When Ruth came to her mother-in-law, Naomi asked, “How did it go, daughter?” Then she told her everything Boaz had done for her.

Love, faithfulness, kindness and a good God that cares deeply for His children – this is the lovely little story of Ruth. It also gives us insight into the unlikely couple that became the great-grandparents of David, in the lineage of Jesus. And we find in its brief four chapters confirmation that God’s love and kindness and God’s plans are one and the same. They twine together over time to create a beautiful tapestry out of seemingly small and unrelated events, like so many threads.

Like the stories of David and Jesus, the story told in Ruth starts in Bethlehem, where Naomi’s husband Elimelech was struggling to keep the farm going in a period of drought and famine. He decided that he, Naomi and their two sons would go to Moab, where conditions were better.

There, Elimelech died (perhaps because he didn’t trust God’s provision in the promised land?), his two sons married Moabite women, Ruth and Oprah, and then also died, leaving Naomi far from home in a foreign land, with her two Moabite daughters-in-law. She decided to return to Bethlehem and told Ruth and Oprah they should stay in Moab, with their people. Oprah agreed to stay, but Ruth was  undeterred:

“Where you go I will go and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.” (1:16)

Imagine two women, broken and alone, traveling a long distance across lands where they were open game for robbers, rapists, slave-traders and murders. It’s not entirely different today, as many women still suffer economic loss from widowhood and divorce and find themselves alone and vulnerable in a world that can be all too ready to harm and abuse them in their weakness. For Naomi and Ruth, though, their travels were so uneventful that the Bible covered the entire trip with only this:

So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem the whole town stirred because of them and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?” (1:19)

Obviously, God was with them and protected them as they returned to the land He had chosen for them. Pray that women in similar straights today find the same comfort and protection under His wing!

God watched over them by putting Ruth before Boaz, a wealthy landowner, a distant relative and their “kinsman redeemer.” As Ruth and Naomi had returned home destitute, Ruth went out to glean the fields – to pick up the left-over and spilled grain after the harvest. She ended at Boaz’s field, where she caught his eye, and he generously made sure she was able to glean more than enough grain for herself and Naomi.

By the end of the harvest, he was smitten with her (thanks to Naomi, who coached her daughter-in-law well), and announced to the people:

“Today you are witnesses that I have bought from Naomi all the property of Elimelech … I have also acquired Ruth the Moabite, Mahlon’s widow, as my wife, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property, so his name will not disappear from among his family or the town records.” (4:9-10)

To our ears, this may sound like what we’d call a good excuse. Couldn’t he just have said, “I think Ruth is terrific so I’ve asked her to marry me?” Well, no. The Hebrew’s concern for lineage, chronicled in Numbers and mentioned in Ruth and many other books – right down to the Gospels’ first lines, as Matthew lays out Jesus’ lineage in Matthew 1:1-17 – is an affirmation of their beliefs.

We are much less concerned about it today. It’s another loss, another separation from God, for in most cases, our forefathers were closer to God than we are. In Israel, God rewarded this care for lineage by using the tradition to bring together Boas and Ruth, thus fore-ordaining David and Jesus.

Ruth is also a book that shows the Bible to be a true book about real people, with tales of God using behavior that is maybe a little less than godly – though certainly not sinful – to carry out His ends. We see Naomi coaching Ruth on how to … well … be a hottie. She helped Ruth with her wardrobe, make-up and scents as they prepared for the harvest celebration. She told Ruth to wait until Boaz was asleep, then to lift his blanket and sleep at his feet. This seductive flirtation helped to solidify the strong feelings Boaz already had for Ruth, leading to his redeeming of her, and their marriage.

This flirtatiousness aside, we see in Ruth example after example of virtuous behavior. Ruth loved her mother-in-law and Naomi loved her. They loved their God and chose Israel over Moab. They behaved virtuously and worked instead of begged. Boaz, too, worked hard. He treated his workers well and exhibited kindness and charity towards Ruth. He followed tradition and the prescribed rules. For all this, God smiled upon them and let the best possible outcome grow out of multiple tragedies and hardships.

Their place in God’s plan is foreshadowed by the Elder’s blessing of Boaz:

May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel … through the offspring the Lord gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah. (4:11-12)

There’s that lineage fixation again! Boaz came from Tamar’s son Perez (Perez, Hezron, Ram, Aminadab, Nashon, Salmon, Boaz), and from him and Ruth came Obed, then Jesse, then David. Matthew 1:6-16 traces the generations from David to Jesus, 27 generations later.

Thought: We can’t know what God is doing at any moment, which is why it is so important to honor God in every moment.

Prayer:  Father, I’ve seen the story of Ruth how important family is to you. Help me today to honor this by loving and honoring my family and by being a living example to them of your love. In the Holy name of Jesus, amen.