Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.11UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.09UNLIKELY
Fear
0.11UNLIKELY
Joy
0.58LIKELY
Sadness
0.57LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.46UNLIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.28UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.84LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.89LIKELY
Extraversion
0.17UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.75LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.71LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
This is our 4th and final visit to this little treasure of Ruth this morning, and I know it has been useful to me in a number of ways - as I pray it has been also for you.
I’d like to do 3 things this morning.
Read through this closing chapter together, stopping to deal with some of the details and unfamiliar bits.
Let’s read through this closing chapter together, stopping to grapple with some of the details and unfamiliar customs, and then
Quickly review just a few of the lessons we’ve already culled from the book.
Focus in on what proves to be the main point of this book as it is unfolded in the 4th chapter.
Recap: If you haven’t been with us from the beginning - the events in the book of Ruth take place in Israel before it had established a central government.
So things are a tad messy in their society.
Due to a famine in the region around the city of Bethlehem a Jewish family of 4 migrated to a neighboring country to wait it out.
During that time, the head of the family, Elimelech, died leaving his widow - Naomi with her 2 sons.
In time, the sons married young ladies from this foreign land, and then the sons died too - leaving Naomi not only a widow, but bereft of her 2 sons as well.
Hearing that the famine was over, Naomi decides to go back home.
Her 2 daughters-in-law decide to go with her, but eventually the 1 goes back to her home and family.
The other - Ruth, a remarkable young woman, will not abandon her mother-in-law and returns to Bethlehem with her.
Once there tho, they have no real means of support.
So Ruth, taking advantage of God’s laws providing for the poor, goes out to gather up scraps from the barley and wheat harvests to feed the 2 of them.
In God’s providence, Ruth ends up in the fields of a relative of her mother-in-law’s.
This guy, Boaz, takes a shine to Ruth.
And in time, Naomi crafts a plan to try and get Ruth married off to this older, prominent and apparently wealthy relative.
We left the last chapter with Ruth having actually proposed to Boaz - and Naomi telling her that she’s pretty sure Boaz is going act on that proposal quickly.
As you might imagine, Ruth getting married to this guy would bring stability for them both.
But God has even bigger plans in store.
Plans that even include you and me - thousands of years later.
As you might imagine, Ruth getting married to this guy would bring stability for them both.
But God has even bigger plans in store.
Plans that even include you and me - thousands of years later.
Boaz is clearly fond of Ruth and has certain rights he can exercise here, but there is another, unnamed relative who sort of has first dibs.
And that needs to be sorted out.
That’s where we pick up the narrative.
Read out loud together with me:
Read out loud together with me
The gate of a city in that day, is where most business was conducted.
The prominent men - the elders of the community would gather daily to get the news of the town, talk about and transact business, and make community decisions.
In that society it took no less than 10 men to serve in this capacity to constitute a bona fide city or community.
The word “behold” here is significant.
It is kind of like: “wow! who’da thunk he’d come along right then?”
But there is Boaz looking to sort out the business at hand, hoping to marry Ruth, and the very guy he needs to settle with shows up right on cue.
As we’ve seen several times already, it is a marker of how God is orchestrating things behind the scenes.
As He is in your life and mine.
So Boaz calls to him to sit down so he can lay out the details of what’s up.
Vs. 2 noting Boaz “took ten men of the elders” intimates he had some social clout.
The original carries the tone that he called a meeting they were kind of obliged to come because of who he was.
Again, let’s read aloud together:
The actions are clear on the face of them, but need some explanation.
Back when Israel invaded Canaan, God divvied up the land among the 12 tribes.
And He made a law that no tribal land could permanently be transferred from one tribe to another.
If you were from the tribe of Judah for instance, like Naomi and Boaz’s families, you could not permanently sell your land to a foreigner or even another Jewish tribe like Dan, Asher, Benjamin etc.
In fact, even every family piece of land came under this law.
The most you could do - if you got into a financial crunch - was more like what we would call a lease.
And at that, you could only lease it out for a maximum of 50 years.
Every 50 years in Israel God had instituted what He called a “Jubilee’.
At that Jubilee, all such land transactions were voided and in fact all debts had to be forgiven.
It was a self-correcting economy.
And land values were tied to it.
So if you “bought” or leased land, it was only worth the number of crops you might be able to get from it in the remaining years before the next Jubilee.
Land values declined until Jubilee, then reset to maximum.
And other family members had first rights to redeem the land - to buy it back - and bring it back into the family.
They could buy out the lease.
So it appears that Elimelech had leased out his land to get cash during the famine.
Now, Naomi coming home didn’t have access to that asset.
And she apparently had no money to buy out the lease.
But she did have 2 relatives of her husband’s who could do it.
Boaz, and this unnamed guy who was an even closer relative giving him the first option.
So Boaz lays it out.
Naomi is back in town, and she wants to sell that land to another family member to support herself, but it is leased.
Will you buy out the lease and wipe out her debt?
Because if you don’t want to - I will.
Apparently there were a lot of years left on the lease.
And the guy says: “yeah!
I’ll buy it out.”
Figuring he’ll get the use of the land and the cash crops until the next Jubilee.
A shrewd investment AND helping a family member in need.
A win-win.
But there’s a hitch.
Read with me:
Now this entailment to also marry Ruth was not a law requirement.
This appears to be a stipulation Naomi herself had added to the deal.
And at this point, Redeemer A backs out.
His reasoning is this: Due to the way the law worked, if he had just bought the land, being a family member, and Naomi having no heirs, the land would permanently be his.
This would be enlarging his estate but still within the family.
But, if he has to take Ruth in the deal - a provision in the law called Leverite marriage -
Leverite being an old word for brother-in-law -
would kick in.
And that would really complicate things.
Under this law, IF he married Ruth, he would be duty bound to try and produce an heir with her.
An heir who would eventually inherit the land.
This meant he would spend the bucks to buy out the lease, only to have to turn the land over to the heir later on - he wouldn’t be able to keep it permanently.
So he’d lose major money in the deal.
Hence his statement, “it would ruin my own inheritance.”
It would lose most if not all of its investment value.
No thank you.
So Boaz says - Great! Let’s formalize your refusal and the exercise of my option to buy it, and marry Ruth, and raise up an heir.
And I don’t care what it costs me.
It’s worth it.
So:
The deal is consummated and witnessed, and not just the elders now - for it appears this whole discussion had attracted a crowd - but the whole group who had been listening in give their hearty approval and blessing.
Let’s read it:
They said basically 3 things:
My this union prove to be fruitful - like Rachel and Leah who were considered the mothers of all 12 tribes.
May your (Boaz’s) reputation increase in light of your willingness to act so nobly and redemptively.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9