1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:03,351 Don’t urge me to leave you, and to return from following you, 2 00:00:03,361 --> 00:00:08,351 for where you go, I will go; and where you stay, I will stay. 3 00:00:08,361 --> 00:00:13,241 Your people will be my people, and your God my God. 4 00:00:13,791 --> 00:00:16,031 Most of us know that line from weddings. 5 00:00:16,651 --> 00:00:18,911 But Ruth wasn’t speaking to a groom. 6 00:00:19,371 --> 00:00:23,161 She was speaking to her mother-in-law, a grieving widow, on an 7 00:00:23,171 --> 00:00:24,091 empty road. 8 00:00:24,471 --> 00:00:27,471 And saying it cost her everything she had. 9 00:00:34,334 --> 00:00:37,714 Hi, and welcome to First Light Bible Study. 10 00:00:38,214 --> 00:00:41,054 Grab your Bible, and a cup of coffee if you like. 11 00:00:41,734 --> 00:00:46,034 On Sunday we heard the whole book of Ruth, word for word. 12 00:00:46,434 --> 00:00:50,204 Tonight we’ll look underneath it: six things most of us were never 13 00:00:50,214 --> 00:00:53,074 shown, and what they mean for us this week. 14 00:00:53,502 --> 00:00:55,862 First, when does this happen? 15 00:00:56,262 --> 00:00:58,282 The very first line tells us. 16 00:00:58,696 --> 00:01:02,246 In the days when the judges judged, there was a famine in the 17 00:01:02,256 --> 00:01:02,716 land. 18 00:01:03,208 --> 00:01:06,528 That’s one of the darkest stretches in Israel’s history. 19 00:01:06,888 --> 00:01:09,208 The book of Judges closes with this verdict. 20 00:01:09,716 --> 00:01:12,616 In those days there was no king in Israel. 21 00:01:13,136 --> 00:01:16,496 Everyone did that which was right in his own eyes. 22 00:01:16,979 --> 00:01:21,089 Keep that backdrop in mind: a small story of faithful people, 23 00:01:21,099 --> 00:01:23,659 set in an unfaithful age. 24 00:01:24,259 --> 00:01:25,859 And notice the irony. 25 00:01:26,399 --> 00:01:30,529 Bethlehem means house of bread, and the house of bread has no 26 00:01:30,539 --> 00:01:31,059 bread. 27 00:01:31,419 --> 00:01:36,369 So one family leaves for Moab, east of the Dead Sea, an old rival 28 00:01:36,379 --> 00:01:37,139 nation. 29 00:01:37,819 --> 00:01:41,309 Then Naomi hears that the LORD has visited his people, in giving 30 00:01:41,319 --> 00:01:42,039 them bread. 31 00:01:42,379 --> 00:01:46,709 It’s one of only two places where the narrator says outright that 32 00:01:46,719 --> 00:01:47,899 the LORD acted. 33 00:01:48,719 --> 00:01:51,299 And the book ends with a name: David. 34 00:01:56,231 --> 00:01:57,671 Here’s the first thing. 35 00:01:58,111 --> 00:02:02,941 Ruth has a key word, and English Bibles hide it, because no single 36 00:02:02,951 --> 00:02:04,351 English word fits. 37 00:02:04,931 --> 00:02:11,251 The Hebrew is hesed: loyal love, kindness beyond what you owe. 38 00:02:11,711 --> 00:02:15,991 Our translation says kindness, or loving kindness. 39 00:02:16,711 --> 00:02:20,761 Naomi uses it first, blessing her two young daughters-in-law on 40 00:02:20,771 --> 00:02:21,351 the road. 41 00:02:21,791 --> 00:02:25,381 May the LORD deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the 42 00:02:25,391 --> 00:02:26,891 dead and with me. 43 00:02:27,291 --> 00:02:31,841 Later Naomi says the LORD has not abandoned his kindness to the 44 00:02:31,851 --> 00:02:33,571 living and to the dead. 45 00:02:34,271 --> 00:02:37,931 Readers still debate whether his means the LORD or Boaz. 46 00:02:38,531 --> 00:02:40,211 Maybe we’re meant to hear both. 47 00:02:40,991 --> 00:02:44,961 And at the threshing floor Boaz tells Ruth, you have shown more 48 00:02:44,971 --> 00:02:47,651 kindness in the latter end than at the beginning. 