Ruth 2:1-23
Notes
Transcript
1 Now Naomi had a kinsman of her husband, a man of great wealth, of the family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.
2 And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after one in whose sight I may find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.”
3 So she departed and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech.
4 Now behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, “May the Lord be with you.” And they said to him, “May the Lord bless you.”
5 Then Boaz said to his servant who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?”
6 The servant in charge of the reapers replied, “She is the young Moabite woman who returned with Naomi from the land of Moab.
7 “And she said, ‘Please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.’ Thus she came and has remained from the morning until now; she has been sitting in the house for a little while.”
8 Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen carefully, my daughter. Do not go to glean in another field; furthermore, do not go on from this one, but stay here with my maids.
9 “Let your eyes be on the field which they reap, and go after them. Indeed, I have commanded the servants not to touch you. When you are thirsty, go to the water jars and drink from what the servants draw.”
10 Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your sight that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?”
11 Boaz replied 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.
12 “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.”
13 Then she said, “I have found favor in your sight, my lord, for you have comforted me and indeed have spoken kindly to your maidservant, though I am not like one of your maidservants.”
14 At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here, that you may eat of the bread and dip your piece of bread in the vinegar.” So she sat beside the reapers; and he served her roasted grain, and she ate and was satisfied and had some left.
15 When she rose to glean, Boaz commanded his servants, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not insult her.
16 “Also you shall purposely pull out for her some grain from the bundles and leave it that she may glean, and do not rebuke her.”
17 So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley.
18 She took it up and went into the city, and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also took it out and gave Naomi what she had left after she was satisfied.
19 Her mother-in-law then said to her, “Where did you glean today and where did you work? May he who took notice of you be blessed.” So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, “The name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz.”
20 Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed of the Lord who has not withdrawn his kindness to the living and to the dead.” Again Naomi said to her, “The man is our relative, he is one of our closest relatives.”
21 Then Ruth the Moabitess said, “Furthermore, he said to me, ‘You should stay close to my servants until they have finished all my harvest.’ ”
22 Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his maids, so that others do not fall upon you in another field.”
23 So she stayed close by the maids of Boaz in order to glean until the end of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest. And she lived with her mother-in-law.
Introduction
Introduction
As we have gone through the first chapter of the account of the Moabitess Ruth, we have seen the God has brought her through a dark and bitter providence.
The first chapter focused on her mother-in-law Naomi and the hard suffering she went through, losing her husband, two sons, and her other daughter-in-law Orpah.
But Ruth had made a covenant with her to stay with her until God separated them, no matter what.
And now in chapter 2 the focus of the story is going to change from what happened to Naomi, to how God worked in the life of Ruth.
Ruth will take the center point of our narrative going forward, but Naomi will still serve in an important way.
She will be the interpreter of the events that God is orchestrating in His providence in the life of Ruth.
In the first chapter Naomi had gone through the suffering that happened to her with her faith intact.
And this faith, strengthened by that suffering, will point Ruth, and us, to the overwhelming provision of God’s grace in the rest of the story.
And this is one of the greatest points to glean from the story, that the bitter providence of God and our suffering through it are given to us for our eventual benefit.
They are tools God uses in His care for us as He sanctifies and perfects us.
We learn this from the story of Job, as we see his growth from the first chapter to the last.
Peter teaches this in the book of 1 Peter
6 In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials,
7 so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
God has, in His great omnipotence and omniscience, plotted the course of your life in such a way, that will turn even the hard things are for your good.
And this plan is customized for you!
The God of this universe is upholding all things by the power of His word.
The galaxy that is so far away we will never discover it, and the quanta of sub-atomic particles that we will never get to the bottom of, and everything in between, were created and are being managed by His almighty power.
But He knows you!
He knew the time of your birth, and knows the time of your death.
1 O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar.
3 You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
You may be insignificant in this world, a cog in the machine to your boss, that one weird guy or girl, but God knows you by name and has planned your life.
He sent His own Son to live and die in your place, so He could redeem you, and specifically you.
You were not an after thought.
