Revealing Redemption

Ruth 2:15 – 23

 

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Yeah, but he’s got some redeeming qualities?” Those words are usually uttered as a concession about someone after highlighting their bad qualities. Redeeming qualities in this sense are generally positive characteristics that make up for a person’s flaws.

 

These could be anything from personality traits like kindness, patience, and a sense of humor to actual skills like public speaking and the ability to remain calm in a crisis. You’d have to ask my wife what my redeeming qualities are.

 

The use of the term “redeeming” implies that these qualities are significant enough to overcome the shortcomings of a person or situation and make them acceptable. These qualities redeem them. But what does the word redeem mean? It’s important to know what it means.

 

Webster does a good job at detailing the different definitions of Redeem, but I’m going to focus on the first and second definitions. In the first definition, redeem means to buy back, to get or win back.

 

In the second, redeem means to free from what distresses or harms: such as, to free from captivity by payment of ransom, to remove from or help to overcome something detrimental, to release from blame or debt, or to free from the consequences of sin. Webster’s dictionary sounds quite biblical with its definitions of redeem.

 

The book of Ruth deals with several theological concepts. So far in a chapter and a half, we have seen God’s sovereign hand at work, both in dealing justly with sin and dealing mercifully with sinners. We have seen true godly hesed displayed by Ruth, a foreigner, Boaz, and upstanding Israelite, and YHWH Himself in how he restocked the house of bread and brought Ruth to Boaz.

 

Our passage today as we continue in Ruth introduces another important theological concept, redemption. The concept of redemption is not new at this point in Scripture, but the book of Ruth looks at it in a unique way that looks ahead in history. Let’s read Ruth 2:15 – 23.

We pick up the story of Ruth right after the meal she shared with Boaz and his harvesters. If Boaz had any need for redeeming qualities, those were on display in the kindness and care and respect and grace he demonstrated to Ruth when he himself served her, a foreigner, at his table.

 

But it didn’t end there at his table. Verse 15 tells us that when Ruth got up from the table to go glean after the harvesters some more, Boaz had more to say to his men on her behalf. He gives two directives and two restrictions to his men.

 

First, he gives the directive to let her Ruth glean even among the sheaves. The poor were allowed by the law of Moses to glean around the edges of the field. That was the bare minimum, and often the poor were neglected and mistreated and weren’t allowed to even do that, in violation of God’s law. In contrast, Boaz tells his men to let her glean even between the piles of harvested grain. That was unheard of.

 

And if that wasn’t enough, Boaz’s second directive in v.16 instructs the men to even pull out some of the ears of grain from the piles for Ruth to pick up. If allowing her to glean between the piles was unheard of, deliberately pulling out grain and dropping it for her was an extraordinary act of kindness, from Boaz, an act of real hesed.

 

On the flipside, Boaz gives his men two restrictions here that build upon his instructions earlier in the chapter when he commanded his men not to touch her. Here he adds that they are not to reproach her or rebuke her. The Hebrew word rendered as reproach has its root meaning as embarrass, and the Hebrew word rendered as rebuke also means to insult.

 

So, it’s better understood as Boaz instructing his young men not to humiliate or insult her for being reduced to needing to glean after them to survive as poor, foreign, widow. They will not threaten her physically, nor will they shame her psychologically with mean and hurtful comments about her status and low class as a foreigner and widow needing to beg for a field to glean in.

 

In a stark contrast with the Book of Judges, where the moral fiber of each of Israel’s deliverers progressively declines with the overall decline of the nation’s morals, the characters in Ruth continually demonstrate outstanding moral fiber and character. Boaz’s compassion and kindness is on full display here in chapter 2.

And so, the story moves on. Verse 17 says that Ruth gleaned in the field until the evening. She worked from early morning until evening, except for a short rest and the meal she shared with Boaz and his harvesters. She would put many modern men to shame with her work ethic.

 

After she was done gleaning, she beat out what she had gleaned, likely with a stick or flail (a historical ag tool with a long handle and a shorter free-swinging stick attached by a chain or strap). This was done to separate the grain from the husks, or chaff, of the seeds.

 

After she finished beating out the barley she gathered it all up to take home and saw that it was about ephah of barley. If her work ethic wasn’t admirable, her efficiency and productivity were.