49 00:02:48,215 --> 00:02:53,145 What does the LORD require of you, but to act justly, to love 50 00:02:53,155 --> 00:02:56,295 mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? 51 00:02:56,747 --> 00:03:01,697 To love mercy, there, is to love hesed. 52 00:03:01,707 --> 00:03:06,937 It’s the word God uses of himself in Exodus thirty-four: abundant 53 00:03:06,947 --> 00:03:08,607 in loving kindness. 54 00:03:09,287 --> 00:03:11,887 Ruth is what that looks like with sandals on. 55 00:03:12,287 --> 00:03:14,447 No law makes Ruth stay. 56 00:03:14,987 --> 00:03:18,227 No law makes Boaz go as far as he does. 57 00:03:18,707 --> 00:03:22,827 Hesed is the extra mile no rule can make you walk. 58 00:03:27,773 --> 00:03:28,493 Second. 59 00:03:29,313 --> 00:03:33,253 Watch Naomi’s story as a curve, from empty to full. 60 00:03:33,613 --> 00:03:37,873 When she comes home, the whole town stirs: is this Naomi? 61 00:03:38,353 --> 00:03:39,993 Her name means pleasant. 62 00:03:40,733 --> 00:03:41,773 And she answers, 63 00:03:42,365 --> 00:03:43,885 Don’t call me Naomi. 64 00:03:44,405 --> 00:03:49,125 Call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. 65 00:03:49,385 --> 00:03:54,065 I went out full, and the LORD has brought me home again empty. 66 00:03:54,577 --> 00:03:56,677 Mara means bitter. 67 00:03:56,957 --> 00:04:00,617 And notice who is standing right next to her when she says empty: 68 00:04:01,057 --> 00:04:01,337 Ruth. 69 00:04:02,017 --> 00:04:04,217 The writer answers that word quietly. 70 00:04:04,897 --> 00:04:09,487 Boaz sends Ruth home with six measures of barley, saying, don’t 71 00:04:09,497 --> 00:04:11,707 go empty to your mother-in-law. 72 00:04:11,717 --> 00:04:13,937 In Hebrew it’s the same word. 73 00:04:14,657 --> 00:04:18,097 And at the very end, the women of Bethlehem speak again. 74 00:04:18,562 --> 00:04:22,712 He shall be to you a restorer of life and sustain you in your 75 00:04:22,722 --> 00:04:27,032 old age; for your daughter-in-law, who loves you, who is better 76 00:04:27,042 --> 00:04:30,302 to you than seven sons, has given birth to him. 77 00:04:30,667 --> 00:04:32,447 Better than seven sons. 78 00:04:32,967 --> 00:04:37,097 The daughter-in-law Naomi didn’t count was the fullness she couldn’t 79 00:04:37,107 --> 00:04:37,607 see. 80 00:04:38,027 --> 00:04:41,657 The book opens with three funerals, and closes with a baby in 81 00:04:41,667 --> 00:04:42,727 Naomi’s arms. 82 00:04:43,147 --> 00:04:44,947 Empty, to full. 83 00:04:49,912 --> 00:04:52,892 Third, and this one is my favorite. 84 00:04:53,432 --> 00:04:58,272 In the field, Boaz blesses Ruth, the foreigner who left everything. 85 00:04:58,832 --> 00:05:00,292 Listen to how he says it. 86 00:05:00,747 --> 00:05:04,631 May the LORD repay your work, and a full reward be given to you 87 00:05:04,641 --> 00:05:08,571 from the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come 88 00:05:08,581 --> 00:05:09,721 to take refuge. 89 00:05:10,271 --> 00:05:11,411 Under whose wings. 90 00:05:11,891 --> 00:05:15,581 The Hebrew word is kanaph. 