Learning that she was a hard worker, he pulled her aside and told her to glean alongside his servant girls. There, she — young, foreign, and alone — would be safe from possible molesters among the harvesters. And Boaz gave Ruth freedom to drink from his water jars as she worked.
This was extraordinary treatment! Ruth was stunned and asked why the man gave with such kindness. And he admired her newfound faith in the God of Israel. He went on then to feed her from his own table and to make sure his harvesters left behind choice grain for her to pick up.
Naomi suggested that Ruth act on the custom of the day, which allowed the young woman to call upon her nearest male relative to serve as her kinsman-redeemer. As instructed, Ruth went one evening to the threshing floor where Boaz and his men were working. When Boaz lay down that night, Ruth uncovered his feet and lay down near him. In the middle of the night he awoke, saw her, and asked who she was. He promised to act on her request. Boaz, a fair man, said he would give this man his opportunity to buy the land and marry Ruth.
Long story short, the man was interested in the land but not Ruth, so he opted out of both. Thank you. And more realistic I say. Thanks for that, Maggie. While reading Ruth there was nothing to indicate she was waiting for him , but im happy that in the end they were all happy with each other.
I read your blog doing some of my own research for my own devotionals and blogs. I really like how you share your take on the Ruth story. As women we will have heartache in our search for love, but I too think our female friends are so important. I really love your prosperctive on this. Thank you for this post. I will definitely repost this! Thanks again! Thank you for sharing your thoughts. It is a weighty and significant role, and like everything in the Bible, that story is there because God wants us to learn more about his character and nature.
I love that you have a deep appreciation for the book of Ruth. I encourage you to study the text in context inductively, which includes observation of the historical context the book was written in, interpretation of what the text meant for readers at the time it was created and then application of the text for us in modern times.
This book is one of five focusing on women in the Old and New Testament who are in the lineage of Jesus Christ. Feel free to respond to my comment with any questions you have. I really want to encourage you in your love for this book to dig deeper and see the story that God has written. Both books are in the Lineage of Grace series by Rivers. Unshaken is book three. The stories before it are about Tamar and Raab and the stories following it are about Bathsheba and Mary, the mother of Jesus.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. We can agree to disagree. He picked her. He had a purpose for her life. Her faith and her heart for God encourage me deeply. I invite him to give me clarity to interpret what I read and study. Thank you sister for your words about interpretation.
I appreciate them. Since women were often financially dependent on men they would have been a financial burden for the family so the goal would be to marry them off as soon as possible.
Therefore, this interpretation of Ruth is valid. I might also add that nowhere do we see in the book of Ruth that Ruth aligned herself with Naomi out of love. I mean, seriously, we know the age old tale of friction between a mother in law and a daughter in law and the text says that Naomi was a bitter woman. These are two women from two entirely different cultures and worlds.
Perhaps Ruth was moved by compassion. Or, an innate need to go. I propose that Ruth was compelled to follow Naomi against her better judgment — by the Holy Spirit so that His purposes in the Davidic line would be fulfilled. It makes a lot of assumptions, of course, but one possible reason Ruth left was to flee the darkness of the Moabite pagan practices, including child sacrifice. Ruth may have followed Naomi because she was following the God of Abraham and Naomi was her opportunity to know Him more.
Ruth was not the first to initiate a relationship with Boaz. Ruth was just picking grain to feed her and Naomi and it happened to be in Boazes field. She had no knowledge of whose field it was. Go back and read it. I am still in favor of the whole waiting for Boaz. IDK where you get the idea that this picture victim bashes blames women for everything that happens to them… I think you kind of overshot on that one. Fancy God wanting non Jews in his gang! Wild paraphrase aside, re the good dating ideas given to us by Ruth and Boaz, I haven't read the book in a while but I thought that she totally set him up by sneaking into his room and sleeping at his feet whilst he had had too much to drink to realise she was there.
