Welcome to the Reading the Bible Daily with Dave podcast. This podcast is devoted to helping increase your daily exposure to God's Word with a short scripture reading and brief commentary on key ideas, themes, and theology in each chapter. Now please join your host, Dave Jenkins, for today's episode. All right, everybody, welcome back to the Reading the Bible Daily with Dave podcast. My name is Dave and I'm the host for this show. And today is March 14th. And today we're going to look at Ruth 2, 1 through 21. Now, just by way of reminder, every day I read from one chapter of God's Word. So today, Ruth 2. And then I offer a brief explanation of key ideas, themes, and the theology in that chapter. My goal is to get you into God's Word for about 5 to 20 minutes or so every day. So let's look now at Ruth 2, 1-21. In Ruth 2, 1-21 says this, Now Naomi had a relative of her husband's, a worthy man of the clan of Amalek, whose name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of the grain, after him in whose sight I shall find favor. And she said to her, go, my daughter. And so she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers. And she happened to come to the part of the field to Boaz, who was of the clan of Ameliuk. And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And she said to the reapers, the Lord be with you. And they answered, the Lord bless you. Then Boaz said to his young woman who was in charge of the reapers, Whose young woman is this? And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, She is the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. She said, Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers. So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest. Then Boaz said to Ruth, now listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my youngest women. Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn. Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground and said to him, why have I found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me since I am a foreigner? But Boaz answered her, all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. The Lord repay you for what you have done and a full reward be given to you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge. Then she said, I have found favor in your eyes, my Lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants. And at mealtime, Boaz said to her, come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine. And so she sat beside the reapers and he passed to her the roasted grain. And she ate until she was satisfied and she had some leftover. And when she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men saying, let her glean even among the sheaves and do not reproach her. And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean and do not rebuke her. And so she gleaned in the field until evening, and she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an epith of barkley. And she took it up and went into the city. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned, and she also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied. And after her mother-in-law said to her, where did you glean today? And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you. So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, "'The man's name with whom I work today is Boaz.' And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, "'May he be blessed by the Lord, "'whose kindness is not forsaken the living or the dead.' "'Now Naomi also said to her, "'The man is a close relative of ours, "'one of our redeemers.' "'And Ruth the Moabite said, "'Beside,' he said to me, "'you shall keep close by my young men "'until they have finished all my harvest.' And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, it is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, lest in another field you be assaulted. So she kept close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and the wheat harvest, and she lived with her mother-in-law. Seeking is basic to life and an activity that we share with all living things. Animals seek food and water and acceptance in a social group of some kind. Mates a place to live and protection from predators. Human beings seek things too, although we would describe them differently. We seek the means to earn a living and provide for ourselves acceptance, companionship, a life partner, a home to live in, career opportunities, and the joy of having children and raising a family. We also seek more than this because we have greater capacities and aspirations than animals. We seek moral purity, spiritual experiences, and fulfillments. We are aware of God and desire a relationship with Him. The search for food, though, is the most basic search of all, and for some the very poor or those in situations of famine or war It can become a never-ending daily obsession that takes precedence over everything else. For them, seeking food is the most basic form of the struggle to stay alive or to keep their children alive. Begging may be the only option that they actually have. And so when Ruth and Naomi arrived in Bethlehem, they're in great need. They have desired and needed all the things that you and I do. They need acceptance. They need love. They need family life. They need emotional and spiritual wholeness. But the first issue was sustenance. How could they survive long enough to get everything else that they needed? Begging would be an unbearable humiliation, and fortunately, however, they had come into an environment where law and custom were shaped by the law of Moses, and that law obligated landowners to make provision for people in precisely Ruth and Naomi's situation, especially at harvest time. Leviticus 19, 9-10 says this, and when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner. I