Redeemed Through Divine Design

Ruth 3:1 – 18

 

“Hope for the best, plan for the worst.” Most folks have heard that saying, or some version of it many times. Some people are excellent at planning for the worst, making contingency plans for many situations and scenarios. Others, like me, are not so much. I’m a naturally optimistic person, and I take challenges and bumps in the road as they come.

 

But in some situations, it is imperative to have contingency plans in place. Fire in the house? Better have a plan with alternate routes out of the house just in case. Going on a road trip? Better have some idea of what to do in case of car trouble, bad weather, or awful traffic. Life insurance is one large contingency plan.

 

Even our government has contingency plans. The United States presidential line of succession saw its first version in the U.S. Constitution: Article II, Section 1, Clause 6. There it outlined how the V.P. would assume the presidency in case of death, resignation, inability, or removal of the sitting president.

 

In 1947, the Presidential Succession Act was adopted, and it was last revised in 2006 and details presidential succession from the V.P. to House Speaker, President Pro. Temp. of the Senate, and then through the Cabinet. Never in our country’s history has anyone beyond the V.P. assumed the presidency.

 

But having an extended line of succession like we do serves a valid purpose. In the 1950’s, during the Cold War and amid fears of a nuclear attack, our government began a practice of selecting a member of the president’s cabinet to be the Designated Survivor when events had most government officials in one place.

 

The D.S. would be kept at an undisclosed location to preserve the continuity of our government in case someone attacked our government to destabilize our country. This fear was reignited after 9/11, so much so a TV show was made about it.

 

As elaborate as that contingency plan sounds, it doesn’t hold a candle to all the scenarios and situations God accounted for in His law.

The Torah, the law of God as revealed through Moses and recorded in the Pentateuch, was quite comprehensive. It covered moral laws, which included the Ten Commandments, and laws about justice and charity, sexual conduct, and ethical behavior. It covered ceremonial and ritual laws that included dietary laws, laws about sacrifices and offerings, ritual purity, and festivals and holy days.

 

It also includes civil and judicial laws that include property laws, laws regarding slavery and labor, restitution and fines, and relevant to what is happening in the Book of Ruth, family laws that dealt with marriage, inheritance, and specific obligations of the brother-in-law of a childless widow. God’s design of a redeemer.

 

As chapter 2 ended last week, Naomi revealed to Ruth that Boaz is a close relative, one of their redeemers. Even though Ruth in that moment may not have fully understood what that meant, Naomi did and she waited patiently for something to come from it.

 

Remember that Ruth gleaned in Boaz’s field through the end of both the barley and wheat harvests, a good eight weeks. That’s how much time passes between chapter 2 and chapter 3, our passage for today. Let’s read God’s Word together: Ruth 3:1 – 18.

 

Right away in v.1 Naomi points out the problem, Ruth has no resting place, no safe place to land, no place to call home. Naomi here takes on the role of a loving father, who calls Ruth “my daughter,” and identifies both Ruth’s need for a provider, and, in v.2, the suitor who can provide for Ruth, Boaz.

 

The word Manoah, which means resting place, comes from the same root of the word used in 1:9 when Naomi was trying to send her daughter-in-law’s back to their people and she prayed that God would grant them rest in the home of a husband. From the beginning of their journey back to Bethlehem Naomi’s concern has been for her daughter-in-law’s wellbeing.

 

Here Naomi says that finding Ruth a husband is so that it may be well with her. Naomi wants to the removal of the reproach, the embarrassment, of widowhood and destitution from Ruth. She wants to see the calming of Ruth’s anxiety over the future. As Naomi puts it, her only motivation here is the welfare of her daughter-in-law.

So, she comes up with a plan. She points out that Boaz, who has already been looking after Ruth, is their relative, and wouldn’t you know it he’s going to be winnowing barely tonight at his threshing floor. I had to look up winnowing, because all I’ve ever done harvest corn and forage for silage, and not grain. Winnowing is to remove the chaff by a current of air, like a breeze. And often, nighttime offered better breezes for winnowing.

 

So, Naomi tells Ruth to get ready to go out. Wash up, dab on some perfume, and to put on her outdoors dress, her outer garment. This garment was less about being attractive and more about being warm, since she was going out at night.

 

She tells Ruth to go down to the threshing floor where Boaz is working and will be spending the night. While it was normal for landowners to check out their fields and harvests during the day and then go home, when it came to winnowing time they would stick around at night to protect the fruit of their labor. But Naomi adds an interesting caveat to her instructions here.

 

She tells Ruth not to make herself known until Boaz has finished eating and drinking. After a hard day’s work, every man looks forward to his meal and beverage. This would likely help him relax and quickly nod off to sleep. Even if Boaz’s drinking here included wine or some form of alcoholic beverage, there is no hint of Boaz getting drunk here.

 

Once he’s finished eating and drinking, Naomi tells Ruth that she is to carefully watch where Boaz goes to lie down for the night. At that point, Ruth is supposed to go over to where he is, uncover his feet, and herself lie down too. Then, she’s to wait for Boaz to tell her what to do when he finds her there.