And no second of what you go through, down to the toughest trial, is an oops.
But when you are going through the trials, He will always provide.
In fact, the bitter providence of God may be the way that He is providing!
We see that here in the story of a little, insignificant Moabitess named Ruth.
And what happened to her shows us that…
Every believer can and must see God’s provision, even in bitter providence.
Every believer can and must see God’s provision, even in bitter providence.
By trusting God’s provision in the law v.1-3
By trusting God’s provision in the law v.1-3
1 Now Naomi had a kinsman of her husband, a man of great wealth, of the family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.
2 And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after one in whose sight I may find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.”
3 So she departed and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech.
God’s providence works in direct and indirect ways.
He works directly and intimately in your specific life, for His purposes and His glory.
9 The mind of man plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.
But He has also set up the world to work in a certain way.
And when you acknowledge that and submit to it, things tend to work out better for you, outside of the fallenness of the world.
For example, let’s remember a couple of weeks ago, as we went through Ephesians 5 and how husbands and wives are exhorted to be towards one another.
In God’s sovereignty, He made man and woman different.
So He sets up different ways they are to treat each other in marriage.
And, in general, when we align how we think and act according to those principles, things go better for us.
Our rebellious culture may teach that this is not the case, but the proof is in the pudding.
We have gone far down the feminist and manosphere rabbit hole, and they are still extremely unhappy and unsatisfied.
True happiness and satisfaction will always be beyond the next revolution, but they can’t seem to ever grasp it.
And they never will, in their rebellion against the Creator!
But here in the first part of our passage we will learn that God’s law, the way He has set up the world, and specifically the Hebrew nation, leads to the great blessing of those who put their lives under it.
Verse one of chapter 2 introduces another character to our story, the man Boaz.
1 Now Naomi had a kinsman of her husband, a man of great wealth, of the family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.
There are a couple things about him that the author wants us to know right out of the gate.
The first is that Boaz is a relative of Elimelech, Naomi’s late husband, and that he is rich.
This information will be important as we get deeper into the story, so we are introduced to him so that we know who Boaz is before Ruth does.
This is the first point I will make about God’s provision for us in how he sets up the world and the law, Boaz is a kinsman.
We spoke about Levirate marriage in the first chapter of the book, where the widow would be given as wife to a close relative of the husband so the husband’s name would not be lost.
We will look at this closer in chapter 3, but know that God set up the law in a way to provide for His people.
The second way God provides for His people in this passage is the process of gleaning.
2 And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after one in whose sight I may find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.”
He gave instruction to His people to allow the edges of the field to remain unharvested, so that the poor could come and harvest it and have their food needs met.
This was a general thing that God set up, that allowed Ruth and Naomi to be provided for, but there was also an element of specific provision in this.
3 So she departed and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech.
She just “happened” to come to Boaz’s field, who just “happened” to be of the family of Elimelech.
Or as the King James Version says, “
King James Version Chapter 2
and her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz,
The author knows and we know, there was no “hap” about it.
God brought her to this specific field on this specific day, and He set up the system that allowed her to glean in someone else field and to eventually be wed to Elimelech’s relative all on purpose.
We have a great illustration of the sovereignty of God, and the responsibility of man right before us.
God provides for His own in many ways, but one of those ways is in how He sets up the world to work.
Remember that and live accordingly.
As you go through bitter providence, remember His provision and rest in faith.
A second way we see God’s provision is through others.
By trusting God’s provision in others v.4-18
By trusting God’s provision in others v.4-18
4 Now behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, “May the Lord be with you.” And they said to him, “May the Lord bless you.”
5 Then Boaz said to his servant who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?”
6 The servant in charge of the reapers replied, “She is the young Moabite woman who returned with Naomi from the land of Moab.
7 “And she said, ‘Please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.’ Thus she came and has remained from the morning until now; she has been sitting in the house for a little while.”
8 Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen carefully, my daughter. Do not go to glean in another field; furthermore, do not go on from this one, but stay here with my maids.