He then had no choice but to do something and quick. But I guess that wouldn't go down too well in our churches in girls started to do stuff like that. I am personally very uncomfortable with the idea that women are supposed to wait for the perfect Godly man to make his appearance. I don't know where this myth has come from, but it's very unhelpful and feeds into teenage romantic fantasies some women have about Prince Charming and the like.
What you can get from Ruth, I guess, is that in everything in your life, you are not meant to simply wait passively for life to happen to you, you sometimes need to take the bull by the horns so to speak. If she hadn't sneaked into Boaz' tent,the story might not have turned out the same way.
In our world, this might mean that if you feel your options are limited in your bible study group and let's be honest, they usually are , putting yourself out there via internet dating and meeting new people from other churches etc is not a bad idea. Hahaha- I like your first paragraph.
Also, about the idea that women are supposed to wait for men to "make the first move"- yeah I guess that doesn't make sense, but it's what I've always heard, so I'm going to have to think about that one. Although, now that you mention it, I'm the one who first asked my boyfriend "so are we dating?
What really kills me is the misquote "Ruth waited patiently for Boaz. But what this says to me is that our Christian subculture expects women to be the passive ones in the relationship.
We're supposed to hang around like some Disney princess from the fifties Snow White, anyone? And then, as you say, get married, have babies, and live together for 60 years. Sorry, but no. I don't plan on getting married any time soon, and kids aren't really of interest to me. And if I do want to get married, I won't be waiting around! Kudos to you, Church, for putting women in the back seat once again.
Yeah, exactly. After God changed my life and set me free from the lie that I couldn't live without a boyfriend, I decided I'm NOT "waiting for the right guy" any more. I'm not waiting. I do other stuff. I have a freaking full independent life and I have a lot of friends and do a lot of interesting stuff.
I'm not leaving an empty space in my life so that I'm ready to start dating at a moment's notice. Disclaimer: I do have a boyfriend right now- but I stand by my philosophy of "not waiting. It seems to me that the other thing Ruth did not wait for, was for social norms for women to catch up with what she was doing-- what she knew she needed to do, to provide for herself and Naomi.
Even in the Bible, is is the women who "misbehave" who make history. Ruth acted in bold faith-- both in God and in Boaz as a good man. God honors women for their faith, not for their adherence to gender roles. You're right,this isn't in the Bible: 'Ruth patiently waited for her mate Boaz.
She was honoring her mother-in-law by staying with her and helping to provide for the two of them. After Naomi saw how generous Boaz was being to Ruth, and after realizing Boaz was their kinsman-redeemer a relative, in Boaz's case, a distant relative, and I'll let you look up the importance of kinsman-redeemer in Biblical times , Naomi concluded it would be OK for Ruth to make clear to Boaz that she wanted to marry him, thus the reason for asking him to cover her with his garment.
You really have to read the whole book And when it comes to waiting for your Boaz, as you're about to see in a sec, every time you put that into the Universe Proverbs , you are saying more than a mouthful. It's so rich that there's not enough time to get into all of the details.
For now, let's just go over a very brief recap. Naomi was a woman who had two sons that died, leaving behind two widows—Ruth and Orpah fun fact: Oprah was named after Orpah but her aunt misspelled her name.
When Naomi decided to return back to her homeland, Ruth went with her Ruth 1. With no money and no idea what to do next, Ruth went to glean in a field of one of Naomi's relatives. His name was Boaz. Boaz was kind to Ruth, no doubt. But other than allowing her to gather as much food as she could handle, he didn't do much else. It was Naomi who started to devise a plan in hopes of getting Boaz and Ruth together.
First, that Ruth not go into any other field but Boaz's Ruth Next that she do the following:. Nowhere in the Book of Ruth does it say that Boaz asked Ruth out or even that he was pining away for her. It was Naomi who said, "Oh, Boaz? Yeah, I know him. He's my late husband's people. Here's how you can really get his attention. After hearing Naomi's instructions, Ruth simply replied with, "I will do everything you say.
