Whither Thou Goest

A famine, three funerals, and two widows on a road, one of them a foreigner with no reason to keep walking. The book of Ruth is four chapters long and there is not a miracle in it. Nobody hears a voice. Nobody sees an angel. What there is instead is a Moabite girl saying "whither thou goest, I will go" to a bitter old woman who has told her to leave, and a landowner who notices her, and a sandal handed over at a city gate. And at the end of it, a baby on Naomi's lap who is the grandfather of David.

Call me Mara

"Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehemjudah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons" (Ruth 1:1). Bethlehem means house of bread, and there was no bread in it, so Elimelech took his family to Moab, which was the wrong direction in every sense. He died there. The sons married Moabite women, and then "Mahlon and Chilion died also both of them; and the woman was left of her two sons and her husband" (1:5). Left. Three graves in a foreign country, and an old woman with two daughters-in-law and nothing.

She starts home, and on the road she does the decent thing: she tells them to go back. "Go, return each to her mother's house: the LORD deal kindly with you, as ye have dealt with the dead, and with me" (1:8). Orpah weeps, kisses her, and goes. "but Ruth clave unto her" (1:14). Clave: the word from Genesis 2, a man shall cleave unto his wife. And then the speech that people have read at weddings for three thousand years, which was not said at a wedding at all but on a road, by a widow, to her dead husband's mother:

Thy God my God. A Moabite, whose people worshipped Chemosh with their children in the fire, choosing the God of Israel on a road out of Moab with nothing to gain by it. She swears by His name. And Naomi says nothing; the text says she "left speaking unto her." They walk into Bethlehem at the barley harvest, and the town turns out, and Naomi says: "Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty" (1:20-21). Pleasant, call me Bitter. And she is standing next to the girl who just swore her life away for her, and calls herself empty. Grief does that. The book does not scold her for it.

Her hap was to light

Ruth goes out to glean, which is what the poor did, following the reapers and picking up what they dropped, and "her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz, who was of the kindred of Elimelech" (2:3). Her hap. Her luck. The narrator says it with a straight face, and the whole book is the answer to it. Boaz comes out, notices her, asks who she is, and tells her to stay in his field, and she falls on her face: "Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?" (2:10). And Boaz has heard the story. "It hath fully been shewed me, all that thou hast done unto thy mother in law… and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore. The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust" (2:11-12). Under whose wings. He blesses her in the name of the God she chose on the road, and does not yet know that he is going to be the answer to his own prayer.

Naomi hears the name and something moves in her for the first time: "Blessed be he of the LORD, who hath not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead… The man is near of kin unto us, one of our next kinsmen" (2:20). A kinsman. Under the law, a near relative could redeem a dead man's land and marry his widow to raise up his name. Naomi knows the law, and she knows Boaz, and the empty woman starts to plan.

Spread thy skirt over thine handmaid

The threshing floor at night, and Ruth at Boaz's feet, and when he wakes: "Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth thine handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman" (3:9). Spread thy skirt, thy wing; the word is the one Boaz used, under whose wings thou art come. She is asking him to be the wings. And he is an older man, and she has just asked him to marry her, and what he says is: "Blessed be thou of the LORD, my daughter: for thou hast shewed more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning, inasmuch as thou followedst not young men… for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman" (3:10-11). All the city knows. The Moabite who came in with nothing, and the town that watched her glean and carry the grain home to the bitter woman, has made up its mind about her.

But there is a nearer kinsman, and Boaz will not take what is not his to take. So the gate, and the elders, and the other man, who wants the field until he hears it comes with the widow, and then gives Boaz his sandal, which is how it was done. "Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance… ye are witnesses this day" (4:10). Purchased. Redeemed. Ambrose, tracing the law of it, noticed that she was not taken until the nearer man had let go of his right; nothing was done in the dark, and nothing was stolen.

There is a son born to Naomi

"So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife: and when he went in unto her, the LORD gave her conception, and she bare a son" (4:13). The LORD gave. It is the only thing in the whole book that God is said to do directly, and it is a baby. And the women of the town, the same ones who heard "call me Mara," come to Naomi: "Blessed be the LORD, which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman… for thy daughter in law, which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath born him" (4:14-15). Better than seven sons. The Moabite. "And Naomi took the child, and laid it in her bosom, and became nurse unto it. And the women her neighbours gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi; and they called his name Obed: he is the father of Jesse, the father of David" (4:16-17). The woman who came home empty is holding a baby, and the last word of the book is David.

Where this lands

There is no miracle in Ruth, and that is the point of it. God does not part a sea. He gives a famine, and three funerals, and a road, and a girl who would not go back, and a field she happened to light on, and a man who noticed her, and a sandal, and a baby. Every one of those is ordinary. Put together they are the grandfather of the king, and Matthew puts her in the line, "Booz begat Obed of Ruth" (Matthew 1:5), a Moabite, next to Rahab the harlot, four names above Jesus. The kinsman-redeemer who bought the widow at the gate, in front of witnesses, and raised up the name of the dead, is the shape of the One who came from his line to do the same thing for everyone who would say, on a road, with nothing to gain, thy God my God. Under whose wings thou art come to trust. Boaz said it as a blessing. He turned out to be the wings. So did his Descendant. And the bitter woman got a child on her lap, and a new name from her neighbours, and never had to be Mara again.

Related: The Scarlet Line, The Book of the Generations, Marriage, and Women. Scripture from the King James Version, linked to BibleHub; the words of God are marked in gold, the words of Christ in purple.