91 00:05:15,591 --> 00:05:19,431 It means a wing, and it also means the corner of a garment. 92 00:05:20,351 --> 00:05:25,151 Now jump to chapter three, at midnight on the threshing floor. 93 00:05:25,711 --> 00:05:29,651 Ruth asks Boaz for something, and she uses his own word. 94 00:05:30,147 --> 00:05:31,383 I am Ruth your servant. 95 00:05:31,963 --> 00:05:35,293 Therefore spread the corner of your garment over your servant; 96 00:05:35,303 --> 00:05:37,978 for you are a near kinsman. 97 00:05:38,528 --> 00:05:41,528 The corner of your garment: kanaph again. 98 00:05:41,908 --> 00:05:46,458 In effect Ruth says, you prayed God would shelter me under his 99 00:05:46,468 --> 00:05:47,108 wings. 100 00:05:47,428 --> 00:05:49,508 Now spread your wing over me. 101 00:05:50,128 --> 00:05:54,138 Spreading a garment over a woman meant, I will marry you and protect 102 00:05:54,148 --> 00:05:54,868 you. 103 00:05:55,108 --> 00:05:58,808 Ezekiel uses that same picture for God and his people. 104 00:05:59,688 --> 00:06:03,888 Boaz prayed a blessing, and Ruth asked him to become the answer. 105 00:06:04,288 --> 00:06:07,708 Sometimes the answer to our prayer for someone is us. 106 00:06:08,175 --> 00:06:11,815 And that picture of shelter runs right through the Psalms. 107 00:06:12,191 --> 00:06:14,131 He will cover you with his feathers. 108 00:06:14,651 --> 00:06:16,931 Under his wings you will take refuge. 109 00:06:21,959 --> 00:06:22,539 Fourth. 110 00:06:23,319 --> 00:06:27,229 When Naomi hears the name Boaz, she says he is one of our near 111 00:06:27,239 --> 00:06:27,999 kinsmen. 112 00:06:28,399 --> 00:06:31,939 The Hebrew is go’el, a redeemer. 113 00:06:32,119 --> 00:06:33,379 It’s a family job. 114 00:06:33,799 --> 00:06:38,379 In Israel’s law, if a man grew poor and had to sell his land, 115 00:06:38,859 --> 00:06:43,339 his nearest relative was to buy it back, so it stayed in the family. 116 00:06:43,796 --> 00:06:47,676 If your brother becomes poor, and sells some of his possessions, 117 00:06:48,256 --> 00:06:51,986 then his kinsman who is next to him shall come, and redeem that 118 00:06:51,996 --> 00:06:53,396 which his brother has sold. 119 00:06:53,907 --> 00:06:55,627 There was a second duty, too. 120 00:06:55,947 --> 00:06:59,867 If a man died with no son, his brother was to marry the widow, 121 00:07:00,107 --> 00:07:02,867 so the dead man’s name would not be blotted out. 122 00:07:03,747 --> 00:07:07,087 Boaz isn’t a brother, and he isn’t the nearest relative. 123 00:07:07,487 --> 00:07:11,767 At the city gate, the nearer kinsman is ready to buy the field, 124 00:07:12,287 --> 00:07:15,467 until Boaz mentions that Ruth comes with it. 125 00:07:15,898 --> 00:07:19,409 I can’t redeem it for myself, lest I endanger my own inheritance. 126 00:07:19,849 --> 00:07:23,089 Take my right of redemption for yourself; for I can’t redeem it. 127 00:07:23,639 --> 00:07:25,159 Why the change of heart? 128 00:07:25,619 --> 00:07:30,169 Most likely because a son born to Ruth would carry the dead man’s 129 00:07:30,179 --> 00:07:32,819 name, and the field would go to him. 130 00:07:33,119 --> 00:07:37,259 He’d be paying for land his own family would never keep. 131 00:07:38,199 --> 00:07:40,459 Boaz pays that cost willingly. 