfaithfulness to him (Deut 28:15-24).

Naomi’s husband was an Israelite man named Elimelech. When the famine occurred, they migrated from Judah (on the west side of the Dead Sea) to Moab (on the east side of the Dead Sea). By doing this, they turned to a pagan nation for aid rather than returning to God.

While in Moab, Elimelech died, leaving Naomi alone in that ungodly place with her two adult sons, Mahlon and Chilion. These men then married Moabite wives, Orpah and Ruth, and remained in Moab rather than returning to Israel to obey God. After about 10 years, both of Naomi’s sons died.

After losing her husband and her sons, Naomi decided to return home to Israel, doing what her deceased husband and sons had failed to do. Her two daughters-in-law planned to follow her to Israel, leaving their homeland behind. Naomi encouraged them to go home and return to their birth families, though, and to marry Moabite husbands.

One of these women, Ruth, refused to do so. She insisted that she would follow Naomi for the rest of her life. Most importantly, she expressed a strong desire to follow the God of Israel rather than her Moabite gods (Ruth 1:16). By doing this, she would abandon the hope of a comfortable future, placing herself in the care of a foreign mother-in-law who had no reliable means to care for even herself, what’s more a daughter-in-law.

This was a very risky move, on Ruth’s part, because the Law of Moses had given strict instructions that forbade Moabites from entering or worshiping in the Temple and from entering into close relationships, esp. marriage, to Moabite people (Deut 23:3-6).

An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the LORD; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the LORD forever, because they did not meet you with bread and water on the road when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you. Nevertheless the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam, but the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loves you. You shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity all your days forever.

At first, Naomi did not respond to this loyalty with enthusiasm, though she did eventually accept the offer. It was at this time she requested a name change from Naomi (which means “pleasant”) to Mara (which means “bitter”). To her, returning to Israel withRuth was not a blessing but the last straw of her suffering. She believed that God had returned her to Israel empty (despite having Ruth with her – even because she had Ruth with her), thinking that God had responded to her life in a bad and negative way.

Bitterness is a lingering feeling of frustration and resentment towards someone else, which is ultimately a feeling of frustration and resentment towards God. It blames God and others for your difficult circumstances rather than viewing your suffering as God-ordained challenges to endure with joy for his glory.

Looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled (Heb 12:15)

When this happens, we should persevere in trusting God.

What’s remarkable about this story, though, is how Ruth – the Moabite daughter-in-law who had also experienced difficult things due to the choices of her father-in-law and husband, not to mention her pagan upbringing – responded not in bitterness but in faith. In doing so, she reflected the same kind of faith as other faithful followers of God.

Indeed, we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. (Jam 5:11)

As we reminded ourselves last week of the song, “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt,” when we face such suffering in our lives, we “can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we can’t go around it – we have to go through it.” This is what genuine faith in God does.

This first requires personal faith in God.

Notice what Ruth said to Naomi before returning to Israel with her (Ruth 1:16-17):

Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The LORD do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.”

In these words, we see that she had made a deep and personal choice to trust in the God of the Bible. So firm and committed was this choice that she was willing to move away from her birth family and entire nation to follow him. Jesus Christ himself calls for this very same degree of ultimate allegiance (Matt 10:37-38):

He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.

This is not popular teaching today, but to disregard this teaching is to disregard Jesus Christ himself. If we are going to persevere through suffering, even that suffering which is brought into our lives by the choices of other people, we must have this degree of faith in God – in Jesus Christ as our God and Savior. This faith must be so strong and committed that no one or nothing – not even our immediate, blood family – can prevent us from following Christ. When we value family over Christ, we will ultimately sacrifice and lose the very family we attempted to save by disregarding Christ.

This then requires personal obedience to God’s Word.

But persevering through suffering calls us to more than an initial, personal commitment to Christ in faith. It calls us to persevere by valuing and obeying the clear teaching and principles of God’s Word over all other impulses, factors, and influences. Together, let’s consider how Ruth did this herself.

First, Ruth showed the seriousness of her faith by choosing not to pursue a husband among her own people in Moab. Not only did she not pursue marriage among her own people, she chose to go to a place where it would be far more difficult to find a husband, elevating commitment to God and also to caring for her mother-in-law over marriage prospects. About this observation, seasoned pastor and author Mark Chanski says this:

There’s a lesson here for young ladies who desire that the Lord would give them a godly husband. Many “desperate” women make sad moral compromises in order to attract a man … Look at Ruth. Duty led her away from Moab where beaus were plentiful, toward Bethlehem where few would show interest in a Gentile maiden. But Ruth was directed by moral principle and not romantic pragmatism. She kept the fifth commandment and honored her mother-in-law. “Seek first the kingdom and his righteousness; and all these things will be added unto you” (Matt 6:33). Ruth’s priority was to honor God through Naomi, and thus God provided for Ruth through Boaz, probably the godliest man on the face of the earth during this dark period of the Judges.”