 

Naomi shows remarkable confidence here, either in Boaz himself to take it from there or in God to guide Boaz in making the right decision, or both. Either way, Naomi was letting Boaz have the last word in Ruth’s fate.

 

This was a big leap of faith because the actions Naomi was telling Ruth to take could be taken the wrong way and misunderstood as the actions of an immoral woman. Naomi had to have faith that Boaz would recognize and accept his divinely appointed role as a redeemer of their family.

And in four Hebrew words, כֹּ֛ל אֲשֶׁר־תֹּאמְרִ֥י ^ק אֶֽעֱשֶֽׂה׃ (kol ashare-to’meri e’esseh), Ruth’s faith appears to be equal to Naomi’s. She gives herself fully to carrying out Naomi’s plan, to embracing God’s designed contingency plan for widows when she says in v.5, “All that you say I will do.”

 

So, she goes down to the threshing floor and does just as Naomi had told her to. When Boaz had his fill of food and drink, and his heart merry Scripture says, he went to sleep at the end of the big pile of grain. Boaz was a man at peace with himself and with God, in step with a world that is yielding its fruit after a famine because of God’s grace and blessing.

 

Once he was out, Ruth came over, quiet as a mouse, and uncovered his feet and laid down. Then, v.8, Boaz startles awake at midnight and is surprised to find a woman laying at his feet! I’d say that’s shocking if you’re not expecting it.

 

Instead of getting the wrong idea, he asks who is laying down there. Ruth immediately identifies herself, but she does it in the humblest way. Throughout the Book of Ruth she’s been identified as the Moabitess, the one who returned with Naomi from Moab, and the widow of Mahlon.

 

Here, Ruth identifies herself to Boaz as “Ruth, your servant.” In answering his question, she turns the attention away from herself and onto Boaz, but what’s extraordinary about her answer is that as she has just described herself she is a lowly servant, and Boaz is the master. She is an uninvited visitor on his turf; she is a woman, and he is a man; she is a foreigner, and he is a native. She completely humbles herself at his feet.

 

And then from that humble position she requests, rather firmly, that he take her under his wing and assume responsibility for her, she is unequivocally asking Boaz to marry her! That would not have been missed by the original Hebrew readers, to spread one’s wings over someone was a metaphor for marriage.

 

The word used here in v.9 is gloriously ambiguous. It reads as spread your wings over, which one ought to recognize immediately as a play on 2:12 where under His wings was the metaphor used for the refuge that God provides. But it can also read as spreading the corner of one’s garment to cover another, which could be like asking for a corner of the blanket in the cold.

But there’s more still here. The gesture of a man covering woman with his garment was a symbolic act, in ancient near eastern culture like theirs it signified the establishment of a new relationship. It meant they were going steady with their eyes set on marriage. It was symbolic of the husband’s declaration to provide for his future wife.

 

At this point in the Book of Ruth, the reader must be in amazement wondering what on earth has come over Ruth. Here is a servant demanding that the boss marry her, a Moabite making the demand of an Israelite, a woman making the demand of a man, a poor person making the demand of a rich man. Talk about a reversal!

 

And just as God provided refuge for Ruth through Boaz when she sought it, God provided a redeemer for Ruth through Boaz. Everything happening in the Book of Ruth is happening by the hand of God. But even so, the path to redemption isn’t without obstacles, as Boaz makes known.

 

Boaz’s response is remarkable, yet it is perfectly in line with his character that has been on display in the Book of Ruth. He sees her actions in the middle of the night precisely for what they are, he doesn’t misinterpret them as immoral advances, rather he knew exactly what she was proposing.

 

He knew because it was God’s will, God’s hand was at work in his life as much as it was at work in Ruth’s. God’s hand was on the wheel, guiding this ride through life for them to His desired destination, reaching His desired outcome and fulfilling His agenda.

 

Boaz’s response begins with a blessing for Ruth. He says that she has remarkably demonstrated greater hesed than the first time she showed Boaz hesed. This hesed kindness that Boaz perceives is in the form of Ruth seeking him instead of chasing after young men, rich or poor.

 

As soon as Ruth used the word go’el, kinsman-redeemer, raised the stakes for Boaz. It’s not just that Ruth is seeking marriage, but that her words are an act of hesed that represent kindness and grace for the sake of someone else.

 

Continuing in his warm and tender tone, Boaz calls on Ruth not to be afraid, and that he will do for her all that she asks. Ruth had called herself his servant, but here Boaz promises to serve her!

He does this because he says that his fellow townspeople know that she is a worthy and noble woman, the same word to describe Boaz’s worth and valor back in 2:1. Ruth had barely arrived in Bethlehem at most a couple of months prior, and yet all that she’d done for her mother-in-law was known to all.

 

Her willingness to abandon all that she knew, her family, her land, her god, for Naomi and Naomi’s family, Naomi’s land, and Naomi’s God made her true character known to the townsfolk. She didn’t do all of this by hanging out with the in crowd or the well off, no she did this by embodying Israel’s high covenant standards, she did this by her hesed to the family she first married into, to the praise of all.

