00:00:00:18 – 00:00:24:01
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody, thanks for joining us here on a Monday as we continue through the book of Ruth. grateful that you would join us. We are starting the second chapter and I would say, Michael, really with the second chapter, things take a turn in this book. We start to go some new directions. Just a quick recap. Naomi, an Israelite with has lost husband.

00:00:24:01 – 00:00:48:24
Clint Loveall
Both sons. one of her daughter in law stayed in the land of Moab, where they were, and where she was from. Orpah and the daughter in law, Ruth, for whom the book is named, has followed Naomi. They have returned to Bethlehem, but they are in a difficult and and semi dangerous situation, in that they are both widows.

00:00:48:28 – 00:01:15:40
Clint Loveall
They are both women, and they evidently at this point don’t have much in the way of family, though there is a connection we’ll see today and in. Yeah. What what do we make of this turn? Let me do some reading and then we’ll come back and we can begin to have some conversation. So I’ll go through a few, go through maybe seven verses here.

00:01:15:45 – 00:01:35:22
Clint Loveall
Now, Naomi had a kinsman on her husband’s side, a prominent rich man of the family of Amalek, whose name was Boaz, and Ruth them all by said to Naomi, let me go to the field, and glean among the years of grain behind someone in whose sight I may find favor. She said to her, go, my daughter. So Ruth went.

00:01:35:27 – 00:01:57:24
Clint Loveall
She came and gleaned in the field behind the reapers. As it happened, she came to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was one of the family of Elimelech. But just then Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, the Lord be with you. They answered, the Lord bless you. Then Boaz said to the servant who was in charge of the reapers.

00:01:57:28 – 00:02:22:27
Clint Loveall
To whom does this young woman belong? The servant who is in charge of the reapers answered, she is the Moabite who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. She said, please let me glean and gather among the shreeves behind the reapers. So she came, and she’s been out on her feet from early this morning until now, without resting even for a moment.

00:02:22:32 – 00:02:43:55
Clint Loveall
But maybe pause there for a minute. So, a couple of things culturally that might help here. There is, if you go into the I’m sorry, if you go into the Old Testament laws, there is a provision made for those who don’t have anything, for those who are poor, for those who are needy, that they can go work fields.

00:02:43:55 – 00:03:07:50
Clint Loveall
And so there are restrictions on how farming is done. Leave the edges of your field. don’t go a second time when you harvest. Don’t go over it a second time. And the idea is that there would be enough in the field for those who are willing to go out and to gather and to to sort of provide for themselves a subsistence diet.

00:03:07:55 – 00:03:35:42
Clint Loveall
And so Ruth makes this offer to Naomi that she will go and remember, we were told it was during the barley harvest that she would go and she would walk behind the reapers and she would gather. And so, this is what she does. And then coincidentally, Boaz happens to see her there, inquires about her. And the last thing we’re told here, which is very interesting, Michael is that she has not rested.

00:03:35:56 – 00:03:54:29
Clint Loveall
So we get the idea that Ruth is, that she is resilient, that she’s a worker, that she’s not begging, that she is, that she is willing to put in the time and effort to to help her situation and to help Naomi as well.

00:03:54:34 – 00:04:15:09
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. So I think we do start in a fitting place if we want to talk about Ruth’s character, because I think you’re exactly right that we are learning something about Ruth. We’ve already learned that she’s faithful and loyal. We’ve already talked about how these words that she offers are a beautiful expression of human fidelity to one another in just the previous chapter.

00:04:15:09 – 00:04:35:18
Michael Gewecke
And now so we turn our attention to chapter two. We’re going to learn something else about Ruth. She’s not only faithful, she’s not only committed to her mother in law to go with her, to leave her land, to leave her family, to leave all of the security that she might have had there to go with Naomi, to come to Bethlehem and then to figure it out.

00:04:35:18 – 00:04:57:09
Michael Gewecke
And part of her solution to figuring out is clearly in the story, working hard to do her part to follow the rules, by the way, to follow the cultural expectations laid out for those who don’t have much, if anything at all. And she’s going to do her part. And that is certainly an expression of the kind of woman that she is.

00:04:57:09 – 00:05:27:19
Michael Gewecke
And that is certainly laudable in the way that we see both her and Naomi doing what it takes for them to survive. And Clint, we’ve said this numerous times, but it’s just worth noting. This is a very positive portrayal of women and their ability to make ends meet in a situation in which they are indeed, as we’ve said numerous times before in this study, that they are at risk, that they certainly bear each and every day some level of insecurity because of the situation they find themselves in.

00:05:27:28 – 00:05:50:54
Michael Gewecke
And yet we discover that these women are resilient, that they have an ability to engage these problems, and they are doing so in a in a really laudable way. I think what’s fascinating is, as it turns into chapter two, there’s so many details. Some of those are on the front end of the text. We can see them easily in our translations before the end of the study.

00:05:50:54 – 00:06:20:31
Michael Gewecke
Here there are some other things that are behind the text that are maybe not so well reflected in the translation, but one thing I think is interesting is you have some of the least prominent, least notable people now coming in contact with, as the text says it, a prominent rich man, Boaz, that this field is, of course owned by a family member or a kinsman.

00:06:20:42 – 00:06:42:54
Michael Gewecke
But there’s also a sense in which here those who are on the bottom of the of the scale are now engaging with that. One of those who are at the top. There’s a kind of opposites meeting in this moment. there’s a privilege meeting, a poverty. There’s a someone with agency and strength meeting those who don’t have it.

