GOD IS our redeemer, a theme woven throughout the Old Testament. This is illustrated most clearly in the Book of Ruth.
This week, we finish the Book of Judges with the story of how the other tribes of Israel prevented the extinction of Benjamin after the sordid affair of the Levite’s concubine (Judges 19–20). Then we move on to Ruth, which relates the story of the great-grandparents of David.
Ruth was a Moabite woman who married a man from Bethlehem, one of the sons of Naomi and Elimelech, when they’d traveled to Moab during a famine in Israel. Elimelech died, leaving Naomi with her sons and daughters-in-law, but after ten years in Moab, Naomi’s sons died as well.
Ruth’s redemption by Naomi’s kinsman, Boaz, is a picture of our redemption by God through His sacrifice. We discuss the significance of the actions of Boaz in the context of Christ’s victory over death at the cross and the significance of the Bible recording a Moabite—a Gentile—in the line of David and Jesus. (And the mother of Boaz was Rahab, the Canaanite woman who hid the Israelite spies from the king of Jericho!)
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Boaz, not Ruth, stands as the kinsman-redeemer. The widow is supposed to be the one. Boaz intercedes for Ruth, not Ruth herself, because Jesus is our kinsman-redeemer. This is called the Law of the Loosed Shoe.
Naomi is a type of Israel (the diaspora), so in order to bring Ruth to Naomi, Naomi had to be exiled from her land. Ruth doesn’t replace Naomi – she learns Boaz’s ways through her. Naomi meets Boaz through Ruth (the church makes Jews jealous in the End Times.)
Ruth lays herself at Boaz’s feet asking him to marry her, just like we need to ask Jesus to marry us. Christ, like Boaz, can’t claim you as kinsman-redeemer until YOU move to HIM!