9 “Let your eyes be on the field which they reap, and go after them. Indeed, I have commanded the servants not to touch you. When you are thirsty, go to the water jars and drink from what the servants draw.”
10 Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your sight that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?”
11 Boaz replied 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.
12 “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.”
As we continue in our story, I want us to remember, just like in the first chapter of pain, in this chapter of grace, we are just observers.
Ruth was living through it and walking in it.
We get to read the whole story, but she was experiencing it first hand.
There are times when we walk through great suffering, and great abundance, that we need to remember that.
This story is here to help us remember that someone knows the beginning and the end of the story of our lives as well, but we still have to go through it.
Boaz comes to see how is crops are being taken care of, remember they had just come through a time of famine, and this is one of the first good harvests they have seen in a while.
He asks his man who she was, and he told him that she was Ruth, the foreigner who came back with Naomi from Moab.
This could go two ways, Boaz could be negative towards her.
He could offer her exactly what the law dictates, tell his men to ignore her, offer her no protection, and be generally grumpy about it.
In what we could call malicious compliance, he could offer her law, but not an inch further, no grace.
But he chooses option 2… grace.
He asks her to stay in his fields, with his women.
He instructs his men to protect her.
He allows her to use his water.
He overflows with grace towards her, more than she could ever expect.
She has experienced so much pain, and now he is the vehicle for showing her favor.
Have you ever experienced anything like this?
I can answer for you, yes, you have.
What a great, clear illustration of the gospel!
And even more than that, added on top of salvation, there has been so much grace poured on our lives that often times we take them for granted, or aren’t even aware of it.
But especially in the form of grace from others.
We are all here in church, we are members of one another, and are given the privilege of taking care of one another.
We pray for one another, feed each other on Wednesdays and after Our Lord’s Supper, weep with one another, and rejoice with one another.
If I was in need, I know a group of people I could call on, and know that you can call one me.
Brothers and sisters, we are a provision of God’s grace to one another, in His great providence He has brought us all here together.
Some of us have got here through pain and suffering, but we can be like Boaz to Ruth to one another, pouring out God’s provision every time we meet.
Boaz was so good to this poor widow, that she fell on her face and thanked him…
10 …“Why have I found favor in your sight that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?”
To humble Ruth there was no reason that she could see that he would even notice her, much less be so good to her.
11 Boaz replied 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.
12 “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.”
Boaz saw the goodness he was showing her as God showing her goodness.
He saw God’s hand of blessing on him as direct cause to enable him to give to Ruth.
He was the hand on the tool of wealth given to him by God.
Paul teaches this several times in the New Testament.
In 2 Corinthians 1, he tells believers
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
4 who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
God comforts us, so that we can comfort others in the same way.
We are conduits of God’s comfort.
And in the rest of this section he pours more on.
14 At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here, that you may eat of the bread and dip your piece of bread in the vinegar.” So she sat beside the reapers; and he served her roasted grain, and she ate and was satisfied and had some left.
15 When she rose to glean, Boaz commanded his servants, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not insult her.
16 “Also you shall purposely pull out for her some grain from the bundles and leave it that she may glean, and do not rebuke her.”
She ends up going home full, her stomach satisfied and her arms full of barley!
Sometimes God uses us to provide for others, like Ruth to Naomi, and sometimes God uses others to provide for us, like Boaz for Ruth!
Praise God for His provision through the hands of others!
Next, Ruth returns home to Naomi, and Naomi gives us our last way to show we can trust God to provide.
By trusting God’s provision in His direction v.19-23
By trusting God’s provision in His direction v.19-23
19 Her mother-in-law then said to her, “Where did you glean today and where did you work? May he who took notice of you be blessed.” So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, “The name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz.”
20 Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed of the Lord who has not withdrawn his kindness to the living and to the dead.” Again Naomi said to her, “The man is our relative, he is one of our closest relatives.”
21 Then Ruth the Moabitess said, “Furthermore, he said to me, ‘You should stay close to my servants until they have finished all my harvest.’ ”
22 Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his maids, so that others do not fall upon you in another field.”
