A few months ago, my parents gave my toddler a copy of The Character Builder’s Bible: 60 Character-Building Stories from the Bible. We’ve been reading it every day when we eat meals or snacks. One of the things I love about this book is that it actually has stories of women in it. Most children’s Bibles are collections of stories, and those stories are usually some combination of creation, Noah’s ark, David and Goliath, Daniel and the lion’s den, and Jonah and the whale. Some might have Joseph and his coat of many colors, or Moses and the Exodus, or some stories about Jesus, but there’s an appalling lack of even the most well-known Biblical women like Ruth and Ester. It’s so nice to be able to read a collection of Bible stories to my daughter with chapters on Miriam, Deborah, Ruth, Hannah, Ester, Mary, and Martha as well as all the wonderful stories about God working with men or with groups of people.
As I was trying to decide what to write about this week, my thoughts went back to the book of Ruth. We’d just reread the story in The Character Builder’s Bible, our pastor spoke on Ruth a few weeks ago in our local church, and I wrote about Ruth when I was doing my Judges 19-21 study. I’ve written about this book several times over the years, most notably in three Pentecost posts: Firstfruits From the Rejects, The Bridegroom’s Pledge, and Pentecost: A Time of Joyful, Spiritual Life. I thought today we’d focus on something else, though.
Moabite Women
Ruth takes place during the time of Judges, and as we learn at the end of the Book of Judges one of the main problems during that time was that, “Everyone did that which was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25, WEB). As we start reading Ruth’s story, we learn that what seemed right in the eyes of a man named Elimelech was to leave Bethlehem of Judah and move his family to Moab during a famine. They lived there for about 10 years, during which time Elimelech died, his sons married Moabite women, and then both sons died (Ruth 1:1-6). Moving during a famine sounds like a good idea, but perhaps not if you know the context of Israel’s history with Moab.
No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord; to the tenth generation none of their descendants shall ever do so, for they did not meet you with food and water on the way as you came from Egypt, and furthermore, they hired Balaam son of Beor of Pethor in Aram Naharaim to curse you.
Deuteronomy 23:3-4, NET
In addition to the two incidents mentioned in this passage (Numbers 21-22), Moabite women enticed the people of Israel to worship their gods and commit sexual immorality (Numbers 25). That’s where Elimelech chose to take his family and that’s where his sons found wives. Not a great choice, or so you would think. If we didn’t know the rest of the story, we might think that the men’s deaths were God’s judgement for associating with Moabite women and that Orpah and Ruth were pagan seductresses. That would be an expected narrative. But the story takes a very different turn.
Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Listen to me! Each of you should return to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you the same kind of devotion that you have shown to your deceased husbands and to me. May the Lord enable each of you to find security in the home of a new husband.” Then she kissed them goodbye, and they wept loudly. …
Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung tightly to her. So Naomi said, “Look, your sister-in-law is returning to her people and to her god. Follow your sister-in-law back home!” But Ruth replied,
“Stop urging me to abandon you!
For wherever you go, I will go.
Wherever you live, I will live.
Your people will become my people,
and your God will become my God.
Wherever you die, I will die—and there I will be buried.
May the Lord punish me severely if I do not keep my promise!
Only death will be able to separate me from you!”When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped trying to dissuade her. So the two of them journeyed together until they arrived in Bethlehem.
Ruth 1:8-9, 14-18, NET
There’s no indication that either of the Moabite women were bad wives or that God was angry with Elimelech’s and Naomi’s sons for marrying them. The text doesn’t use the typical word for “taking” a wife, though; the verb used “means ‘to lift’ or ‘to carry’ [and] connotes the issues of Ruth and Orpah as other, as foreign women. This is the same verb used at the end of Judges in the scene where the Benjamite men ‘lift’ and ‘carry’ wives for themselves at the festival dance in Judges 21:23″ (Matheny, p. 299). It probably doesn’t mean Ruth and Orpah were taken against their will, but it does underscore their status as non-Israelites. It is very important to the story that we understand Ruth is a foreigner, and specifically the type of foreigner God said could not “enter the assembly of the Lord.”
