A Plan

jrn 6

Ruth 4:1-22

Boaz was talking about Ruth being redeemed. I’m trying to understand more the nature of their culture at the time. This land belongs to Naomi. Naomi is selling it maybe because of the famine and she needs to survive. With the purchase, comes possession of Ruth. It sounds like there is a government in place that requires “turns”. I guess when property comes available there are people waiting in line and they can choose to purchase or not to purchase. In this case, the land comes with Ruth and if the land comes with Ruth then whoever purchases it has to marry Ruth and have children.

This almost makes no sense in today’s culture. People are not property and polygamy is gross. It made perfect sense in the culture of that time. And, I can follow the story. Boaz wanted to redeem Ruth. The guy that was going to purchase the land and as a result Ruth decided against the purchase because Boaz reminded him that the purchase came with Ruth, a moabite widow. He would have to marry her and make babies with her and those babies would have to share in the inheritance of his supposed current children. He definitely didn’t want that. Maybe because she was a foreigner, maybe because she was a beggar. I think people probably passed judgement in the same ways we do today.

So, Boaz bought the property and Ruth. Boaz married her and they had a son, Obed, who is the father of Jesse, the father of David And eventually the lineage leads to Jesus.

One thing I’m wondering while I read this is who the author is. In this portion of scripture it mentions that David is the king, so whoever wrote this book had to know that. So, it was written at least three generations after Ruth. I wonder who was “reporting” all of these events. I wonder who were the journalists of the time. It sounds weird, but in verse 13, “So boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went in to her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son.” That’s some graphic stuff there. Was the sex just assumed because they had a baby, or was there someone there reporting all this. Not just this verse, but all of it. I imagine a bystander watching the purchase of the field. Did the author interview Naomi, Ruth and Boaz? The book was written a long time after the events. How much of this is accurate to the event? It’s funny because I’ve been brought up in church and I was taught to never ask questions like these. I feel kind of guilty asking questions about the validity of scripture, even just wondering beyond what is said in the verses.

I think it’s good to wonder what’s going on here, or in any verse in the Bible. I think that the Bible is here for us to dissect, to study and to form our ideas based on what’s written. I’m off topic, though. Back to this reading. I’m just explaining what was going through my head as I read these verses.

How can this be applied to our lives? Well, as we heard on Sunday’s service at Sagebrush, it’s about God’s plan. If we examine chapter 1-4, we see a woman that should have been broken in pieces. I mean, she probably still was, but she pushed on. She had the opportunity to run when she found out that her husband died. But, she stayed. She worked hard in the fields, then she met with Boaz. Was she happy when she was with Boaz? I assume so. She seems to have had a choice all along to leave. I know Naomi directed her to do things, to go sleep at Boaz’s feet while he was drunk and sleeping, and Boaz liked her. He liked her work ethic. And I guess he thought she was pretty because he worked to have her, too.

And the end of the story it reminded the reader that the son Boaz and Ruth had was a descendant of David, and we know that David is in the lineage of Jesus. So, Jesus was born of a virgin, and I think that Joseph was in the lineage of David, so I don’t quite understand how that’s important. I guess Joseph was a big part of Jesus being that he was his adoptive father. I don’t know much about Joseph’s actual relationship with Jesus… That’s another thought, and I’ll stop here. .