 

An ephah is roughly the equivalent of 22 dry liters and weighed 37 – 50 pounds depending on the quality of the seed. To thresh an ephah of grain from one day’s labor is an extraordinary accomplishment, and not to mention Ruth carried it home! She picked it up and carried it into the city of Bethlehem and brought it to Naomi, along with her leftovers from her meal with Boaz.

 

Naomi must’ve been quite perplexed at the sight of so much grain and even leftovers from lunch on top of it. So much so that Naomi responds with rapid fire questions and a blessing without waiting for Ruth to even answer her.

 

In v.19 Naomi asks, where’d you glean? Who’d you work for? Blessed be the man who noticed you! Her questions show her incredulity at Ruth’s haul as if she were asking today, where in the world did you get all this?

 

Naomi is witnessing God’s answer to her prayer at the start of chapter 2 where she expressed her wish that Ruth would find someone to glean from who would show her favor. God answers prayers, amen?

 

There’s an interesting redundancy between the narrator and Ruth’s answer to Naomi’s question. Readers likely just want to get to the point, yet the Book of Ruth draws out Ruth’s answer to show her own excitement and to slow down the reader and increase the impact of what’s about to be said.

The second half of v.19 tells us that Ruth told Naomi whom she had worked with when she said, “the man’s name with whom I worked today is… Boaz.”

 

The reader of Ruth has a privilege that the people in the story do not have a 30,000ft view of what’s going on. The reader already knows who Boaz is because the narrator revealed it in 2:1. Naomi knows who Boaz is because he’s a relative, but never did it cross her mind that God might lead Ruth to Boaz’s field.

 

Ruth knows Boaz inasmuch as he’s been this extremely good guy who took notice of her and is taking care of her and Naomi. Ruth has no idea who Boaz is to Naomi and therefore to her. The invested reader of Ruth has been waiting for this moment when the two women share what they know and connect the dots.

 

Namoi realizes that Ruth’s encounter with Boaz had nothing to do with chance and everything to do with God. Realizing this, she erupts with another blessing upon the man who took notice of Ruth. But more than Naomi’s exclamation here represents a total turnaround for her from her despairing and accusatory words near the end of chapter 1.

 

There Naomi despaired about having lost her husband and sons, her hope for a future, and she placed all of the blame for it squarely on God. Now a chapter later, Naomi cries out that God’s hesed has not abandoned her and Ruth, He has not forsaken her dead husband and sons. God.

 

This is the second time hesed is spoken of from Naomi’s own lips. Hesed is such a central theological concept to the whole book of Ruth, and it paints such a lovely picture of God’s motivation for delivering His people, in the context of the Book of Ruth this family, from the lasting consequences of sin and trouble. It sets the motivation for redemption.

 

Naomi says that Boaz is a close relative of theirs, one of their redeemers. The book almost glosses over this fact here because it goes right into Ruth excitedly telling Naomi more about with Boaz their redeemer did for her. But it needs to be slowed down and elaborated to really understand what it means that Boaz is their redeemer.

 

 

The Hebrew word for the kinsman-redeemer is go’el, and it functions as a technical legal term related specifically to Israelite family law. It defines a near relative who is responsible for the economic well-being, especially when the relative is in distress and cannot get him or herself out of the crisis.

 

OT Scripture notes different aspects of a go’el’s redemptive role: ensuring that family owned property doesn’t pass out of the clan, maintaining individual freedom within the clan by buying back those who sold themselves into slavery because of poverty, tracking down anyone who murders a near relative and avenging them, and receiving restitution money on behalf of a dead relative.

 

While the context makes it clear that Naomi isn’t using redeemer in its technical legal sense, the first one does apply. Naomi is using go’el in a more general sense, the sense in which it is frequently used in reference to God’s actions on behalf of His people. This carries with it less of a sense of buying back and more of a sense of taking back what is His, the getting back of what was lost.

 

Boaz has helped Naomi and Ruth tremendously from an economical and subsistence point of view, but he is doing nothing about the real crisis the family is facing that was created by the deaths of all the men, the lack of an heir.

 

Naomi realizes that Ruth’s coming upon the field of Boaz was a demonstration of God’s grace and favor. As Ruth goes to speak again, the narrator again points out that she is Moabite, even though Naomi had just referred to Boaz as our close relative, our redeemer. The contrast is stark here. Boaz the Israelite is God’s instrument of redemption for Ruth the Moabite and her Israelite mother-in-law.

