follow Naomi, to make Naomi’s people her people, and Naomi’s God her God, Ruth is acting in a counterintuitive manner that cannot be fully explained even by assuming the most exceptional personal loyalty or self-denial on Ruth’s part. Ruth’s decision is clearly designed to be a match for the totally unimaginable choice of Moab as a place for Israelites to settle. In other words, the only satisfactory explanation for Ruth’s statement is that God has inspired it for God’s own purposes, which presumably include providing for the welfare of these two widows but which may very well go far beyond that immediate objective. The reality is, then, that Ruth has not so much chosen Naomi and Naomi’s God as that Naomi’s God has chosen Ruth as his agent in a plan so far from human imagining that only God could have thought it up. Nevertheless, the existence of such a divine plan takes nothing away from Ruth’s touching loyalty.
As for Ruth’s remarkable pledge, her loyalty stands in sharp contrast to the disloyalty shown by Elimelech when he abandoned his community in a time of crisis. Remember that he left Bethlehem to escape a famine. Thus, in an ironic twist, the Moabite Ruth already reveals herself as more committed to the Israelite community than was the Israelite Elimelech. Only God’s involvement with Ruth can plausibly explain her behavior. In fact, her loyalty to Naomi’s God, whose hidden hand is at work behind the scenes, prefigures and explains everything that occurs later.
When the two widows arrive in Bethlehem, the whole city comes out to greet them. Women cry out, “Can this be Naomi?” But Naomi, whose name means “pleasantness,” responds by telling people to call her Mara (bitterness), and she publicly blames the Lord for the bitterness she has experienced. She left Israel full but came back empty, she says, because the Lord had brought misfortune upon her. In this way, she publicized her need for the community’s help and for God’s.
Fortunately, Naomi returns to Bethlehem with Ruth at a most opportune time: the beginning of the barley harvest, which is the perfect opportunity for the community to help these hungry and defenseless widows. Since God is at work managing such details, there seems to be nothing coincidental about the timing of their arrival in Bethlehem.
Ruth: Chapter 2
In Moab, Naomi has no property and no kinfolk to help her, and so the first thing she does upon returning to Bethlehem is to publicly announce her indigent condition. In response to this appeal, the opening verses of this chapter offer a strong hint of promise. In Bethlehem, Naomi does indeed have kinfolk—specifically Boaz, a man related to her husband, a man of substance. Since Boaz is a kinsman of Elimelech, Boaz is most likely of Elimelech’s generation and thus a mature adult.
Ever the hard-working and loyal companion, Ruth tells Naomi that she would like to glean among the ears of grain, working behind someone who may show her kindness. Notice how far from human imagining it is that Ruth, a just-arrived and still unprotected widow in a very strange land, should take the initiative and offer to go gleaning. Gleaning, interestingly, is not a Moabite practice and not something a Moabite would even know about. It is instead a distinctively Jewish idea enshrined in the Torah. That Ruth, a Moabite, should know about this legal provision and then, immediately and on her own initiative, want to glean, can plausibly be explained only if it is assumed again that Ruth is acting upon divine instruction. Verse 3 says that, “as luck would have it,” the land where Ruth goes to glean belongs to Boaz. But, of course, luck has absolutely nothing to do with it.
One might well ask why this narrative makes it obvious, though never explicit, that God is at work behind the scenes, so that events correspond perfectly to God’s will. This subtle technique speaks authoritatively to the intended audience, which is not only Jews in general but also, and especially, the hardliners in Jerusalem. The purpose of this narrative is to change the hearts and minds of these hardliners, and that can be done only if they feel addressed by God.
In any case, Boaz soon arrives at his fields and greets his workers by saying, “The Lord be with you!” By any standard, this is a pious and loving way for a landowner to speak to his workers. Boaz treats them like family, and they respond in kind. Thus, we learn that Boaz is not only a man of substance but also a religious Jew who is full of community spirit and for whom the active presence of God among them is a given.
Because Boaz shows loving concern for his workers, he seems likely to show similar concern for this new girl working in his fields. “Whose girl is that?” he asks, and his men report that she is a Moabite girl who came back with Naomi from Moab and who asked to glean among the reapers. They then add a telling detail, namely, that this Moabite girl has been on her feet and working hard since early morning. This detail is designed to have an impact on Boaz, a community-minded Jew; he cannot be unmoved by this detail, which not only reveals Ruth’s loyalty and energetic devotion to her mother-in-law—all the more wonderful because Ruth is a Moabite—but also reminds Boaz of his sacred obligation to defend the widow and the resident alien, Ruth being both widow and resident alien.
Boaz then speaks to Ruth in a fatherly and protective manner, as if she were his own daughter. Thus, we learn that Boaz takes his religious obligations quite seriously. He tells her not to glean in any other field, to stay close to his female workers, and to follow them. In a gesture of additional protection and hospitality, he orders his men not to molest her, and he invites Ruth to drink from his water supply whenever she is thirsty.
This scene shows how the divinely inspired behavior of Ruth, the impoverished Moabite widow and resident alien, is met with the divinely inspired response of Boaz, the religious Jew. Out of concern for the welfare of her mother-in-law, Ruth reaches out to the community for any help that the practice and legal principle of gleaning might offer her—and, in her gleaning, she spares no effort. Boaz, for his part, recognizes that it is his religious obligation to help her. He is not in the least deterred by the fact that she is a Moabite. In fact, her nationality only underscores the marvelous nature of her behavior and makes it all the more captivating. In this way, both Ruth and Boaz are counterintuitive characters. Who among the hardliners in Jerusalem would ever expect a Moabite to behave in a way so pleasing to the God of Israel? And who would expect a Jewish landowner living in this period marked by intense xenophobia to treat a Moabite with such loving kindness? This is only the first of several scenes designed to demonstrate that God calls us to exercise a radical hospitality in which there is no hint of xenophobia.
In fact, even Ruth recognizes how far from human imagining her situation is and so asks Boaz why he is being so kind as to single her out even though she is a foreigner. Boaz, who in this narrative is modeling the way the author wishes all Jews to behave, replies that he has been told about everything Ruth did for her mother-in-law—how Ruth left her mother and father and the land of her birth and came to a people she had not known before. In other words, Boaz both admires her loyalty to Naomi and appreciates the totally unexpected character of her decision and her behavior, which to him clearly indicate that this is God’s handiwork and that Ruth is acting as God’s agent. Thus, he responds by saying, “May the Lord reward your deeds. May you have full recompense from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have sought refuge!”
Ruth’s response to this blessing is ingenious: “You are most kind, my lord, to comfort me and to speak gently to your maidservant . . . ” This show of respect for the stellar quality of Boaz as a religious Jew might have been enough to win his eternal loyalty. But she adds something even more suggestive and charming: “ . . . even though I am not so much as one of your maidservants.” This is an expression of the most sincere and abject humility, and no character trait is more valued among religious Jews—or by God—than humility. Boaz must have been mightily impressed. At the same time, Ruth’s mention of the fact that she is not one of Boaz’s kinfolk/family implies that Ruth could or should become a member of Boaz’s family. Clearly, Ruth’s hint does not fall on deaf ears either, because Boaz invites Ruth to join him and his kinfolk for lunch. Apparently, Ruth is given the honor of sitting near Boaz, because she is able to dip her bread in the same vinegar bowl that Boaz is using. Ruth eats her fill and, after the meal, has lots of leftovers to take home to Naomi.
As