For younger women today (and men, too) who are serious about following Christ, the pressure to marry is often so great that we are tempted to marry someone who is not a serious follower of Christ. Or, we make choices in order to find a spouse which require us to abandon other God-given roles and responsibilities or to let go of important, biblical teaching. Ruth did not do this. She placed first priority on following God, honoring her mother in a biblical way, and serving God over raising her odds of finding a spouse.

Once home in Israel, Ruth and Naomi had no reliable way to meet their needs. To alleviate this problem, Naomi sent Ruth to gather leftover grain from the fields of a wealthy man named Boaz, who happened to be a close relative of Elimelech, Naomi’s deceased husband.

This practice took advantage of a social welfare program in the law of Moses, which required farmers to leave leftover grain and fruit in the fields and vineyards so that foreigners (who owned no land), orphans (who had no parents), and widows (who had no husband) could get food for themselves (Lev. 19:9, 10; 23:22; Deut. 24:19).

This food was free, in that those in need did not have to pay for it. Even so, they still had to work for it by going out into the fields to get it for themselves. Ruth showed her loyalty to her mother-in-law by doing this hard work to meet their mutual needs. She did not behave as a dependent, helpless tag-along or victim of circumstances and other people’s choices but as a responsible caregiver who would do whatever it took to meet her mother-in-law’s needs. To do so, she followed a practice established in the Word of God and also showed respect to her mother-in-law, which is a key teaching of God’s Word, as well.

As she worked a long day, Boaz noticed her among the men he had hired to harvest his fields. He spoke with her and insisted that she keep on taking leftovers from his fields rather than someone else’s. He also allowed her to eat alongside the regular harvesting team, instructed the men to leave extra grain behind on purpose, and ordered them to ensure her safety so that no one would harm her, since the hired hands might be tempted to abuse or take advantage of her (Ruth 2:14-16).

Within this encouraging turn of events, two important statements emerge.

The first is by Boaz. Ruth asked him why he was showing such kindness to her, even though she was a Moabite and not a Jew (Ruth 2:10). He explained that he had heard all about her faithfulness to her mother-in-law and how she had placed her trust in the Lord God of Israel (Ruth 2:11-13). He admired her faith and had taken it upon himself to be God’s channel of blessing to meet her needs on God’s behalf.

The LORD repay your work, and a full reward be given you by the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge. (Ruth 2:12)

What does this imagery mean, “under whose wings you have come for refuge”? Commentator Daniel Block says this:

Boaz introduces one of the most beautiful pictures of divine care in all of Scripture. He imagines Yahweh as a mother bird who offers her wings (kānāp) for the protection of her defenseless young. In perceiving God as a bird Boaz draws on an image that was common throughout the ancient Near East. He speaks of Ruth’s experience as “coming to seek refuge/asylum under his wings” … thinking primarily of the day when Ruth transferred her allegiance from Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, to Yahweh, the God of Israel …

The other important statement is made by Naomi (Ruth 2:20). In this statement, she praised the Lord for being faithful and kind to them through the kindness of Boaz.

Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “Blessed be he of the LORD, who has not forsaken His kindness to the living and the dead!” (Ruth 2:20)

Following these two conversations, Naomi gave some new instructions to Ruth. By these instructions, she hoped to do more than get some food. This time she hoped to provide Ruth with a greater measure of security (Ruth 3:1). She based this plan on the fact that Boaz was a close relative of Elimelech, her former husband. According to Jewish customs, this man could serve as the “family redeemer.”

The family redeemer (or “kinsman-redeemer”) was a cultural practice in Old Testament Israel. When a Jewish man died with no male heir, the family redeemer would step in to care for his wife (through marriage) and to care for his property in his name. He would even attempt to raise a son through his deceased relative’s widow to carry on her (and her deceased husband’s) family line.

This in mind, Naomi recognized the noble qualities of Boaz. As a result, she hoped that he might take the role of family redeemer by marrying Ruth. If he would do so, he would be an older man marrying a younger one. He would also jeopardize his upstanding reputation by marrying a Moabite woman.

