The Bible in a Year – 19 August

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

19 August. Ruth 1 to 4 (entire book)

The short book of Ruth contrasts with yesterday’s reading (the Song of Songs).  They are both stories written down (and maybe even composed) centuries after the time in which they were set.  Both tell of relationships between men and women: the Song of Songs was about passionate but unrequited love, whereas this is a tale of family relationships, bereavements and an arranged marriage.  Ruth may or may not have been a real person (we have no way of telling) but like any Biblical story, indeed any good story, it is intended to make a point.

The story starts with Ebimelech emigrating from Bethlehem to Moab (at that time very much enemy country) due to a famine.  No doubt many others did the same.  In those days there would have been no refugee camps or international aid, and immigrants from Judah would not have been welcomed.  So it is perhaps surprising for a start that Ebimelech’s sons married local girls – that would have made them unclean under Jewish law, although the story does not make that point.  But in fact the marriages are successful, so much so that when father and sons have all died, Naomi and Ruth return together to Bethlehem.

Now the boot (or sandal – see chapter 4 verse 7) is on the other foot.  Although Naomi has been welcomed back by her relatives in Bethlehem, Ruth as an immigrant from an enemy country has to establish herself as one of the community.  Gleaning left-over ears of barley after the harvest is the only way for her to gather food to eat or sell.  By a series of coincidences (or God-incidences as many people prefer to say) she meets her late father-in-law’s relative who owns the field, and with careful negotiation by Naomi, what starts as a master-servant relationship quickly becomes a marriage.  Boaz has no hesitation in taking this non-Jewish widow as his wife, and it seems that unlike some arranged marriages, this one was a love match a well.

The lesson here seems to be that welcoming, and even marrying, people from another country, whether they come as refugees from famine or as part of an existing multi-ethnic family, is quite compatible with God’s plans (despite earlier religious laws against such intermarriages). Indeed, little did the characters in this story know that, as we are told in an epilogue, Ruth is said to have become the ancestor of the great king David. Today’s asylum-seeker may herself, or through her descendants, become a great leader of our people. This book therefore makes a welcome change from the black-and-white laws of other parts of the Old Testament, reminding us that there is no place for racism in the Kingdom of God.