No Longer Foreign
Let’s skip ahead to the end of the book of Ruth. There, we learn that “Boaz was the father of Obed, Obed was the father of Jesse, and Jesse was the father of David” (Ruth 4:21-22, NET). Yes, the David we know as the greatest king of ancient Israel and a man after God’s own heart was the great-great-grandson of a Moabite woman. That’s certainly not in line with the pronouncement that no “Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord; to the tenth generation none of their descendants shall ever do so” (Deut. 23:3-4, NET).
So Boaz married Ruth and slept with her. The Lord enabled her to conceive and she gave birth to a son. The village women said to Naomi, “May the Lord be praised because he has not left you without a guardian today! May he become famous in Israel! He will encourage you and provide for you when you are old, for your daughter-in-law, who loves you, has given him birth. She is better to you than seven sons!” Naomi took the child and placed him on her lap; she became his caregiver. The neighbor women gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.” They named him Obed. Now he became the father of Jesse—David’s father.
Ruth 4:13-17, NET
The Hebrew word translated “married” in this verse is לָקַח (laqakh), which is “The more usual idiom … ‘to take’ an Israelite wife rather than אשנ (‘to carry’) a foreign one” (NET translation note on Ruth 4:13; Matheny, p. 299). By the end of the narrative, Ruth is not treated as a foreign woman. Her son is treated as Naomi’s son, someone firmly part of the tribe of Judah. We shouldn’t see this as God going back on His censure of Moabite people, but as Him keeping another promise that He makes to everyone who enters a covenant with Him. The foreigners who lived among God’s people had the same laws and the same expectations, and could even partake of holy rituals like the Passover if they joined the covenant (Ex. 12:47-49; Lev. 19:33-34; 24:22).
Let no foreigner who has joined himself to Yahweh speak, saying,
“Yahweh will surely separate me from his people.” …“Also the foreigners who join themselves to Yahweh
Isaiah 56:3, 6-7, WEB
to serve him,
and to love Yahweh’s name,
to be his servants,
everyone who keeps the Sabbath from profaning it,
and holds fast my covenant,
I will bring these to my holy mountain,
and make them joyful in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”
The story of Ruth, alongside words from the law and prophets, teaches a lesson about how God deals with people that didn’t really sink in until the New Testament times (Acts 10:34-35). God worked almost exclusively with ancient Israel in the past, but He always desired all people to become part of His family. He really doesn’t care what your ethnic background is; the moment you join the covenant and commit to following Him, you are one of His people.
Joining God’s Family
The Biblical narrative treats people as if the history described in its pages belongs to all of us. We are all reflected in the story of God’s dealings with people in some way. Either we are the people chosen to be part of the covenant who were unfaithful to God, and whom He redeemed back to Himself when He died on the cross for us (Israel and Judah) or we are the people outside those covenants who are graciously loved and included in God’s people if we choose to follow Him (Gentiles). And, symbolically, sometimes we’re both (see “Two Paths into God’s Covenant Community”). Many of us are like Ruth–people who were not originally part of God’s covenants, but have now been welcomed into His family.
Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh—who are called “uncircumcision” by the so-called “circumcision” that is performed on the body by human hands—that you were at that time without the Messiah, alienated from the citizenship of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who used to be far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. …
And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near, so that through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer foreigners and noncitizens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household, because you have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
Ephesians 2:11-13, 17-22, NET
Whatever we were before following God, when we commit to Him at baptism and agree to live by the terms of His covenant of grace, we become part of His family. Just like it didn’t matter any more if Ruth was a Moabite woman because she’d joined herself to God and demonstrated exceptional character, our backgrounds don’t matter anymore either. The only reason to even bring them up would be to give glory to God for transforming our lives so completely. The Bible tells us Ruth is a Moabite not to shame her, but to glorify the God who sheltered her under His wings because she trusted Him. He welcomed her into His family because she loved Him, the same way He does for all of us.
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Song Recommendation: “No Longer Slaves” by Jonathan David and Melissa Helser
Like An Anchor 