Ruth applied some essential oils. She put on her best clothes. She went to see Boaz, uninvited , when, as the New Living Translation of Ruth tells us, Boaz had drank and was "in good spirits". It was then that Ruth went into his sleeping space. Now peep what the author of the book that I referenced earlier writes about this part of their journey:.
Y'all, Ruth straight-up seduced this man. Only Ruth, Boaz and God Himself know how far things went, but I'll just say that it's not the kind of "date" that you'll hear a lot of pastors or mothers of the church recommend that folks go on. Still, it's in the Bible. And no, Boaz did not come onto Ruth. Ruth came onto Boaz. And there is absolutely no indication in the story that if Naomi had not thought the plan up and Ruth had not followed through that Boaz wouldn't have remained being anything more than "a really nice guy".
So, when you say that you are "waiting on your Boaz"— what are you saying exactly? That you're waiting for a nice man to come along, period? Or that you are waiting for a good man like Boaz to pursue you? If it's the former, I get it. If it's the latter and you intend to not put some real sweat equity into the dynamic, like I said…you could be waiting for a really long time.
If you continue to read through the Book of Ruth, you'll see that once Ruth stepped out and made her presence known and then some to Boaz, he protected her throughout the rest of the night and then figured out how to make her his wife.
Again, all of this wasn't about love and romance, though. She was a Moabite pagan. Plus, back then, women didn't spend the night with men who weren't their husbands. According to the culture, she could've been severely punished, even stoned to death.
Yet, remember how Naomi said that she was gonna find Ruth her own home? Naomi knew all of this. There must've been a part of her that knew Boaz may not ever make the first move. So, she came up with a way to expedite everything. In other words, the story isn't so much "romantic" as it was calculated on Naomi's part and somewhat obligatory on Boaz's.
Not to say that he didn't care for Ruth, but again, if you put culture into all of this, his sudden "swiftness" which ironically is what Boaz means in the Hebrew language; Ruth means "friend" was to protect this woman and ultimately, quite possibly, save her life.
He wasn't so much "in love" as he was being noble. If you continue to read the story there are four chapters , Boaz does some negotiating for Ruth's hand in marriage, they get married, have sex and conceive a son by the name of Obed who eventually becomes King David's grandfather and someone who is directly in the bloodline of Christ.
It's a beautiful story. Yet again, it's not so much because of Boaz. Boaz was reactive. It was Naomi and Ruth who were proactive. Here's another thing to consider. Remember, the Bible was translated into English. It's originally an eastern culture book with a ton of Hebrew characters in it. According to the Midrash which is basically a collection of Jewish commentaries , the Shir ha-Shirim Zutta , Boaz and Ruth conceived Obed on their wedding night. Guess what happened the following day, though.
Boaz died he was considerably older than Ruth so, it's quite possible. Y'all, I'm not here to rain on your parade, I'm really not. I'm just here to enforce one of my favorite Message Version verses in the Bible—" It's best to stay in touch with both sides of an issue. A person who fears God deals responsibly with all of reality, not just a piece of it.
Their love stories are not told so that we'll mimic them so much as we'll remember that God has His hand in our life, just as much as He did in theirs. Oh, and so we can see what might be a good idea and…what might not. Maybe at another time, I'll share why the fact that Ruth pursued Boaz doesn't bother me in the least. Yeah, another verse that could stand to be broken all the way down is "he who finds a wife" Proverbs ; especially since "find" means things like "to come upon by chance", to "realize" and to "consider".
Also, since the very first love story did not consist of a man pursuing at all. Adam was asleep. God did it all words to live by—Genesis 2. I'm simply saying that no, I'm not out here "waiting on my Boaz". I want my husband and I want it to be my individual journey.
That was Ruth's. I want my own. Some women have the "I'm waiting on my Boaz" so deeply ingrained into them that they will say it until the cows—or their husband—comes home whichever comes first. But as for you, I hope this gave you a little something to think about. Words are powerful. Try and not put things, even "spiritual" things, into the world, just because everyone else might be saying it. Seek out the truth and reality about matters for yourself. You might just realize that you don't want what you thought you did.
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