 

Boaz could have treated her as Moabite trash, rummaging through the garbage cans of Israel, and then corrupting the people with her immoral behavior. But instead, with true hesed of his own, Boaz sees her as a woman equal in status and character to himself. A woman worthy of redeeming.

 

Ruth’s heart must’ve skipped a beat or two as she listened to Boaz’s warm response to her seeking him for marriage and redemption. But Boaz introduces a complication in v.12. While it is true that Boaz is a redeemer, there is another, a redeemer closer than him who has the first right of redemption. Boaz is a kinsman-redeemer, not the kinsman-redeemer. This is a problem.

 

But Boaz immediately attempts to put Ruth’s heart and mind at ease. He tells her to spend the rest of the night there, giving her assurance of safety and protection for the rest of the night. And when morning comes, he will make it known to the redeemer that there is someone he needs to redeem.

 

Three times Boaz uses the verb redeem in v.13. Boaz is fully aware of the implications his decision for Ruth. As much as he would love to marry her, he can’t ignore the customs of his people and the Law of God through Moses. As much as he cares for Ruth, his faith to God demands he act rightly in God’s eyes and give the nearer kinsman-redeemer his due opportunity.

 

But Boaz vows, as the Lord lives he says, that if that man will not redeem her, he will. Such goodness in Boaz, such upstanding moral fiber.

It’s Boaz’s upstanding character and morals that Naomi based her confidence in coming up with this plan for Ruth to carry out. Naomi’s goal in this plan was to end the destitution and disgrace of Ruth’s lot in life and to provide her with greater security than she could offer her in her own home.

 

Yes, there are legal stipulations in the Torah about the kinsman-redeemer, but they weren’t specific to the situation Ruth found herself in. Because of this it was clear that Naomi’s plan didn’t rest on a legal obligation, but on confidence in Boaz’s morality and loyalty to the family.

 

The lives of genuinely good are not governed by laws, but rather by character and a moral sense of right and wrong. For Boaz, God’s covenant with Israel provides sufficient guidance for him to know what to do here. God’s Word is always sufficient, in any situation, amen?

 

When morning comes, Boaz sends Ruth off before first light, before anyone could recognize her. And he makes sure that no one could question her overnight activities by making sure no one knew she was there. He doesn’t send her away empty handed though; he has her hold out her outer garment and sends her home with more barley.

 

When she gets home, Naomi asks her how it went. Ruth recounts everything that Boaz would do for her and had done for her, including sending her home with grain. And look at the reason he gave Ruth for sending her home with grain, so that she didn’t return empty handed to Naomi. Such hesed Boaz continues to demonstrate for Ruth.

 

Something missed in our ESV translation is a difficulty in in reading the end of v.15 where it says, “Then she went into the city.” The Hebrew text has a masculine verb, not a feminine one. So, the NIV reads, “Then he went back to town” referring to Boaz.

 

That’s unexpected because Boaz has more work to do at his threshing floor, but it is likely the correct translation because he is determined to resolve this issue of who is going to redeem Ruth as soon as possible. Boaz is a man of integrity, trusted to keep his promises to Ruth.

 

You can put your trust in God and His redemptive plan and wait patiently for it to unfold and come to fruition in His time.

Naomi gives Ruth, and everyone who reads this book and can see God at work throughout all of it, some sage advice. Wait. Wait until you see how it turns out, because Boaz (in Ruth’s case), will not rest until the matter is settled that day.

 

So often, when we submit our lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, we expect things to be perfect right away, we expect to be able to see the effects of the redemption that God brought about through Jesus Christ, and we get impatient when we can’t see it. We want our design, not God’s.

 

We get discouraged when despite submitting to Christ as our Lord and Savior, nothing in our lives seem to change, at least not at first. Boy, we humans love instant gratification. God has redeemed you, trust in His work, His divine design, and trust that He will not rest until the matter of your redemption is brought to completion when you get to heaven.

 

When you struggle to remain patient and trust in God’s design, I want you to do three things:

 

REFLECT on God’s past goodness and love in redeeming your life. Your testimony is powerful, not just for pointing others to Jesus, but for reminding yourself of just how far you’ve truly come. Psalm 107:1 – 3.

 

REMEMBER God’s faithful redemptive work revealed through His Word. God has been redeeming the world since sin entered the garden. His Word is full of His redemptive work in history. 2 Timothy 2:8

 

REST patiently in God’s promises. You can rest knowing God is faithful and keeps His promises according to His divine design, recognizing that He does so in His time, not yours. 2 Peter 3:9.

 

If you’ve submitted your life to Christ, if you’ve confessed with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believed in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, then you are saved. Born again, a new creation in Christ.

 

If you haven’t, let’s talk after church, let’s grab coffee or lunch, it would be my privilege to help you understand how to submit yourself to Christ, how to make that commitment to follow Jesus.

 

Let’s pray.