Daughter 1

[Brad Fox]

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is the tiny book of Ruth.  At four pages, it is brief, but jam-packed with theology and practical lessons for our lives.  If I had to summarize it in a few bullet points, these would do:

 

• Our condition is hopeless unless God intervenes in our lives.  We can’t do it by ourselves.
• How we treat each other as men and women will affect others long beyond our lifespan
• Our lives can be a redemptive analogy for God’s love.  Other people can see the risen Christ through our lives, if lived in a God-honoring way.
• Pain and destruction in a family line can be made into a blessing as long as we react positively to it.

 

At first glance, it appears to be a book about women, and one in particular, Ruth.  The book opens with Ruth, her mother-in-law, and sister-in-law all mourning their husbands who were father and sons to each other.  They are in a land foreign to Israel, and hostile to it.  Before the marriages, the now-deceased father, his wife and two sons had left Israel because of a famine, seeking new food sources.  In the new land, the sons had married foreign girls, trying to move on with their lives in spite of the separation from their homeland. 

 

Destitute and resigned to their loss of security, the three women decide to head back to Israel to confront their fate.  There, the mother-in-law, Naomi, has family who may decide to help her, but are in no way under any obligation to do so.  As they are journeying, Naomi, bids the two daughters-in-law to leave her and seek a new life.  She realizes that a widowed Israelite woman has no standing in society, that all her rights and privileges died with her husband.  Naomi wants to spare her daughters-in-law the pain and struggle that lies ahead for her.  Embittered about her lot in life, she tries to drive them off for their own good.  One obediently leaves, but the other one, Ruth, has learned to unconditionally love her mother-in-law, in spite of Naomi’s irritable, depressed behavior.  She states her intent in one of the most inspirational, beloved words of literature, often repeated in the sacred pledges of marriage:

 

“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.”

 

This is an amazing pledge from a young woman coming out of Moabite culture.  The Moabites had a horrendous heritage of child sacrifice.  They wanted to appease their idol-god, Molech.  Young babies and children were laid on the superheated idol and incinerated!  How could she go against everything she had been raised to revere and understand?  Something about the relationships she saw in her dead husband’s family had convinced her that there was a higher God, one who loved people and inspired them to live for Him.  Apparently she had been vastly changed by the God she encountered through Naomi and her men-folk.

 

As the story progresses, the women arrive in Israel and set about eking out a living the best they can.  Ancient civilizations, such as Israel, had no social safety net for helpless people such as Naomi and Ruth.  No soup kitchens; no social services or job training; no medical care.  It was largely left up to each extended family to care for its own (much as is the case in many third world countries today).  The only provision that Israel had for down-and-outers was to allow them to “glean” crops or fruit that had been missed by conventional harvesting crews.  This was no way to get rich, but the possibility existed that one could at least feed herself. 

 

So at the urging of Naomi, Ruth set off into the fields surrounding Bethlehem to see what she could glean.  Working hard in the fields, she attracted the attention of one Boaz, a successful farmer who is a faithful follower of the One true God.  But there’s a subplot to this innocent encounter; he’s also a blood relative of her deceased husband.  As he greets his workers upon his arrival at the fields, he learns that this young woman has been working diligently in the heat in order to gather enough grain for the day’s bread for she and Naomi.  Impressed, he calls her to himself and graciously offers her his protection and resources.  He says:

 

“My daughter, listen to me.  Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here.  Stay here with my servant girls.  Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the girls.  I have told the men not to touch you.  And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.”

 

Wow!  He called her “my daughter”!  His first words to her imply safety, security, care and concern; even love!  She’s already part of his adoptive family!  “Don’t go” he twice exhorts her, as if he fears losing someone precious!  He’s arranged for a social network of young women her own age to work with, and protection from the wandering eyes and thoughts of the young men in his employ.  He’s making it very difficult for her to consider leaving his side!

 

She literally bows face down to his display of concern and says:

 

“Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me – a foreigner”?

 

To which he replies:

 

“I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband – how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before.  May the Lord repay you for what you have done.  May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”

 

She responded, "May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord.  You have given me comfort and have spoken kindly to your servant - though I do not have the standing of your servant girls.”

 

Moments later, Boaz tells his men to provide a few extra stalks of wheat from the harvested sheaves so that Ruth will find plenty to eat.  They are not to hinder her work in any way

 

This is the beginning of a beautiful relationship, the telling of which has lasted over 3,000 years.  The story is meaningful on several levels.  First and foremost, it is a foreshadowing of Jesus’ love for us.  But it is also significant from a purely relational perspective of human experience.  And it is a story that figures prominently in the genealogy of Jesus. 

 

It wasn’t until I chanced upon a reading of Matthew 1:5 some years ago that I came to realize that Boaz was the son of Rachab, the harlot (prostitute) of Jericho.  Because Rachab had helped and protected the spies who had infiltrated her city, the Israelites spared her and the others living in her house.  She eventually married a Hebrew leader, and her family became established in Israel. 

 

It is interesting to see how protective Boaz is of Ruth.  He even has to warn his own men to keep from troubling her, and place her under the protective support of his servant girls.  He knew who she was; that she was a foreigner and possibly someone who didn’t worship his God.  But growing up in Rachab’s house, he must have at least known about her former occupation and reputation.  He might have even been teased or disparaged about it.  So he is very sensitive to this young woman’s plight, and goes out of his way to make her feel welcome and safe, as was done for his own mother. 

 

Boaz’ behavior may seem kind and admirable to us, but it was incredible for a man of his time.  Men just didn’t address women in public.  And  a dead man’s wife was seen as a liability.  Next of kin were beholden to marry such a woman so the deceased would have descendants who could inherit his estate. 

 

The fact that he called her “daughter” is amazing to me.  How endearing, how personal can one get?  After reading this some time ago, I remembered that Jesus himself once called another woman by that name when he was healing her of her unstoppable menstrual bleeding.  What an honor to be called daughter, when you don’t have any standing to make that claim!  Another irony:  Ruth took shelter under the wings of the Israelite God; the bleeding woman was healed by the wing-shaped sleeves of Jesus’ robe. 

 

And Jesus, too, had high regard for women, just like his great-great-grandfather Boaz.  He was often protecting them against men or accepting them for who they could become, not rejecting them for who they were.  Boaz is a remarkable foreshadow of who Jesus would become.  It is fascinating for me to think that Jesus has these imperfect, yet faithful women in His lineage.  And He had so many loving, faithful women friends in His life who went through thick and thin times with Him, especially at the dangerous end of His life.  This fact speaks a word of acceptance into my own life.  It also makes me cherish women in general, and especially those in my life.