Boaz - Ruth 2

When Naomi and Ruth come back to Bethlehem, it’s right as the barley harvest was starting and they were hungry, so Ruth offers to go to the fields and start “gleaning” in order to get some food for them. I think it’s important to mention here that Ruth could have stayed in Moab and gone back to her parent’s house and lived a life without the responsibility of caring for Naomi, who had almost certainly no way to care for herself financially. It’s a testament to her character that, for whatever reason, Ruth decided to take on Naomi’s care as her responsibility when she didn’t have to.

Verse 1 notes that Naomi’s dead husband had a kinsman “a mighty man of wealth,” who’s name was Boaz. The implication of this is that maybe Naomi came back to Bethlehem with the intention of Ruth marrying Boaz and him taking care of them but later verses make me think that wasn’t the case. Verse 3 says that when Ruth went to glean grain, “her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz.” The word “hap” is cross referenced to mean “chance, good fortune,” like a coincidence, but TB says that the ancient Hebrews didn’t believe in coincidences, they believed that God’s hand was in everything. So in this case, Ruth walking right into the field belonging to Boaz was the hand of God leading her there, and I tend to agree.

With my family’s tragic incident last year that I’m still trying to recover from, one of the main things that I’ve asked God is why He didn’t make different, less traumatic arrangements, like why didn’t He intervene on our behalf when I had begged Him to do so beforehand? One of the answers that I got was that He could have but that outcome didn’t serve His purposes and one of the examples that I got over time was that of Moses. When Moses left Egypt after killing that Egyptian, God walked him straight through an enormous desert right into the camp of Jethro, the only priesthood holder maybe on earth at the time. That whole desert, what are the odds that Moses ended up in Jethro’s camp? Slim to none, without divine intervention. Another example of this is that Ruth would have walked into anyone’s field, but God walked her right into Boaz’s field. There was an infinite amount of alternative outcomes in that scenario, but God walked her right into Boaz. And if God did that for these people and countless other times I can’t think of, then why couldn’t He have done it for me and my family? And the answer is that He could have, but for whatever reason that I don’t understand, my family’s outcome had to be this for His plan to work. And I have to trust that His plan is perfect, even if it’s everything that I didn’t want. If God walked Ruth right into Boaz’s field, then why do I doubt that His decision in my case is not just as significant? It seems, according to TB, that my understanding of this situation is what the ancient Hebrews believed too, in retrospect, that God walked Ruth into Boaz’s field, it wasn’t a coincidence.

Boaz is overseeing his harvest and sees Ruth gleaning in his field. Gleaning is apparently when poor people follow behind the harvesters and pick up anything that they miss and put it into their own little bags. If we remember in the Torah, the law of Moses requires that harvesters not pick every plant clean of its food so that poor people can go and gather what’s left over. That’s what Ruth is doing, she’s following the harvesters and picking up the left over barley and grain that the harvesters left behind. Boaz sees her and asks who she is and is told that she’s the girl who came back from Moab with Naomi. It seems like Ruth and Boaz have some kind of interaction because he tells her to just come to his field from now on and not go to anyone else’s field and that he’s told his workers to not bother her and that she can drink out of their water source. This is a big deal because stopping gleaning to get water means lost food gathering time, so that Ruth can drink out of the water source that is provided for the workers is a big deal.

Ruth is grateful and falls down and asks why he’s being nice to her, honestly I can relate to that question. Someone does something nice… “Why me?” Boaz answers that he knew and respected that Ruth had made a commitment to Naomi and left her own people to come to Israel. Interestingly, he says, “The Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.” Their relationship starts on a foundation of God and belief and faith. That’s something that I’ve been thinking about recently, not like that a relationship shouldn’t be that way but to what extent? Equally yoked vs growing together. You know, because I’m single and these are the things I think about, I don’t know, I’ve been going to the gym recently and it’s bringing up a lot of relationship questions because I was in a totally different place when I got married the first time and it’s like ok, what should I do differently next time. I don’t know, I’m rambling. Anyway, this is like the second time Boaz has mentioned God in the few verses that have quoted him so he’s obviously a very spiritually aware men.

Ruth’s answer is “let me find favour in thy sight, my lord; for that thou hast comforted me, and for that thou hast spoken friendly unto thine handmaid, though I be note like unto one of thine handmaidens.” He’s friendly to her, and the word “friendly” is cross-referenced with “friendship”, which is an important way to start a relationship. Attraction fades, people and bodies get old, interests and hobbies change but the things that remain regardless is each person’s pursuit of God and how much they like each other. I saw a video the other day interviewing a divorce attorney who said that ultimately the people who he does not see in his office are the ones who, at the end of the day, say that their spouse is their favorite person in the world.

Boaz is a rich and powerful man, he could have (and surely many men did) act with his ego at the front and center of who he was. I wonder if his love of God worked to keep his ego in check. Instead of acting superior or coming at her with an attitude of authority, Boaz was simply nice to her and was generous with her. From his position, surely he could have leveraged her for sex or exploited her for his personal gratification, because she was incredibly vulnerable, and he could have taken advantage of that. Less than that, he could have seen that she couldn’t do anything for him, she was poor and couldn’t have benefited him at all, so he could have been rude or dismissive or even just ignored her. Instead, he saw a woman who was vulnerable and was kind and generous to her and vocalized a relationship with God in his life. That’s incredible.

He tells his workers to give her lots of food “opportunities” and she ends up with a whole bag of barley. When she gets home, Naomi is surprised and asks where all this food came from, and this is another part that makes me think that she had no clue about Boaz’s position to marry Ruth beforehand. Ruth tells her “the man’s name with whom I wrought to do is Boaz.” Ruth is telling Naomi the name of a man who Ruth didn’t think would have been familiar to her, so they obviously didn’t plot this out beforehand. And even if they had, that wouldn’t have been wrong, but the fact that this whole thing plays out to demonstrate the Almighty hand of God is evident throughout the whole thing. And just imagine the preparation that God would have had to do in Boaz’s life in order to prepared him to marry Ruth and have children with her. I assume that Boaz is single at this point, but I guess it’s possible that he had another wife and Ruth would have been a plural wife or that first wife died. I googled how many wives Boaz had and the article states that Ruth is the only recorded wife, but it’s possible that he had another wife because with the kinsman redeemer, they are obligated to marry regardless if they already had another wife. So it’s possible but there’s no evidence that that’s the case here. My guess if that he was widowed previously.

Naomi is surprised to hear that Ruth had worked in Boaz’s field and recognized God’s hand in it, saying, “Blessed be he of the Lord, who hath not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead.” Naomi tells Ruth that Boaz is a kinsman of theirs and one of the possible kinsman redeemers. Ruth tells Naomi that Boaz told her to come back and “keep fast by my young men, until they have ended all my harvest,” basically “stay by my workers and get a ton of food.” Naomi says that’s great and encourages Ruth to keep going to Boaz’s field, which she does. Story is shaping up nicely, I’m getting a lot more out of this then I thought I was going to.