00:06:42:59 – 00:07:04:52
Michael Gewecke
And chapter two is turning into a new leaf. Because all of that loss, all of that, we need to to give up these things that we had in, in, Moab that’s now going to transition now that they’ve come into this new chapter, new land back to Bethlehem. Boaz, introduce sources of radical transformation and change in the tone of the text.

00:07:04:57 – 00:07:31:10
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think I think so. And it’s difficult. It’s kind of a difficult decision when to get into that part of the storyline. But maybe just to tell you that what is going to develop here is primarily now this relationship between Ruth and Boaz, these two characters who haven’t quite intersect, acted yet, but are or at least on in Boaz.

00:07:31:21 – 00:08:09:27
Clint Loveall
Boaz is case aware of Ruth. This is going to be kind of the primary line of the story. Now, Naomi is still in the tale and she will still provide some advice, but this story now kind of turns with, semi romantic, semi gracious, semi paternal. And I mean that in the sense that Boaz is going to want to protect Ruth and kind of help her and we’re going to see him being very gracious to her.

00:08:09:32 – 00:08:43:26
Clint Loveall
And I suppose there’s a mixed review on that for some, maybe the idea of a man swooping in to these, these stories and kind of providing a way out or playing the role of, deliverer is not appealing. But, again, I don’t I think you can read this both ways. I think you can ultimately read this story and say that Boaz has been generous and gracious.

00:08:43:37 – 00:09:11:13
Clint Loveall
Certainly he’s interested in Ruth, and Ruth has been hardworking and courageous and faithful. I don’t I don’t necessarily feel, Michael, that you have to choose one of those storylines. I actually think the book does a pretty nice job of weaving them together. And I think, you know, the danger is we come with one agenda or the other, and maybe we miss the other side of the tale, but but I think you can hold those things together pretty well.

00:09:11:18 – 00:09:35:09
Michael Gewecke
So I think that there’s an element here that helps us to see those tensions that you’re talking about, Clint. Because one of our temptations in reading a story might be to look for the most simple explanation and then to just hang on to it. But I think the writer of this book is intending to show us how opposites, when they come together, can create some really interesting tensions.

00:09:35:09 – 00:10:03:10
Michael Gewecke
And one of the things that we have here in these first verses of chapter two is there’s already beginning in the original language to be some plays on words. And in the Hebrew the word this yada, which means to know. And I don’t think we have this very cleanly in the English translations, Clint. But here at the beginning, a lot of these, relations, like the word kinsman actually means it comes from the word yada to know.

00:10:03:10 – 00:10:44:12
Michael Gewecke
And there’s some markings in the master that we don’t need to get into the weeds. The whole point being, there’s the idea of a Boaz is known to Naomi, though Ruth is unaware or unknown, that Boaz is unknown to Ruth. But then at some point, this, just these few verses, Boaz comes to know of Ruth, and there’s all of this playing back and forth on just this sheer idea of knowing of who’s known and who’s unknown, and that kind of tension is going to have happen in multiple different dimensions, not just today, but actually as the story progresses through future verses and even chapters.

00:10:44:16 – 00:11:06:59
Michael Gewecke
The reason I bring this up is to say this, of course, the language stuff is interesting on its own, but I think one of the things it helps us to see is that the author intends for us to recognize that those these things may stand on opposites. Maybe Boaz and Ruth represent very opposite ends of the spectrum.

00:11:06:59 – 00:11:30:41
Michael Gewecke
One is male and Israelite, the other is female and Moabite. The reality is, when they come together, there’s this interesting kind of combination and sorting and processing and, and there’s a way in which those strands never absorb the other. And yet they still can live in tension or, and at some point, you might even say harmony with one another.

00:11:30:41 – 00:11:54:39
Michael Gewecke
And I think that that’s kind of the amazing thing being done here is it’s portraying this on a personal level. Some scholars are going to tell us that that part of the functions of Ruth is actually to tell a larger national story, to talk about how Israel and these other nations, especially as you start looking at kingly lines and these kinds of things, that we can understand how they might be able to move ahead together.

00:11:54:39 – 00:12:06:16
Michael Gewecke
And yet, whether that’s true or not is unimportant for this section of the story. It’s just to say, I think that the tensions are on purpose. Clinton I think they’re held together in really interesting and important ways.

00:12:06:21 – 00:12:47:35
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I would agree with that. And I think we see here the the plantings of the major part of the story. Now, and notice again that Ruth is not called Ruth. When Boaz asks the question, he’s told she is the Moabite again, she’s not named here it is. She is the outsider. And this is going to be the story of the in in some ways, one of the ultimate Bible stories of outsider becoming insider and even in ways that, will flow into the New Testament and the lineage of Jesus.

00:12:47:40 – 00:13:17:33
Clint Loveall
And so we we continue to see that transition of someone who is held at arm’s length now coming further and further into the circle. So, the beginnings here of what’s going to be a major plot line, and I think probably we will see a lot more of that tomorrow. We’ll try to cover, a significant chunk tomorrow so that we can follow that as it grows.

00:13:17:38 – 00:13:34:57
Michael Gewecke
Our friends, we are certainly glad to have you with us. and study like this. I think as we transition into the second chapter, we begin to see this book to really get legs and to really pick up. And so I certainly hope that you will commit to join us for the length of that study. The best way to do that would be to subscribe.

00:13:34:57 – 00:13:46:10
Michael Gewecke
You’ll find that in the description, of the or the button right underneath the video here. We’d love to have you comment if you have questions or thoughts. And of course, we would love to see you as we continue the study tomorrow.

00:13:46:15 – 00:13:46:57
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.