What’s more, he would be taking on extra responsibility by assuming the care of not only for Ruth, but also Naomi and the land which had belonged to Elimelech. Taking this responsibility would not make Boaz richer. It would incur additional expense and oversight on his part – all in the name of Elimelech's (his relative) son's name (Mahlon, Ruth's deceased husband), not in his own. If a son was raised, then all the land and property would be handed over to him, not to Boaz.

There is an instance here in this story which deserves brief clarification. What exactly was Ruth doing when she “uncovered the feet of Boaz” at night on the threshing floor (Ruth 3:7). Some have suggested that this was some sort of immoral, inappropriate act, but it was not. This happened publicly – in the presence of other men, though likely sleeping, who had been harvesting with Boaz. This also surprised Boaz, who was sleeping only to wake up suddenly to see Ruth bowing at his feet.

Why did she do this? In that culture, this was an act of submission and respect. It is how people responded to a king, for instance, or to someone else whom they intended to trust and obey. In this case, Ruth was entrusting herself to the care of Boaz. In doing so, she shows that she had not only committed herself to caring for her mother-in-law, but she was fully accepting the teaching of the Law of Moses, the Word of God, even though doing so would have been awkward and risky for her to do.

When Ruth requested Boaz to care for her and her mother-in-law as a kinsman redeemer, he dutifully obliged. First, however, he spoke to the one other man who was an even closer relative to Elimelech than he was and was therefore first in the order of obligation. This man was willing to take on the land, but he was not willing to care for Ruth and Naomi – so he declined. Upon hearing this, Boaz swiftly assumed this role by marrying Ruth.

It is at this point that we must make another clarification to clear up a common misconception. Boaz and Ruth were not some kind of romantic couple of similar age. According to Ruth 3:9-10, Boaz portrayed himself as an older man and he commended Ruth for accepting his role as a kinsman-redeemer rather than pursuing a relationship with some younger man her age. Also, according to Ruth 2:1, Boaz was more of a peer to Naomi and her deceased husband, likely a generation older than Ruth.

Once again, Ruth was prioritizing the Word of God over what would have been her own personal, natural attractions. What happens when we follow God’s Word this way, even as we are enduring suffering as a result of other people’s choices?

Those who persevere will experience God’s grace in special ways.

This story ends with a conclusion that should surprise us in at least two ways. First, it by the blessing that the leaders of the city gave to Boaz and Ruth. They prayed that God will bless their union with offspring just as he did for Tamar and Judah. Judah, of course, was the tribe of these people – of Elimelech and Naomi, Boaz and the men of this city. He was their forefather (Ruth 4:12).

May your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring which the LORD will give you from this young woman.” So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife; and when he went in to her, the LORD gave her conception, and she bore a son.

This allusion is surprising, because Tamar had been Judah’s daughter-in-law (Gen 38:24-26). Judah’s oldest son had died before they could have any children, but his brothers had refused to take the responsibility of family redeemer for her. Then in the end, Judah refused to allow his youngest son to do so, leaving her uncared for and without a future. As a result, she tricked him as a prostitute and gave birth to a son. In this way, she continued the family line – though this is hardly a compelling story. Such a sad and twisted story reveals that God’s grace is able to shine through in even the most difficult situations.

This book’s ending should surprise you for a second reason, too, even more. It tells us how God would bless this union with a son named Obed (Ruth 4:14-17).

Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without a close relative; and may his name be famous in Israel! And may he be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law, who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons, has borne him.” Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her bosom, and became a nurse to him. Also the neighbor women gave him a name, saying, “There is a son born to Naomi.” And they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.

Obed would turn out to be the grandfather of King David, who would deliver the nation of Israel from the chaotic period of the Judges. More importantly, he would continue the family line that would eventually provide the world with the Messiah, who would deliver us all from our sins. Amazing, right? What if Naomi had remained in Moab? What if Ruth had remained there, too?

If you are a woman today, whether married or not, let me encourage you to persevere through your hardships – even those caused by other people in your life, such as your husband or others. Persevere by nurturing a close and committed devotion and faith in Jesus Christ as your God and Savior. And then persevere by living out that faith, by adhering closely to the teaching of God’s Word about marriage and other key life matters. Make God’s priorities your priorities and do so with calm and confident courage.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. (Prov 3:5-6)

When you persevere this way in faith, your life may not get easier, at least not for a while, but you will be taking shelter under the wings of God. And he will be faithful to you, I guarantee.