 

But Ruth seems to have missed the significance of Boaz being her redeemer. As a Moabite, Ruth wouldn’t understand the concept of a kinsman-redeemer that only makes sense within the context of Israel’s unique theology of family and land. Not being on the same wavelength as Naomi, Ruth recalls more information about what Boaz said.

 

 

 

 

Boaz told Ruth to stay near to his young men until they have finished all his harvest. Not part, not just the barley, but all of it. But Naomi, whose mind is already turning, approves of Boaz’s offer but modifies the instructions to Ruth. Naomi tells Ruth to go out to the fields with Boaz’s young women, where she’d be less likely to be assaulted, and remain desirable for marriage.

 

Naomi’s mind and general understanding of a redeemer led to her thinking beyond the security of food, she understood that despite all the food and security Boaz could provide them they still lacked the hope of a real future, they lacked a son, which Ruth’s lack of a husband meant she couldn’t provide.

 

What’s remarkable is that none of the Scriptures that clarify the role of the redeemer has any reference to marrying the widow of a dead person, but it was commonly assumed that in addition to those roles, the redeemer also came into play in the case of widow whose husband died without leaving any sons. That Naomi is thinking this way will be made clear at the start of the next chapter.

 

This chapter ends with the affirmation that Ruth did stay close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of both the barley and wheat harvests. That’s a period spanning about 8 weeks, more than enough time for Boaz and Ruth to get to know each other.

 

 What is clearly seen right now is that Naomi sees the sun rising on her life again, she sees the potential for a future. She sees that God has been gracious to her late husband and her sons by sending a potential redeemer into their lives. Despite Ruth missing the significance of that, redemption becomes the main theme for the rest of the Book of Ruth.

 

You can trust in God as your Redeemer no matter the struggles you’ve faced or the mistakes you’ve made.

 

You can see when looking at the Book of Ruth, that despite Naomi’s refusal to admit what led to her bleak situation was her family’s own doing. Naomi going away to Moab full and God bringing her back empty was caused by the choices they made to not remain faithful to God. But God still brought her back.

 

 

God had a plan from the beginning to redeem Naomi and her family. While in Judges the ones sent to deliver Israel where deeply flawed, emphasizing the people’s need for a better deliverer, in Ruth God sends Boaz, the ideal Israelite man who redeems his extended family.

 

Now, Boaz wasn’t perfect, we know that no mere mortal is, but Boaz points to someone greater, someone who does more than just redeem a single family in a clan.

 

The example of Boaz ultimately points to Jesus Christ who redeemed every believer from the penalty of death for their sins by paying the ransom demanded by God to satisfy His wrath for sin. Boaz is presented here as the man capable of redeeming Naomi’s family, Jesus is the Godman who presented Himself as the only one capable of redeeming all of God’s creation for the debt of sin.

 

If you're struggling with feeling unworthy or burdened by past mistakes in your life, lean into trusting God as your Redeemer. When you feel disconnected or even judged by others due to past experiences, if you feel overwhelmed by pressure or conflicts with those in your life, give it to God who redeems broken things.

 

When you witness social injustices or the suffering of others that weighs heavily on your heart, or if you find yourself living in fear or anxiety during these uncertain times it can be hard to see how God is working. If you're feeling distant from God and struggling with trust in His goodness, make it a priority to seek community. Ask God to redeem those difficult situations so that you may see His hand at work.

 

If you're battling the stressors of life and feeling hopeless, trusting God as your Redeemer can transform your perspective. Trusting in God means believing that He can heal and restore both you and whatever you’re facing. Struggling with addiction and sin can feel isolating. Trusting God as your Redeemer means choosing to believe that change is possible.

 

You can do all this by pondering, praying, and partnering.

 

Spend dedicated time reading and studying God’s Word, PONDERING what God is saying to you through His Word – Psalm 119:15 – 16.

Spend dedicated time connecting and aligning your heart with God’s will by PRAYING regularly – Matthew 6:33.

 

While God is your Redeemer, He works through His church. Prioritize PARTNERING with those in the church, with those in your small group, with those who will lift you up when you’re down, hold you up when you’re weak, and help keep you accountable and on the path God has set you on. To find encouragement from and to encourage others in their faith – Hebrews 10:24 – 25.

 

God has redeemed you, trust in His work.

 

Let’s pray.