am the Lord your God. Deuteronomy 24, 19 says, When you reap your harvest in the field and forget a sheaf in your field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the follower, and the widow that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. Now, gleaning may not have been much better than begging, but at least it was a form of work and therefore enabled the poor to retain a modicum of dignity. It also gave the rich an opportunity to show generosity in a way that God had commanded and promised to bless. So, with her Israelite background, Naomi should have known about this. She probably still did somewhere in the back of her mind. She was still too depressed, though, to seize the opportunity that it gave her. It is Ruth, who may have little, if any, acquaintance with the Israelite law, who sees what must be done and takes the initiative. 2 And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of the grain after him, in whose sight I shall find favour. Naomi simply goes along, Go, my daughter. If Naomi were in a different state of mind, it might be reasonable to attribute either shrewdness or blame to her. for letting Ruth go like this. As a young woman, Ruth would be more likely to catch the eye of the men working in the field and perhaps get a favorable response from them. On the other hand, as a female and a foreigner, she may have been more vulnerable to abuse, especially given the moral and spiritual chaos of the judges' period in which a case, Naomi could be seen as careless of Ruth's welfare. More likely, Naomi was incapable of anything but just going along with the flow. She was too immobilized by her depression to act herself, and if Ruth was willing to go, so be it. What does this show, very clearly, though, is Ruth's strength of character and determination to support Naomi, whatever risk that might have exposed her to. Ruth was a woman of resolve, but it must nevertheless have been with some trepidation that she ventured out among the Reapers, being careful to keep to the margins of the field and not impede their work in any way. In particular, she must have been acutely aware of her foreignness, and to her eyes the foreignness of her surroundings. John Keats sought to capture this moment in his ode to the night-tale, imagining how the delightful song that he heard one summer's day in England might have been heard by others in times and places very different from his own when he wrote. Perhaps the self-same song found a path. Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home, she stood in tears amid the alien corn. Now, however sad, and tears are not quite the right words to describe Ruth. She was more resilient than that, but she would not have been human if she was not apprehensive and perhaps a little wistful for home. where she would not have evoked the kind of curiosity and gossip that she might hear in Bethlehem. She need not to have worried, though, because some things were going to go well for her today, and even better in the days to come. Her fortunes began to rise with an apparent stroke of good luck. Verse 3 says she happened to come in the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Ilmiliac. As the book progresses, we're going to have more and more reason to reflect on whether what we are seeing in such events is just good fortune or the hidden hand of the sovereign hand of God. But this happenstance is certainly a most promising one. As the owner of the field, at least the part of it that Ruth finds herself in, Boaz is in a position to offer her protection, and if he's generous, material help. and as a relative of Naomi's former husband, he is likely to feel himself obligated to help her, something Ruth stands to benefit from, at least indirectly. Much of it depends on the kind of person Boaz is, and whether or not he will show any interest in Ruth or even take notice of her. The first indication we are given of Boaz's character is the way he greets his employees and how they respond. Verse 4 says, And Boaz came from Bethlehem, and he said to the reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered, The Lord bless you. So Boaz is apparently a godly Israelite who has the respect of his workers, and the double reference to the Lord suggests that they may have indeed been more than luck involved in Ruth being in this particular field at this moment. There is a further hint of this, too, in the word behold, which carries the idea of suddenness or surprise. No sooner did Ruth happen to arrive in this particular field than, behold, so does Boaz, the landowner, a relative, and a God-fearing Israelite at that. Can this just be chance? And things just keep getting better and better for Ruth, because Boaz does notice her, and his curiosity is aroused. Verses 5-7 says, Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, whose young woman is this? And the servants who were in charge of the reapers answered, She is the young Moabite woman who came back with Daomi from the country of Moab. She said, Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers. So she came, and she continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest. Now Boaz has given a lot to think about here. Ruth is young. She's a Moabite. She's arrived with Naomi and therefore is possibly related. She's poor, which is why she's gleaning. She's humble and courteous. She's politely asked permission to do it, and she's hardworking. She's toiled all day. Our first impression of Boaz were positive, and so are his general impressions of youth. Is it by chance or the providence of God that is bringing them together? That is the question this intriguing scene poses for us today. Now there is a serious impediment, Rus' ethnicity. Israel's relationship with the Moabites was a