Sunday, June 22, 2014

Ruth 3:10-13 – “A Good Man”


As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

10And he said, “[May] you [be] one blessed by the LORD, my daughter. You have done well. Your kindness, the former from the latter, not to go after the young men, either poor or rich. 11And now, my daughter, do not be afraid. All which you are saying I will do to you because the all of the gate of my people [are] knowing that you [are] a virtuous woman. 12And now because [it is] truth because a redeeming one I [am] and also there is a redeeming one nearer from me. 13Remain tonight and it will be in the morning if he will redeem, good, he will redeem and if not he is pleased to redeem you and I will redeem you, [as] the LORD lives. Lie down until the morning.”

Here’s a bunch more miscellaneous notes and thoughts from this passage:

Interesting that Boaz says to Ruth in v11, “Don’t be afraid.” Someone once made the statement, and I don’t doubt it, that “Fear not” or “Don’t be afraid” is the most common command in the Bible. Just think how many verses begin with “Fear not.” It seems like the older I get, the more I realize how big a problem fear is, how much it is the very emotion which holds me back and ruins me. The Bible teaches us “Perfect love casts out fear,” and “God has not given us a spirit of fear,” but learning how to appropriate the Lord’s strength and overcome it turns out to be a lifelong challenge. The Lord of course knows all of this and so He often (very often, it seems) prefaces what He says to us with “Don’t be afraid.”

What strikes me is how quickly and naturally those same words come out of Boaz’s mouth. A girl wakes a man up in the middle of the night and startles him, and some of the first words out of his mouth to her are, “Don’t be afraid.” Once again, I personally think it is very revealing of this man’s character. Even startled, this man talks like Jesus! When he speaks with another human being, he talks like Jesus – and I would suggest that is because he has long made a deliberate habit of loving God and others. As Jesus said in Luke 6:45, “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart … for out of the abundance of his heart a man speaks.” Interesting how fractal all of this is. Ruth, the foreigner, hears from her Jewish redeemer, “Don’t be afraid,” while us Gentiles often hear our great heavenly Redeemer say, “Don’t be afraid.”

While I’m on the subject of Boaz and his words, another thing I find instructive is to consider just in general that everything he says to Ruth in this passage, he says as a man startled awake in the middle of the night. Once again, what a good man he is. Go back and read what he says to Ruth, deliberately noticing that these are not words he rehearsed or had time to think about. Ruth had no doubt rehearsed her words over and over and over in her mind until finally she gets her chance and says, “Spread the corner of your garment over me.” But Boaz has no such opportunity. He awakes in the middle of the night startled, only to be confronted with a question of enormous importance – the kind of question he is probably in the habit of thinking through long and carefully.

As Jesus’ words quoted above would tell us, “A good man speaks out of the good things stored in his heart” and Boaz does exactly that. With barely a moment to collect himself, he utters to Ruth words of blessing, and kindness, and assurance, and praise. And his very first words are “The Lord bless you.” It is all just marvelous to me and so encouraging to know the Lord, to keep striving to know Him better, to let Him change me from the inside out, to let His Spirit control my thoughts, to give Him my desires, to trust Him – and let him make me a man like Boaz, like Jesus. A good man.

Something interesting from the passage is to note that, in answering Ruth, Boaz seems to very deliberately use variations of the word “redeem” six times. As we’ve noted before six seems to be, in a Jewish mind, the number of incompletion. You can’t see it in English, necessarily, but Boaz definitely uses six “redeem” words and the way he does it you can’t help but think he is doing so very deliberately. Read my rather literal translation of verses 12 and 13 above and you’ll see what I mean. Could it be, even in that, he was communicating to Ruth? In both their minds, he would be “Redeem #7” and “complete” it all. Interesting in the book of Revelation, we learn that the number of a man is 666. Incomplete. Incomplete. Incomplete! Until our great Redeemer comes. Without Him we are thrice over incomplete. Hopeless. But He is our Completer and our Completion. Our “Redeem #7!”

Then notice what he says of Ruth: he tells her in verse 11, “All my fellow townspeople know that you are woman of noble character.” The Hebrew word for “noble character” is the same word used to describe Boaz back in 2:1, where the NIV translated it, “Boaz was … a man of standing.” It is a word that is hard to translate into English because it is a picture-word. It is a picture of a person of strength, of sterling character, of stability, possibly of wealth and position, but just in general, a person to be admired. The Lord uses it to describe Boaz in 2:1 and Boaz uses it to describe Ruth in 3:11. Interestingly, it is the same word used in Proverbs 31:10, in the verse, “A wife of noble character (same word), who can find?” Boaz found one and had the good sense to marry her!

A couple more indications of the goodness in Boaz’s heart: Notice in both the beginning and end of verse 13 he tells Ruth to “Remain here for the night.” She would probably be inclined to think she should get up and leave. He even has to make a point of it in the morning, in verse 14, “Don’t let it be known that a woman came to the threshing floor.” But he is too good a man to send this young woman out into the darkness and the dangers of a night. She might be inclined (out of the goodness in her heart!) to get up and leave, but Boaz will have none of that. He risks whatever stigma may have been attached to Ruth’s presence and thinks first and foremost of her safety. He’s just a good man.

Then, he could have simply taken Ruth to be his wife there on the spot, but he will not do it. Why not? Because there is “another.” He obviously loves Ruth and, being a man myself, I can only imagine how badly he would want to just push ahead. But he is a man who respects the Lord and His law too much for that. He simply will not take Ruth – no matter how much he’s attracted to her – unless he can do it in good conscience before God and the community. Here is a man whose character rules him, not his desires. And of course, in the end, he gets what he desires, but only after he first resolves to do right. “Commit thy way unto the Lord and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart!” Boaz had already established a life of committing his way to the Lord and once again he practices that priority – only to blessed in ways he could have never imagined. That is a great reminder for all of us. God’s way is always best and the sure path to everything we ever dreamed!

I suppose finally I want to note something from the fractal (what others call typology) of this whole passage. Boaz is a picture of our heavenly Redeemer.  He comes to us wanting to redeem us, but there is “another” and that is the Law. The Law in a sense has “first dibs” on us. “Do this and live,” the Law says. If only we would keep the Law, the whole Law, we would be redeemed. But, alas, what do we find? The “other” cannot redeem us. It gets its chance in our lives. We are born incorrigibly legalistic. We all think the answer is law. If only I can do “better” somehow it will make me right. We try to make ourselves “right,” and we may give it a noble effort, but invariably, the Law says to Jesus, “I cannot redeem them. You redeem them Yourself. I cannot do it.” Fortunately for us, our Redeemer’s intentions were already, “And now, my children, do not be afraid. I will do for you all you ask.”

Boaz is a good man. He was a good man in seemingly a thousand different ways. He was sure good to Ruth. And everything about him reminds us of our great Redeemer, Jesus.

He’s just a good man.

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