23 So she stayed close by the maids of Boaz in order to glean until the end of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest. And she lived with her mother-in-law.
Naomi saw the giant load of barley that Ruth brought back, a whole ephah of beaten out, ready to cook barley!
An ephah was around 5 gallons, and was more than she would ever imagine.
She asks with much excitement
Ruth 2:19 “…Where did you glean today and where did you work? May he who took notice of you be blessed.”…
Ruth explains that it was a man named Boaz.
Now Naomi is sure that she understands what’s going on.
In the beginning of our passage, we were told that Ruth just happened to come to Boaz’s field, but Naomi knows this is the hand of God Himself.
Notice what she says…
20 Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed of the Lord who has not withdrawn his kindness to the living and to the dead.” Again Naomi said to her, “The man is our relative, he is one of our closest relatives.”
Naomi recognizes 2 things about this so-called happenstance.
First, it is from the lovingkindness of Yahweh.
Notice that the word Lord is in all caps.
This is a tradition that is used in our bibles for translating God’s name Yahweh.
It is done to respect that Holy Name, but if you don’t know that they do this, you can miss it.
Naomi is using God’s proper, covenantal name.
The name God gave to Moses when He sent him to rescue the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt.
May Boaz be blessed of Yahweh who has not withdrawn His kindness to the living and to the dead.
Yahweh’s kindness is a major theme of the Old Testament.
The word used for kindness is the Hebrew word hesed.
Over half of the times it is used in the Bible, it is used in the Book of Psalms.
Like in our Psalm today
6 Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Surely goodness and hesed will follow me all the days of my life.
Second, that Boaz is a kinsman redeemer.
The NASB translation says
Ruth 2:20 …“The man is our relative, he is one of our closest relatives.”
But the word for “our closest relatives” is the word for redeemer, like the ESV puts it
English Standard Version Chapter 2
“The man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers.”
Do you remember last time, when Naomi was trying to convince Ruth to return home?
She told her there was no hope that she would have a sons that would be able to marry them.
She was talking about this concept of Kinsman redeemer.
In her mind, there was no way there would be anyone who would be able to fulfil this role for Ruth.
But what do you know! The man in who’s field Ruth just happened to glean in today, who was so overly gracious to her, also just happened to be a close relative to her, a candidate for a kinsman redeemer!
Naomi catches what Yahweh is throwing!
She knows what He has been up to.
She is beginning to see the fuller picture.
Brothers and sisters, when we can’t see the story that God is writing for us, we can know that there is always more to the story.
Sometimes, we need someone to be able to point us to what God is doing, sometimes it’s hard for us to see it for ourselves.
And that is what Naomi is doing for Ruth.
Ruth seems to just think she had a good day at the field, but Naomi is putting the pieces together and pointing Ruth to the bigger picture.
Ruth tells her the rest of the story, that Boaz told her to come back and stay by his workes for protection and more food.
22 Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his maids, so that others do not fall upon you in another field.”
I don’t think Ruth’s physical protection was all she had in mind.
The wheels were turning about all that God was doing.
Conclusion
Conclusion
And when we see what God is doing, we should be immediately thinking of God’s hesed, lovingkindness, for us.
All the blessings we have are a gift of God’s abundant grace for us.
Ruth is just the story of a widowed Moabitess, whom God showed His overflowing provision for.
Dragged through the ringer of trials and suffering, but brought to the amazing grace of God’s providential care.
And here, we sit, surrounded by the same love we are reading about.
God worked out nature’s law, each other, and the direction of our lives to show how good a provider He is.
And we see this provision ultimately in Christ, His ultimate gift of grace, our very own kinsman redeemer.
I questioned whether I should include this or not, but there was a great 17th century poet named George Herbert.
He loved the Lord and His word, and was amazed by God’s grace in his life.
He wrote this poem that is very fitting for our passage.
The Message of Ruth: The Wings of Refuge ‘One of Our Nearest Kin’ (2:20b–23)
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lack’d anything.
A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
George Herbert (1593–1633)
