As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these
verses:
11And
the all of the people which [were] in the gate and the elders said, “Witnesses.
May YHVH make the woman coming into your house like Rachel and like Leah which
both built the house of Israel. May you have standing in Ephratah and proclaim
a name in Bethlehem 12and may your house be as the house of Perez
which Tamar bore to Judah, from the seed of which YHVH will give to you from
this young woman.”
What an enjoyable study! My mind is spinning with thoughts
to record. Not necessarily in any order: I had the thought as I was studying
this and pondering that Ruth is probably about 25 as all of this happens. Girls
in ancient cultures tended to marry anywhere from 14 to 18. Naomi had lived in
Moab for about 10 years and somewhere in there Mahlon had married Ruth. So she
is probably somewhere in her 20’s. This is supported by her here (and elsewhere
in the book) being referred to as a “young woman.” I would also suggest this is
supported by the fact that the Bethlehemites just naturally compare her to
Rachel and Leah with the idea that she will bear Boaz many children. Obviously,
if she were older, that assumption would be less likely.
Another thing: I have hesitated, as I studied, to draw much
from this benediction which the people pronounce, upon the fear it is just a
ritual pronounced at Jewish weddings – and therefore not really something to
draw applications from. However, having studied, I am inclined to think that
not the case. I think it wasn’t just a ritual benediction, that it actually was
a deliberate and intentional prayer specifically for Boaz and Ruth. I’m seeing
this in the comparison between this marriage and that of Judah and Tamar.
Perhaps the “Rachel and Leah” part was common enough at Jewish weddings, but I
think they were being quite deliberate when they pray, “Through the offspring
the Lord gives you by this woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom
Tamar bore to Judah.” Tamar was apparently a Canaanite girl and the
circumstances of her union with Judah were less than honorable. In spite of it
all, however, the Lord blessed and Perez and his family had gone on to be
leaders in Judah (Num 2:3, I Chron 2:10) and certainly in the area around Bethlehem. I believe this is
a very polite acknowledgment that Ruth is a Moabitess, and yet the Lord’s
fullest blessing may be pronounced upon Boaz’ and her wedding.
Also note from this benediction itself, two things: First of
all, the people of Bethlehem openly acknowledge that children are from the Lord. “Through the offspring
the Lord gives you …” This is one of those divine mysteries that offer one of
the greatest encouragements in life – put together a man and a woman and the
very natural result is a baby. It happens with cattle and raccoons and rabbits.
But it is so much more than a simple biological fact. Every child ever conceived
is “from the Lord” – a unique creation, deliberately formed not by evolutionary
chance but by the direct agency of the God of the universe (Psalm 139). A man
and a woman may choose to have a sexual union, but from that point on, everything
is totally out of their control. Whether or not the woman becomes pregnant is
entirely out of their hands. And the child conceived, whether it be a boy or a
girl, and what characteristics it will possess – hair color, eye color, height,
build, talents, personality traits, etc. – all remain entirely in the hands of
the Lord. We are who we are not because our parents purposed it so, but because
God did. There is no such thing as a “mistake.”
Secondly, observe from this blessing, they go on to
specifically say, “Through the offspring the Lord gives you by this young woman …” It is by this young woman. Boaz is a great man
and a wealthy man. Any day he wishes, apparently, he can buy a field and marry
a girl. He has servants, both men and women, to work his fields. Any given
morning, he can convene a court of elders at the city gate. He is a man who can
do much and command much. But there is one thing he cannot do. He cannot give
himself a family. As great and powerful and wealthy as he or any other man may
be, they’ll die childless without a woman. Ruth may be “just” a Moabitess, a
foreign girl, and she may be abjectly poor and a widow, but there is one thing
she can give Boaz that he cannot buy – a family, and that of course in the end
is the greatest possession of all. At the end of any man’s life, all the money,
all the lands, all the awards, and everything else mean nothing in comparison
to the blessing of being surrounded by children and grandchildren – and all of
that was provided to him by his wife. In a sense, in the end, the greatest
blessing of all for a man is simply to have a wife. Through her he receives all
that really matters in life.
I guess I’m just marveling at how amazing it all is. Here is
Boaz rich and powerful. Yet, this poor, widowed, foreign girl can provide him
with the one thing his money can’t buy and the only thing that really matters.
How totally awesome is that? I guess what I mean is that, on the one hand, how
totally wonderful all of this is for Ruth. She woke up yesterday just a poor
widowed and basically hopeless young girl. And suddenly today, she gathers up
her few belongings and goes to live in a wealthy man’s home. You can bet Boaz
wasted no time that day buying his pretty young wife a whole new wardrobe of
clothes. And rather than a few handfuls of barley, today she’ll sit down to a
real meal of sumptuous cuisine. Tonight she’ll not go to bed alone on a mat,
but crawl into a real bed with a strong man who loves her. What a fairy tale
for Ruth. But is she the only one who benefits? Hardly. This young woman is
going to give this man the greatest blessing of all – children. A woman needs a
man. But a man needs a woman. They need each other.
And for Boaz and Ruth, it is the greatest union of all
because they both love the Lord. They are both virtuous people. Ruth will do
Boaz “good and not evil, all the days of her life,” and Boaz will be to her a strong
provider and defender. She’ll be a wonderful mother to their children and Boaz
will be a wonderful father. They’ll do it all for each other, what neither
could do alone. It is all just a wonderful mystery and a wonderful relationship
that God alone could have conceived from the beginning.
One last thought – it is always a good thing to pronounce blessings
on people. These people gathered at the gate pronounce this blessing on Boaz
and Ruth and think of how it was fulfilled! “May you have standing in Ephratah
and be famous in Bethlehem.” I don’t know what they each might have envisioned in
their minds, but no one could have imagined that the great grandson of this
couple would be David, the greatest king in earth history, from whose line
eventually would come the very Messiah Himself. Let us all pray blessings on
the people around us and may Boaz and Ruth teach us to remember that we pray to
the God who does “exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think!”