132 00:07:40,939 --> 00:07:44,529 That’s what a redeemer really is: someone who takes your loss 133 00:07:44,539 --> 00:07:45,459 as his own. 134 00:07:46,059 --> 00:07:50,699 And in Isaiah, the LORD calls himself Israel’s Redeemer. 135 00:07:51,339 --> 00:07:53,367 Same word: go’el. 136 00:07:53,617 --> 00:07:55,637 A quick note on the sandal. 137 00:07:55,937 --> 00:08:00,377 Even the narrator explains it: an old custom for sealing a deal. 138 00:08:00,757 --> 00:08:04,407 It isn’t the shaming ritual in Deuteronomy, where a widow pulls 139 00:08:04,417 --> 00:08:06,617 off the sandal of a brother who refuses. 140 00:08:07,557 --> 00:08:11,667 Commentators read the marriage two ways: a wider family form of 141 00:08:11,677 --> 00:08:16,637 the brother’s duty, or a separate custom Boaz freely took on. 142 00:08:17,057 --> 00:08:20,677 Either way, he does more than any law asked. 143 00:08:25,680 --> 00:08:26,160 Fifth. 144 00:08:27,020 --> 00:08:30,220 Notice how often the book reminds us where Ruth is from. 145 00:08:30,820 --> 00:08:37,420 Ruth the Moabitess, five times, even after she settles in Bethlehem. 146 00:08:37,960 --> 00:08:39,740 She calls herself a foreigner. 147 00:08:40,580 --> 00:08:44,380 That label mattered, because the law of Moses said this. 148 00:08:44,786 --> 00:08:48,906 An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the LORD’s assembly; 149 00:08:49,486 --> 00:08:52,976 even to the tenth generation shall no one belonging to them enter 150 00:08:52,986 --> 00:08:54,706 into the LORD’s assembly forever, 151 00:08:55,220 --> 00:08:59,920 So how does a Moabite woman end up in King David’s family line? 152 00:09:00,620 --> 00:09:02,540 Readers answer that two ways. 153 00:09:03,100 --> 00:09:07,590 Later Jewish teaching, in the Mishnah, around two hundred AD, 154 00:09:07,600 --> 00:09:11,480 read the law as barring Moabite men, but not women. 155 00:09:12,240 --> 00:09:17,050 Others see Ruth’s faith opening a door the law had closed: your 156 00:09:17,060 --> 00:09:21,100 people will be my people, and your God my God. 157 00:09:21,519 --> 00:09:25,459 Either way, notice what Bethlehem ends up calling her. 158 00:09:25,979 --> 00:09:30,259 Boaz says, all the city knows that you are a worthy woman. 159 00:09:30,599 --> 00:09:34,139 That’s the very phrase used in Proverbs thirty-one. 160 00:09:34,639 --> 00:09:39,279 And in some old Hebrew Bibles, Ruth comes right after Proverbs. 161 00:09:39,679 --> 00:09:41,839 The foreigner is the worthy woman. 162 00:09:46,744 --> 00:09:47,584 Last one. 163 00:09:48,364 --> 00:09:52,784 In chapter two, Ruth goes out to glean, and the narrator says, 164 00:09:53,282 --> 00:09:56,592 she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to 165 00:09:56,602 --> 00:10:00,202 Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech. 166 00:10:00,489 --> 00:10:01,769 She happened to come. 167 00:10:02,469 --> 00:10:06,569 In Hebrew it’s almost playful: her chance chanced upon it. 168 00:10:06,829 --> 00:10:08,269 The narrator is smiling. 169 00:10:09,049 --> 00:10:12,909 Only twice does the narrator say outright that the LORD acted: 170 00:10:13,229 --> 00:10:17,269 giving bread at the start, and letting Ruth conceive at the end. 171 00:10:17,629 --> 00:10:20,749 Everything in between happens through ordinary choices. 172 00:10:21,189 --> 00:10:22,989 A daughter-in-law who stays. 