The five women in
Matthew’s genealogy: Ruth
A Series on
Advent
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Ruth 1; Matthew
1:1-17
[In
Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, there are five women mentioned. All
of them were in some sense outsiders. In this Advent series we will be looking
at these five women to gain a better understanding of “the word who became
flesh and made his dwelling among us”.]
In 1962, Elvis Presley released a song from the movie soundtrack of Kid Galahad titled, “Home is Where the Heart Is”. Here are the opening lyrics.
These words have never been truer than for Ruth.
1 In the days when the judges ruled, there was a
famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with
his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. NIV
The “man from
Bethlehem” soon died leaving his wife Naomi with her two sons, who later married
Moabite women. Ruth was one of them. After living in Moab for ten years, both
of Naomi’s sons also died, this time leaving Naomi alone with her two
daughters-in-law.
When Naomi learned that the Lord had brought good
crops to her people in Bethlehem, she decided to go back and told her daughters-in-law
to return to their homes. In a very emotional scene, one of them did so. But Ruth refused. Her home was with Naomi, and she made this pledge to her.
16 But Ruth replied, “Don’t ask me to leave you and
turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your
people will be my people, and your God will be my God. 17 Wherever
you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish
me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!” NLT
This wasn’t an easy promise for Ruth to make. She wouldn’t
be going to some utopian life in Bethlehem. Naomi, as a widow without any sons,
had no means of support. As for Ruth, she was from an enemy foreign land with
foreign gods and, like Naomi, she was a widow without a son. But, return they
did.
Once they arrived, the only food source that they
had was for Ruth to glean from a barley field. It belonged to Boaz. As it
turned out, he was not only a land owner, but also a relative of Naomi’s. In
those days, that meant that he was a guardian
redeemer.
The Hebrew word for guardian redeemer is
a legal term applied to someone who has the responsibility to redeem a relative
who is in serious difficulty. This could mean paying for their property so that
it stayed in the family. Or it could mean marrying and providing a son who
would inherit the property.
Although this concept seems very strange to us
today, the origin can be found in the book of Leviticus. For Naomi and Ruth, it
was literally a godsend. Boaz eventually married Ruth and they had a son named
Obed who later had a grandson named David who was a distant ancestor of Jesus
the Messiah.
For Ruth, the saying “home is where the heart is” meant being with Naomi and trusting in the God of Israel. Just like Ruth promised Naomi that she would always be with her, so the Lord promises you and me the same thing.
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