complicated one that went right back to the time of Abraham. It had taken a particularly nasty turn in the time of Moses. As a consequence of the latter, a permanent ban had been placed on the Moabites. They were never to be admitted into Israel, the law of Moses forbade it. Deuteronomy 23, 3-6 says this, No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord, even to the tenth generation. None of them may enter the assembly of the Lord forever, because they did not meet with you with bread and water on the way when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia to curse you. but the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam. Instead, the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you. Because the Lord your God loved you, you shall not seek their peace or their prosperity all your days forever. Now, given this background, if Boaz, the pious Israelite, finds himself attracted to Ruth the Moabite, this has the potential to become a very complicated story indeed. The sense that Ruth and Boaz are being drawn together grows stronger here in a scene full of need on the one hand and gentle solitude on the other. Boaz speaks of reward in verse 12 when he says, But Ruth, acutely aware of her vulnerability, speaks only of finding favor, comfort, and kindness. Verses 10 and 13 of our chapter today says this, then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground and said to him, why have I found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me since I am a foreigner? I have found favor in your eyes, my Lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants. Binding these two complimentary perspectives on the situation together is the hint of obligation inherent in family ties and the duty of care, particularly to the poor. that comes with the possession of wealth. And a special quality is given to all of this, of course, by the fact that Boaz is a man and Ruth is a young woman. Now, Boaz's concern for Ruth is driven partly by an awareness that not all men are as he is. He orders his men not to touch Ruth in verse 9 and warns her not to go elsewhere lest in another field you be assaulted in verse 22. All is not sweetness and light in quiet Bethlehem. Dark threats lurk in the wings. And against this background, Boaz acts as Ruth's provider and protector. He allows her to glean in his field. He gives her food and water, draws her in from the margins to the center of the social group he superintends, and sends her home with plenty to share with Naomi. There is generosity here that borders on extravagance. He even instructs his men to deliberately pull out some stocks from the sheaves for Ruth to gather in verse 16. It may be nothing more than true piety as Boaz observes the spirit of the law, not just the letter. But it may also be the right to see more in his actions than even Boaz himself does, or perhaps more than he allows himself to see at this stage. At any rate, this is kindness that is not mere compliance with legal obligation. It is far richer than that. There are other young women in this scene, but Boaz has eyes only for Ruth. Interestingly, however, nothing is said about Ruth's appearance. Whether or not she was beautiful appears to be irrelevant to Boaz. What has impressed him is her character. Verse 11 says, All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me in how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. Ruth is a woman who has suffered and shown resolution, loyalty, and courage. Above all, she has shown kindness to her bereaved mother-in-law and has been willing to sacrifice her own prospects to do so. This is what Boaz finds so impressive about Ruth and what moves him to show kindness to her in return. Now, in this scene, kindness answers to kindness, and in this pointed way in which it is expressed, it shows promise of blossoming into something more. Now, there is something else about Ruth that Boaz has noted, and this seems to have taken precedence in his mind over her foreignness. In fact, for him, it has effectively removed her from the category of foreign altogether. Ruth has not just left her native land and her father's house, she also left her foreign gods. Verse 12 says, "...the Lord repay you, the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge." We can almost see the wheels turning inside Boaz's head at this point. Moabites have been placed under a ban of eternal exclusion, for cursing and seducing them into the worship of their gods, as we saw in Numbers 22 and Numbers 25. But what of a Moabite who abandons those gods and embraces the Lord God of Israel? And what if she is also poor, an alien, and a widow, one of the very people the law commands Israelites to protect? What does it mean to truly keep the law in those circumstances? Would Boaz be wrong to embrace such a one? The answer that seems to be forming in his mind and showing itself in his actions is that he would not, and the rest of the book confirms that he is right. All this is pulled together and set in a larger theological framework as Luth returns to Naomi, and the chapter draws to a close. Naomi is suddenly aroused from her emotional stupor by the news that Ruth has met Boaz, for Naomi knows something about him that Ruth does not. Boaz is not just a relative, but a redeemer in verse 20. It is one of those crystallizing moments in a story when the plot changes gears and Latin possibilities suddenly rise to the surface. Naomi is aware of the special obligations that belong to a Redeemer in Israel law and custom. Now we're going to talk about this as this story progresses, but Naomi is already energized by hope and suddenly able to see not only her circumstances, but God himself in a new light, which she voices in a double blessing in verses 19 through 20, which says this, Blessed