173 00:10:23,409 --> 00:10:26,579 A farmer who keeps the gleaning law, and then some. 174 00:10:26,589 --> 00:10:28,809 A mother-in-law with a plan. 175 00:10:29,318 --> 00:10:32,578 You shall leave them for the poor and for the foreigner. 176 00:10:32,958 --> 00:10:34,798 I am the LORD your God. 177 00:10:35,212 --> 00:10:38,642 And that ordinary kindness reaches further than anyone in the 178 00:10:38,652 --> 00:10:39,792 story could see. 179 00:10:40,332 --> 00:10:44,042 Centuries later, Matthew opens his Gospel with the family tree 180 00:10:44,052 --> 00:10:46,272 of Jesus, and there she is. 181 00:10:46,662 --> 00:10:49,742 Boaz became the father of Obed by Ruth. 182 00:10:50,302 --> 00:10:52,342 Obed became the father of Jesse. 183 00:10:52,826 --> 00:10:56,996 Matthew names only a handful of women in that list, and Ruth the 184 00:10:57,006 --> 00:10:59,606 Moabitess is one of them. 185 00:11:00,246 --> 00:11:01,866 And where was Jesus born? 186 00:11:02,346 --> 00:11:05,646 In Bethlehem of Judea, Ruth’s adopted hometown. 187 00:11:06,266 --> 00:11:07,306 The house of bread. 188 00:11:07,743 --> 00:11:09,523 So what do we do with all this? 189 00:11:10,283 --> 00:11:16,043 First, hesed is a choice: loyal love that goes past what we owe. 190 00:11:17,203 --> 00:11:21,513 Second, God’s quiet work often looks like ordinary people being 191 00:11:21,523 --> 00:11:22,243 kind. 192 00:11:23,043 --> 00:11:28,833 And third, the outsider at the edge of our field may be the very 193 00:11:28,843 --> 00:11:31,763 person God is writing into his story. 194 00:11:32,238 --> 00:11:36,528 May the LORD repay your work, and a full reward be given to you 195 00:11:36,538 --> 00:11:40,448 from the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come 196 00:11:40,458 --> 00:11:41,498 to take refuge. 197 00:11:46,055 --> 00:11:48,435 Here’s a question to sit with this week. 198 00:11:49,255 --> 00:11:51,155 Where is your empty right now? 199 00:11:51,575 --> 00:11:53,895 And whose empty could your kindness help fill? 200 00:11:54,595 --> 00:11:55,955 Take a moment with that. 201 00:11:56,355 --> 00:11:58,175 You can pause the video if you like. 202 00:12:06,649 --> 00:12:10,339 If you’d like, tell us in the comments which of these six things 203 00:12:10,349 --> 00:12:11,489 was new to you. 204 00:12:11,749 --> 00:12:13,337 We read every one. 205 00:12:13,588 --> 00:12:14,508 Let’s pray. 206 00:12:15,228 --> 00:12:18,978 Faithful God, thank you that your kindness is at work even in 207 00:12:18,988 --> 00:12:20,188 our ordinary days. 208 00:12:20,648 --> 00:12:24,008 When we feel empty, shelter us under your wings. 209 00:12:24,488 --> 00:12:28,758 Make us people of loyal love, who notice the stranger at the edge 210 00:12:28,768 --> 00:12:31,278 of the field and share what we have. 211 00:12:31,288 --> 00:12:36,048 Thank you for Jesus, born in Bethlehem, our Redeemer. 212 00:12:36,328 --> 00:12:38,088 In Jesus’ name, amen. 213 00:12:38,659 --> 00:12:42,259 If you haven’t seen it yet, watch the whole story of Ruth. 214 00:12:42,759 --> 00:12:43,719 It’s right here. 215 00:12:44,059 --> 00:12:49,239 New First Light Bible Stories premiere every Sunday at 8 PM Eastern, 216 00:12:49,739 --> 00:12:52,319 with a Bible study like this one every Wednesday. 217 00:12:52,899 --> 00:12:56,039 This Sunday: the story of Esther, part one. 218 00:12:56,399 --> 00:12:59,400 Subscribe and tap the bell so you don’t miss it.