Ruth: the Faith of a Foreign Woman

So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.” At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner? ” Boaz replied, “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.” (Ruth 2:8-12 NIV)

The story of Ruth in scripture reveals the glorious grace of God in the midst of extreme difficulty.

Elimelek, his wife, Naomi, and their sons, Mahlon and Kilion move to neighboring Moab because there is severe famine in Bethlehem. While in Moab, Elimelek dies, leaving Naomi as a widow in a foreign land. Mahlon and Kilion marry Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth, and then they also die, leaving all three women as widows. If widows are not taken in and cared for by their family, they live lives of poverty and desperation.

Naomi hears that the famine has ended in Israel, and decides to move back to Bethlehem. She urges Orpah and Ruth to remain in Moab and depend upon their families to care for them. Orpah decides to stay behind, but Ruth has committed herself to Naomi, and to Naomi's God.

But Ruth replied, “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 even death separates you and me.” (Ruth 1:16-17 NIV)

So Naomi and Ruth return to Bethlehem, and Ruth goes to work, gleaning the fields, to provide food for them. God's Law provides shelter for foreigners and widows in Israel. His compassion is built into His Law.

“When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the LORD your God." (Leviticus 19:9-10 NIV)

As it turns out (by the grace of God and not just by chance) Ruth ends up gleaning in a field belonging to one of Elimelek's close relatives, Boaz. He stands in the line of relatives who are eligible and called to be a Kinsman-Redeemer in Elimelek's family.

In the Law of Israel, if a man dies childless, his oldest brother (or closest relative) is charged to marry the widow, produce an heir, and so keep the man's family name intact in Israel's history. Both the family name and the property of the deceased man transfers to the Kinsman-Redeemer. That means the relative who serves as Kinsman-Redeemer to Mahlon's widow would receive the family inheritance, keeping the land in the tribe and family.

Ruth offers herself as a possible wife for Boaz, and he is willing to redeem her, preserving Elimelek's and Mahlon's names in Israel. However, there is a closer potential Kinsman-Redeemer than Boaz. The closer relative declines redeeming Ruth, and Boaz marries her. They have a son, Obed. Obed eventually marries and his son, Jesse, becomes the father of David - the greatest king of Israel and a key member of the ancestral line of the Messiah, Jesus.

In this beautiful and compassion-filled account we see a picture of the great Kinsman-Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Ruth represents all of the Gentiles (non-Jews) of history, whom God still loves and wishes to redeem along with His covenant people, Israel. By her faith and faithfulness, she is grafted into the line of Israel and the Messiah. By our faith and faithfulness, we who are not Jews are grafted into the people of God. Ruth may be the clearest picture in the Old Testament of God's love for Gentiles.

Boaz pre-figures Jesus, our Messiah and Kinsman-Redeemer. Boaz shows favor to Ruth, redeems her from widowhood and poverty, and restores her inheritance as Mahlon's wife. Jesus shows favor to us, redeems us from sin and death, and restores our inheritance, which was lost in sin.

Two laws are in conflict in Boaz's redemption. The Israelites are forbidden to take wives from among the Moabites. And yet Boaz is commanded to redeem Mahlon's wife, who is a Moabitess. Grace and compassion are deeper and greater than the law that excludes the Moabites from God's holy nation. God's desire to redeem points to Jesus, who takes for Himself both Jew and Gentile as His bride, the Church!

As a Gentile, saved by grace through faith in the Kinsman-Redeemer, Jesus, I am grateful for the love of God for all fallen, broken sinners who cannot redeem themselves. That is me. And that is all of us. Thanks be to God for the amazing grace of redemption!