Finding Safety in God's Care, the Story of RuthSample

Naomi’s plans for Ruth’s future

“My daughter, should I not seek rest for you, that it may be well with you? Is not Boaz our relative, with whose young women you were?” (Ruth 3:1-2)

Ruth has gathered enough wheat to provide for herself and Naomi for the time being, but Naomi seeks Ruth’s well-being in the long term. She wants to find “rest” for her by giving her daughter-in-law a home where she will be well provided for. Naomi thinks a marriage with Boaz will be the best way to gain this. Therefore, she instructs Ruth to dress up, go to Boaz’ threshing floor at night and symbolically ask him to marry her.

It’s with good reason that Naomi chooses Boaz as a potential husband for Ruth. As she mentioned before, he is a close relative of Elimelech. This means he can buy their lost fields back for them, but it implies even more. For not only did God provide for lost fields to be ‘redeemed’, but He also gave laws to prevent family names from dying out. If a man married a wife and died before they had any children, it was his brother’s obligation to take the widow as his wife. Their firstborn son would be named after the dead brother, to continue his name. Now Boaz is not Ruth’s brother-in-law, so he is not obliged to marry her. But who knows… Maybe he’ll do it anyway?!?

Do you like God’s provision for childless Israelite widows? Why, or why not?