Saturday, August 23, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Obed
Naomi had a prominent kinsman named Boaz.
Ruth and Naomi had little food, and the tradition was to allow “gleaners” to gather wheat after the main crop was harvested. Naomi sent Ruth out to do this work, and she entered a field belonging to Boaz. Boaz had heard from his relative Naomi of Ruth’s affection and loyalty, and in the field Boaz spoke to Ruth …
Listen, my daughter! Do not go to glean in anyone else’s field; you are not to leave here.
Ruth was beautiful and Boaz did not have a wife. But he was more than twice her age. Ruth’s husband had died. There were rules, but Boaz wondered if perhaps … perhaps … God wanted Ruth to be his wife.
But she was not a Hebrew. Francine Rivers writes in her novella Unshaken, imagining his thoughts …
Not all foreign women were a curse on Hebrew men, drawing them away from the true God into lustful pagan worship. Some foreign women had been grafted in among God’s chosen people because of their great faith.
His mother, Rahab, had been such a woman. She’d welcomed two Hebrew spies into her house in the wall of Jericho. Unashamed, she had boldly declared to them her faith in Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews. She’d risked her life to be aligned with God and His people.
One of those spies had been his father, Salmon. And God had blessed both his parents, for they had loved one another throughout their lives. Nevertheless, God had warned His people against the miseries of yoking themselves to foreigners. Men were too easily seduced away from God by the wiles of women. But what constituted a foreigner?
In America we have food to eat, but those with food have often feared that “foreigners” would threaten their own livelihood. Italians, Irish, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Palestinians, Mexicans and Hispanic people from countless Central and South American countries … all faced plenty of persecution when they arrived at the Statue of Liberty, wondering if its inspired words of welcome were meant for them. And of course Africans were brought here not to find freedom but to become slaves.
Boaz (half-Canaanite himself) was falling in love with this girl, regardless of their age.
Naomi said to Ruth, “Boaz is a close relative of ours, and he’s been very kind by letting you gather grain with his workers. He is a compassionate man and would show mercy to anyone in need. But because he is also our close relative, he can be our family redeemer. God provided a way for widows under His Law. As our family redeemer, Boaz would take you as his wife and give you a son to carry on the name of Mahlon and inherit Elimelech’s portion of the land God promised.”
Ruth’s face flooded with color. “After all he’s done for us already, should we ask him to give me a son to carry on another man’s name?”
In due time, after a closer relative refused to redeem Ruth, Boaz took her.
When they came together as man and wife,
the LORD enabled her to conceive and she bore a son.
Then the women said to Naomi,
“Blessed is the LORD who has not failed
to provide you today with an heir!
May he become famous in Israel!
From Rahab to Ruth, the genealogy of Jesus builds. What do we know of the future? Even the past becomes quickly obscure. The book of Ruth spoke of what was known long before David, then Jesus, were born. We can relax in what we know and what we see and also rest in what we do not see, because God is our father and He loves us.
The neighbor women gave him his name,
at the news that a grandson had been born to Naomi.
They called him Obed.
He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.
 (Ruth 2, Psalm 128, Matthew 23)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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