be the man who took notice of you. May he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead. Now in the kindness of Boaz, Naomi perceives the kindness of God and knows herself to be the object of it all. All Naomi has done was let Ruth go. She was incapable of anything else. But one apparently chance event had fallen another and yet another until the evidence of God's hand in it all had become unmistakable. And the grain that Ruth brings home to Naomi—there's a lot of it—is a handsome foretaste of even better things to come, for which Naomi can now dare to hope. There is the hint of a complication in the phrase, one of our redeemers, in verse 20, but for the moment it scarcely registers on anybody's consciousness. Nothing can cloud Ruth's satisfaction and Naomi's joy at what has just taken place. Boaz is the only Redeemer who matters. Ruth continues to glean in his field and stays with Naomi in verse 23 while they, and we, await further developments. Our observations on this chapter have focused on Ruth. There are also other seekers here, however. Naomi's seeking has been feeble and lacking energy. In fact, it has almost been entirely passive. All she has contributed to her seeking is to allow it to take place. But she has found God to be kind not just to Ruth, but to her as well. And when she refers to God being kind to the living and the dead in verse 20, she describes the change that His kindness has already begun to bring about in her own life. Once she was dead, or virtually so, now she lives, because God has been merciful to her, even though her seeking has been so feeble. Boaz too is a seeker of sorts, trying to work out the right course of action for him as a pious Israelite faced with a very complex situation. Should he exclude Ruth the Moabitess or welcome her, given her situation, and our own perplexing, apparently conflicting obligations under the law of God. And we sense by the end of this chapter that the seeker has been found by godly discernment and has begun to see clearly what is right and pleasing in a particular situation. And finally, God himself is a seeker in this chapter. Behind all the chance events that work for Ruth and Naomi's good is his hidden providence as his kindness eventually seeks them out in their need and provides for them. Ruth and Naomi make the wonderful, heart-stopping, surprising discovery by the end of the chapter that God has been seeking them. Now two great lessons emerge for us from this second chapter of Ruth. First, applying the Word of God to the messy business of life requires great wisdom. All of it is inspired by God and carries the stamp of His authority. So all of it is to be honored and obeyed. However, treating it as a set of absolute rules that must be applied in the same direct way in every situation, regardless of the intention behind them or of the complexities of particular cases, simply is not going to do. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees of his day for failing to distinguish between the lesser and the greater matters of the law, magnifying the former and neglecting the latter in Matthew 23-23. The result was a harsh legalism that failed to express the divine concern for justice and compassion that was the real heart of the law and lay behind all of the commandments. The truth is that the ban on the Moabites was given to prevent Israel from ever again being harmed by Moab or seduced into worshipping its gods. It was never intended to exclude somebody like Ruth who had abandoned those gods and taken refuge in the Lord. Any more than the ban on the Canaanites was intended to exclude the harlot Rehob, who was in awe of Israel's God and decided to cast in her lot with him and his people. If proof is needed, it is found in the way that Ruth and Rahab are both included in the genealogy of Jesus that opens the very New Testament that we believe in in Matthew. The way that the book of Ruth ends with blessing upon blessing, it leaves us no doubt that Boaz was a law-keeper, not a law-breaker. In Ruth's case, he was absolutely right in letting his concern for the poor, the alien, and the widow take precedence over the ban on the Moabites. This is something that evangelicals in particular need to note very, very carefully. We are right to honor the Bible as the inspired Word of God and make it the final judge of our beliefs and practices, but we too need discernment in knowing how to apply it to the complexities of life, lest we make the same mistake the Pharisees did and end up out of step with the very God whose Word it is. May God grant us discernment. The second great lesson of this passage has to do with the kindness of God. He rewards seekers whether they seek resolutely, as Ruth did, or in perplexity, like Boaz, or whether, like Naomi, they barely have the energy or the desire to seek it at all. and particularly those like Ruth who seek refuge in the God of Israel will find, to their great surprise that He has already been seeking them, and the treasure He has hidden in a field, so to speak, for them to find is nothing other than a Redeemer, somebody who is able and willing to meet their deepest needs. More riches are yet to unfold from the book of Ruth, but we have already discovered its greatest treasure, the astonishing kindness of God. Well, I want to thank you for listening or watching today's episode of Reading the Bible Daily with Dave. My name is Dave, and today is March 14th, and we've looked at Ruth 2, 1-23. Until tomorrow, may the Lord richly bless you and keep you. Thank you for listening to today's episode of Reading the Bible Daily with Dave podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. Be sure to also like, subscribe, or follow Servants of Grace on Facebook, Instagram, X, or YouTube. We appreciate your support.