Chapter 18: A True Love Story

That points us to THE True Love Story

The book of Judges ended with the haunting reminder: In those days Israel had no king and everyone did as they saw fit. This shows us the core issue that each human heart has – we need a king to rule our hearts, otherwise we will end up like the people in Israel during that era. As the story of the Levite and his concubine teach us, this is not something we want. So how will Israel get a king? The books of Ruth, 1 Samuel, and 2 Samuel provide the answer.  

The book of Ruth is the prologue, the origin story of the future king.

The book of Ruth is structured in four chapters and tells the story of how God provides for two women: Naomi and Ruth. The situation is that in the days that Israel was ruled by the judges there was a famine in the land. This causes a certain man named Elimelech to move to the country of Moab, where presumably there was more food. One of the features of the book of Ruth is that the names of the people in the book are important. Elimelech means “My God is king”. This hints at the fact that even though these people lived during a period where Israel had no king, God is still sovereignly in control, working behind the scenes to complete the rescue plan he started in the Garden of Eden.

The famine causes Elimelech to move to Moab with his wife Naomi, and his two sons. When they get to Moab, the sons find Moabite wives named Orpah and Ruth. Shortly thereafter tragedy strikes and Elimelech and both his sons die, leaving the women in a serious predicament. In the culture of the day the husband provided for his wife and children, so if a woman was widowed she would have no source of income. To deal with the situation Naomi decides to go back to Israel, where the laws of the land provided ways for the down and out to find food.

As she prepares to go, her two daughters in law tell her they want to come with her. Naomi convinces Orpah to stay and find a new husband in Moab, but Ruth could not be persuaded. She tells Naomi in no uncertain terms: “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.” In doing so Ruth shows that she has turned from the idols of Moab to worship the true God, and seeing her determination, Naomi agrees to take her back with her to Israel.

We again see hints of God working behind the scenes through coincidence. They leave Moab during a famine to go back to Israel to find a new home. They move back to Bethlehem – a name which literally means “House of Bread”. Coincidence? I think not.

When Naomi and Ruth get back they start collecting food. Now Israel had a law that provided for widows and refugees to walk behind the harvesters in a field and collect all the crops that were dropped or left. Ruth goes to pick up the leftover grain, and she happens to find herself in the field of a man named Boaz. Coincidentally Boaz happens to be a kinsman redeemer. In Leviticus 25 and 27, God had decreed that if an Israelite died and he did not have a male heir to look after his remaining family, then the kinsman of the deceased man was to “redeem” the situation. This happened when the kinsman married the widow and provided a new son for the widow, or bought back any property lost or sold as a result of the husband’s passing. In order to redeem the lost property or person, the kinsman redeemer had to pay the redemption price – whatever the land was worth, or by agreeing to look after the widow as his wife.

As it turns out, Ruth happens to catch Boaz’s eye, and he is impressed with her diligence and loyalty to Naomi. He arranges things so that the harvester drop extra food for Ruth and so she is able to get enough food for both herself and Naomi. As the story progresses Naomi plans and schemes for Ruth to get married to Boaz. They concoct a plan where after Boaz spent a night partying, she would sneak into his room and go and lie down at his feet. She does so and Boaz wakes up startled in the middle of the night. Now scholars disagree on how much impropriety was involved during that night, but at the very least we have to admit that this was a dodgy way for Ruth to get Boaz to redeem her. Nevertheless, when Boaz realises that this is Ruth who he has had his eye on, he is concerned for her “noble character”. So she sneaks out in the morning before anyone could recognise her, but not before Boaz agrees that he would redeem her by marrying her.

After a bit of back and forth between Boaz and a relative who happened to be closer to Ruth and Naomi than he, Boaz finally marries Ruth. As the story draws to a close there is lots of joy – the elders and witnesses to the marriage speak blessings over Boaz and Ruth, the Lord enables Ruth to have a baby and Naomi rejoices because she now has a male heir. ‌The book of Ruth ends with a short genealogy which shows how the newborn baby, who was called Obed, became the father of Jesse, who was the father of David.

So What?

The question is so what? What does this delightfully heartwarming love story have to do with the big story scripture is telling? I can think of at least three things.

Firstly, the book of Ruth reminds us that there are no such things as coincidences. In the story it coincidentally happens to be a man whose name means “My God is King”, who kicks off a story that happens during the period when Israel “had no king and every man did as he saw fit”. It just so happens that the Moabite wife who one of the sons marry ends up being a person who would leave her people, and declare her allegiance to God. It just so happens that these women move back to live in “The House of Bread” at a time when they had no bread. It just so happened that the field they chose to collect food in, belongs to a righteous man who also happens to be their kinsman redeemer. It just so happens that Boaz falls in love with Ruth and agrees to marry her. He just so happens to be the great-great-grandfather of the greatest Old Testament king Israel would ever have: David.

These coincidences are not coincidences at all. In the same way God has been sovereignly working out his rescue plan throughout the rest of the Old Testament, he is still working out his plan in the book of Ruth. God will not let his plan be derailed by the actions of Israelites who leave the promised land in order to pursue the better life in a far-off land. He used this to bring back Ruth who would be a ancestor of David and ultimately Jesus himself. The Lord is and remains in control.

Secondly, this book reminds us that no matter how dark and evil the world around God’s people become, there will always be a remnant who remain true to God. The fact that this delightful love story could happen during a time when Israel had turned evil shows us that God preserves for himself a remnant throughout all the ages who will remain true to him. As the world around us “De-Christianises” we can take comfort in this.

Finally, Boaz is a picture of how a righteous kinsman redeemer acts. He paid the price to rescue a poor widow and took her into his family as his bride. Boaz points us to the other, greater Kinsman-Redeemer, Jesus. He too paid the price to rescue the spiritually poor people who would ultimately become his bride: the Church. As much as Ruth is a true love story, it points us to a deeper and grander love story. Coincidence? I think not.